Under that colour am I come to scale (Id., st. 69.) (Id., st. 68.) Under what colour he commits this ill. So 2 Henry IV, iii. 1. But yet we want a colour for his death. and 1 Henry IV. For of no right nor colour like to right. So in Antony and Cleopatra, i. 4. His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven Rather than purchas'd. Where the word does not of course mean "bought for money," but is used in its technical sense as opposed to descent, as it is also 2 Henry IV. (Act iv. 4)— For what in me was purchased Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort, i.e. what I took by purchase you will take by descent. In the phrase in 1 Henry IV., iii. 2, "Enfeoff'd himself to popularity," we have a most felicitous adaptation of the exact legal meaning of the term, as Malone notes: a feoffment being a method of conveyance by which all lands in England were granted in fee simple, being accompanied with livery of seisin. In a very obscure passage in Measure for Measure (ii. 4)— Ang. We are all frail. Isab. Else let my brother die, If not a feodary, but only he, if Warburton's explanation be the correct one, we have a very ingenious application of feudal Law. He explains it thus: "Now, says Angelo, we are all frail." Isabella replies, "If all mankind were not feodaries who owe what they are to this tenure of imbecility, and who succeed each other by the same tenure, as well as my brother, I would give him up; the comparison being to mankind, lying under the weight of original sin, to a feodary who owes suit and service to his lord." 1 Of Hamlet's speech when speculating on the skulls thrown up by the digger, beginning, "There's another, why may not that be the skull of lawyer?" (Act v. 1), Lord Campbell observes, "these terms of art are all used, seemingly with a full knowledge of their import, and it would puzzle some practising barristers with whom I am acquainted to go over the whole seriatim, and to define each of them satisfactorily." It is not likely that Shakespeare had studied or was even acquainted with Plowden's Commentaries and Reports, which were only accessible to him in Norman-French, but there can be no doubt, as Sir John Hawkins was the first to point out, that in the grave-digging scene in Hamlet he has made merry with the famous 1 Variorum Shakespeare (Edition 1813), vol. vi. p. 282. case of Hales versus Petit, tried in the third and fourth years of Elizabeth's reign, and reported by Plowden.1 Lord Campbell has told the story, but it will bear telling again. In 1564 Sir James Hales, a puisne Judge of the Common Pleas, committed suicide by drowning himself, and a verdict of felo-de-se was returned by the Coroner's Jury. It happened that, at the time of his death, he was joint tenant with his wife of an estate in the County of Kent. Had he not died by his own hand she would have taken the whole by survivorship, but, under the circumstances, as the Crown could not become joint tenant with a subject, the Crown took the estate, and it was conferred on one Cyriac Petit. Upon that Lady Hales brought an action against Petit to recover it, contending that the forfeiture had not taken place in the lifetime of her husband, and that, consequently, the estate was hers by survivorship. The point on which the case turned was this; was the crime, which involved the forfeiture, committed in Sir James' lifetime? Lady Hales' Counsel contended that it was not; for, it is not enough to meditate an act, to resolve upon it, to put it into execution, the act must be complete, and complete it could not be in his lifetime, because as long as he was alive he had not killed himself, and the moment he died the estate vested in the joint-tenant. 1 See Commentaries and Reports of Plowden. English Trans. Ed. 1761. Part i. pp. 253–264. Till the death was fully completed he could not be felo de se, and the death preceded both the felony and the forfeiture which was the result of the felony. The Counsel for the defendant urged, on the contrary, that as soon as death occurred it referred back to the act which caused it, in this case a felony. "The act consists of three parts: the first is the imagination, which is a reflection or meditation of the mind... the second is the resolution, which is a determination of the mind to destroy himself. The third is the perfection, which is the execution of what the mind has resolved to do. And of all the parts, the doing of the act is the greatest, in the judgment of our law, and it is, in the effect, the whole. Then, here, the act done by Sir James Hales, which is evil and the cause of his death, is the throwing of himself in the water, and the death is but a sequel thereof." The Court took this latter view of the case, and gave judgment for the defendant, conceding that Sir James could hardly have killed himself in his lifetime, but pronouncing that the forfeiture should relate to the act done by him in his lifetime, the act which was the cause of death, namely, the throwing himself into the water. Sir James was dead, and how came he by his death? by drowning; and who drowned him? Sir James Hales; and when did he drown him? in his life-time. So that Sir James Hales being alive, caused Sir James Hales to die; and the act of the living man was the death of the dead man. He, therefore, committed felony in his life-time, although there was no possibility of the forfeiture being found in his life-time, for, until his death, there was no cause of forfeiture. That Shakespeare was burlesquing this at the opening of the first scene of the last act of Hamlet there can be no doubt at all. Let us place the passage beside it. 1 Clo. Is she to be buried in Christian burial that wilfully seeks her own salvation? 2 Clo. I tell thee, she is; therefore make her grave straight: the crowner hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial. 1 Clo. How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence? 2 Clo. Why, 'tis found so. 1 Clo. It must be se offendendo; it cannot be else. For here lies the point: If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an act hath three branches; it is to act, to do, and to perform. Argal, she drowned herself wittingly. 2 Clo. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver. 1 Clo. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good: if a man goes to this water and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes: mark you that but if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself. Argal, he, that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life. 2 Clo. But is this law? 1 Clo. Ay, marry is't; crowner's-quest law. Scenes in which the law in one or other of its aspects and associations, now, in its procedure and ministers; now, in parodies burlesque as well as serious, of its provisions or documents, appear in more than one half of his dramas. Thus we have, in the Three Parts of Henry VI., the scene in the Temple Gardens, the Parliamentary scene and the Jack Cade scenes so full of legal jargon. In King John the controversy between Robert and Philip Falconbridge; in Richard II. the controversy between Bolingbroke and Nor |