Dear Ms Evans,

Thank you for your enquiry to the College of Arms, which has come to me as officer in waiting at the time of its arrival. I am sorry for the delay in replying.

I believe that the man calling himself Lord Everingham of Laxton (David Waterton-Anderson) claims to be the heir general and representative of one of the sisters and coheirs of Robert Everingham who died an infant in 1370 or 1371. Their grandfather Adam Everingham had been summoned to Parliament in 1309, which in modern peerage law is held to amount to creation of a barony 'by writ'. Any such barony would by legal doctrine be (as you know) in abeyance between those two coheirs and their respective representatives, until and unless the Crown terminates the abeyance in favour of one of them. Mr Waterton-Anderson may have applied to have the abeyance terminated in his favour but if he were to do so he would not be successful, since the abeyance of baronies by writ is not terminated nowadays when it has lasted for more than a century.

Mr Waterton-Anderson may base his claim on being the sole heir of the last Baron Everingham; if so he would not only have to prove his descent from the one coheir but show that all the legitimate lines of descent from the other have been extinguished. This seems a little unlikely, though not perhaps impossible.

Finally, before being entitled to call or represent himself as Lord Everingham, his claim would have to be accepted by the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords and (since the House of Lords Act) he would need to be enrolled on the new roll of the peerage. Neither of these has happened.

I make no comment as to the authenticity of his genealogical claims - these may be true, for all I know without undertaking some research.

I hope this is of some help.

Yours sincerely,

Clive Cheesman
Rouge Dragon Pursuivant
College of Arms
Queen Victoria Street
London

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