44. Power to Create Manors Extinguished.—The Quia Emptores (41) is an Act passed in the 18th of Edward I., since which no manor can have been created, for it abolished the right of creation, which can never since be exercised, even by the crown, for any implied creation of a manor is now not good in law.

ANCIENT LORDS.

45. Courts Baron.-The lord of every ancient manor had jurisdiction, civil and criminal, over the occupants under him, for which purpose courts baron were sanctioned and authorized, as appears by the following quotation :—

"A court baron is the chief prop and pillar of a manor, which no sooner faileth, but the manor falleth to the ground. If we labour to search out the antiquity of these courts baron, we shall find them as ancient as manors themselves. For when the ancient kings of this realm, who had all the lands in England in demesne, did confer great quantities of land upon some great personages, with liberty to parcel the land out to other inferior tenants, reserving such duties and services as they thought convenient, and to keep courts where they might redress misdemeanours within their precincts, punish offences committed by their tenants, and decide and debate controversies arising within their jurisdictions; these courts were termed courts baron."

46. Modern Courts.-A court baron is still incident to every manor. It is composed of the steward and the freeholders, who hold their iands of the manor by fealty and suit of court, and who are bound by their tenure to attend the court baron, and to assist the steward in the administration of justice.

47. Services due to the Crown.-Additional conditions were annexed to the military or socage service due to the king. He required that each of his tenants should contribute to the endowment of his eldest son, when he attained to knighthood; that each tenant should furnish a sum of money as a portion for his eldest daughter, on her marriage; and that each tenant should subscribe towards the king's ransom, should he be taken prisoner; in like manner,

48. Inferior Services.-The barons exacted of their tenants, in addition to their ordinary service, the duty, as roughly stated, of making the lord's eldest son a knight; marrying the lord's eldest daughter; or of ransoming the lord's person when taken prisoner.

FINES.

49. When the original grantee of land died, the estate immediately became vested in the king, who required the heir to pay a fine for re-investment, which varied according to the value of the estate, or was sometimes controlled by a custom or precedent, but the amount was not regulated by any fixed rule.

50. Superior Reversions to the Crown.-When the heir was a minor, the king held the estate and took all its profits, until the heir was of age.

51. Inferior Reversions to the Barons.-Barons, in their turn, when any of their tenants died, took possession of the estates, held them during the minority of the heir, and levied a fine, which, for a knight, was fixed at a hundred shillings.

52. Rent Anciently Unknown.-Notwithstanding the services exacted in return for the possession of land, and the fines, and the contributions required for ransom, and the marriage of eldest daughters, and knighting of eldest sons, nothing in the shape of rent seems to have been thought of in the earlier years of feudal tenure. 53. Scarcity of Money.-The presumption is, that in those earlier ages, money was so scarce, and the business of every-day life was so generally carried on without its aid, that it was only resorted to by ordinary people on special occasions.

54. First Resemblance to Rent.—The nearest approach to anything in the nature of rent was in case of tenures by petty serjeantry (38); and

55. Ancient Demesne.-The earlier kings of the Norman line reserved a great number of manors for their own maintenance, of which they granted out portions to rustic persons, to hold of themselves, keeping a demesne in their own hands, thus constituting, in each case, a manor, of which the king was lord; and the service rendered, in consideration of the tenure, was the supply of a certain quantity of provisions for the king's household: such occupiers in socage were called tenants in ancient demesne.

56. Origin of Rents.-In process of time, the services rendered to the barons, and the provisions furnished to the king, were commuted for money rents, and hence, common socage, as it was called, merged into a form of tenancy resembling that of our day.

CROWN ABSOLUTE OWNER.

57. The theory that land was held under the Crown, was anciently acted upon in practice with great freedom.

58. Escheats.-When a tenant of the Crown died without issue, his estate was escheated, and fell into the gift of the Crown, spontaneously.

59. Forfeitures.-The smallest pretence of disloyalty was sufficient to enable the king to enforce a forfeiture of an estate; and

RESTRICTION OF SALE.

60. An original condition of tenure was, that the tenant should not sell or (as it was called) alienate his holding to any other person without the consent of the king or of his lord; subsequently,

61. Consent of Heir.-The custom was gradually introduced that no tenant should sell without the consent of his heir; but,

62. Re-sales.-A law was extorted from Henry I. which allowed land that had once passed by sale to be sold again by the purchaser ; notwithstanding,

63. Pleasure of the King.-All the laws of ancient times clearly carry the implication that the holding of all land was at the pleasure and will of the king.

64. Taking up arms against the king was always a sufficient justification in law for depriving a tenant of his holding; and

65. Tenancy under the Crown was, until the time of King John, always at the pleasure of the king, who could deprive or restore, impeach or pardon, as he thought fit; and

66. Impeachment or pardon, in ancient times, almost invariably had reference to the possession of land.

RESISTANCE OF THE BARONS.

67. Though feudal tenure was a growth of the idea that the ultimate property in land was vested in the nation, the Norman barons, like the chiefs of earlier times, were perpetually conspiring to break down the national theory, with a view to converting their tenure into a simple right of allodium (21).

68. Agrarian Conspiracies.-The barons commenced conspiracies in the time of William I., and the conspiracies were continued during the reigns of William Rufus and subsequent kings, the professed object being to force the Crown to forego any legal claim upon their tenure service.

69. Motives for Ancient Rebellions.-As conspiracies always led to forfeiture by the unsuccessful conspirators, and as the forfeited estates were invariably given into possession of court favourites, or military men who supported the Crown, there were abundant reasons on all sides for fomenting rebellion, which was so rife in the Norman and Plantagenet periods.

70. Crown Divisions.—Family squabbles amongst the sons of kings, especially those of Henry II., were fomented by some of the barons, in the hope that, by seating a wrongful occupant upon the throne, he might be compelled to bargain for his position by con

ceding to the barons the freedom from Crown tenancy which they sought.

MAGNA CHARTA.

71. Conspiracy and confiscation having made havoc amongst the Norman families, they at length combined for the purpose of extorting from King John the execution of Magna Charta, which had for its chief object the modified security of tenure involved in the following passage :—

"If any of our earls or barons, or others who hold of us in chief by military service, shall die, and at the time of his death his heir shall be of full age, and owes a relief, he shall have his inheritance by ancient relief: that is to say, the heir or heirs of an earl for a whole earl's barony by a hundred pounds, the heir or heirs of a baron by a hundred marks, the heir or heirs of a knight for a whole knight's fee, by a hundred shillings at most."

72. Fees and Dues.—It is remarkable that Magna Charta so freely acknowledged the obligations of landholders to pay fees and other dues, as immediate holders of the king; hence it follows, that,

73. Scope of Magna Charta.—The whole body of landholders, who prepared Magna Charta, clearly admitted the principle that the king had a claim upon them, which they did not seek to evade, but merely wished to define, and render it subject to a fixed law.

ADDITIONAL RESTRICTIONS.

74. The king's immediate tenants were so strictly restrained from any kind of alienation, that they were not permitted to dispose of their lands even to their eldest sons without the consent of the king; thus,

75. Case of Gilbert de Humfraville.-It appears from the rolls of Parliament, that in 18 Edward I., Gilbert de Humfraville petitioned the king for licence to enfeoff his eldest son and his wife of the manor of Overton, to hold of the said Gilbert during his life, and after his death of the chief lord, the king, by the usual services.

76. Permissive Alienation.-Subsequent concessions were made, which enabled a Crown tenant, especially by 17 Edw. II. c. 6, to alienate a part of his lands, so that in doing so, he did not deprive himself of the power to render to the king customary services; but

77. Reserved Services.-The king always held the power to withhold or grant licence in any form to alienate lands, his primary power being thus exercised, invariably reserving customary services.

78. Conditional Forfeiture.-It was ordained, in the time of Edward I., that if alienation was effected without licence, the king should become entitled to one-third of the annual value of the

land, and that arrangement, upon conference of the judges, was held to be reasonable; but,

79. Fine in lieu of Forfeiture.-When alienation was effected by virtue of the king's licence, it was never granted without the condition of a fine, as if succession had been granted to an heir (49).

LAND BY WILL.

80. The power of devising or leaving the possession of land by will, was distinctly contrary to the Norman law, which strictly forbade it; but,

81. By the invention of uses, under trustees (), considerable power was acquired of disposing of land; hence,

82. Devising of land in trust, was abolished by 27 Henry VIII., as contrary to the whole spirit of tenure under the Crown; yet,

FIRST LEGALIZATION OF WILLS OF LAND.

83. So great was the inconvenience felt from the enforcement of 27 Henry VIII., that in 32 Henry VIII. the right of devise was first distinctly accorded, for by that Act it was provided that tenants who held in socage might devise their whole estate, and military tenants, whether of the king or not, might devise two-thirds of their holdings.

84. Duties and Services Retained.-Though alienation and devise were so freely accorded by the Acts of Henry VIII., there was, at that time, no disposition manifested to break off, from the possessors of land, all those duties and services to the Crown, which had been submitted to from time immemorial.

DUTIES AND SERVICES ABOLISHED.

85. It was reserved for Oliver Cromwell and his associates, who were most of them landholders of the smaller sort, to shake off the obligation which rested upon them to contribute, as their ancestors had done, to the expenses of the government.

ORDINANCE UNDER OLIVER CROMWELL.

86. It was ordained during the Commonwealth that all dues from landholders to the Crown should thenceforth be abolished; and

EXCISE DUTIES SUBSTITUTED.

87. As the state of the country, and the suspension of dues from landholders, left the public exchequer empty, the Cromwell government instituted the various taxes known now under the name of Excise, which, taking their origin from Cromwell, have since grown to such prodigious proportions.

(a) See "Trustees."