Feb. 24. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



145 



loured engraving, about fifteen years old. They 

 are all three as unattainable and forgotten as if 

 they were three hundred years old. Stylites. 



^netiti. 



BISHOPS ARMS. 



Can any of the readers of " K & Q." state 

 when the usage of engraving the arms of the 

 bishops, together with their sees, was commenced 

 in peerage books, and when discontinued? In The 

 British Compendium, or, a particular Account of 

 all the Nobility, both Spiritual and Temporal, &c., 

 published in 1799, 1 find the whole of the prelates 

 have shields engraved of their family arms im- 

 paled with the respective sees, and the name of 

 each individual placed beneath the shield. That 

 this usage should ever have been abandoned is a 

 subject of much regret, as all will readily admit 

 who have attempted to collect the armorial bear- 

 ings of our episcopal dignitaries ; and it is with 

 the hope of directing the attention of the com- 

 pilers and publishers of the Peerages of Great 

 Britain to this defect, that these remarks are now 

 made. Of what use is it, on referring to a peer- 

 age for some account of any prelate, to find only 

 a shield containing the arms of his see, which 

 nobody wants to consult. Surely, as a temporal 

 lord, he has as much right to have his family arms 

 engraved as any lay member of the peerage ? It 

 would certainly add additional value to a volume, 

 if such information were given ; it is due to the 

 public, who require this information, and it is also 

 due to the individual whose talents have raised 

 him to the episcopal bench. As to the extra ex- 

 pense to be incurred in engraving these coats of 

 arms, I do not suppose for a moment that any 

 respectable publisher would object to it. 



F. Maj>den. 



THE BIGHT OF BEQUEATHING LAND. 



1 request the attention of some legal corre- 

 spondent to the following Query. 



Mr. Creesy has stated, in his work On the En- 

 glish Constitution, that the right of devising real 

 property did not exist in England till the reign 

 of Henry VIII. (Creesy, p. 102.) He refers to 

 Blackstone, i. p. 181. 



I have not found any passage confirmatory of 

 this in the edition of Blackstone which came into 

 my hands in the first volume ; but in the second, 

 p. 83., it is said, — 



" It was not, in general, permitted for a man to dispose 

 of his tenements by ivill, after the Conquest, till the reign 

 of Henry VIII., though in the Saxon times it was allowable." 



In the same volume also, Blackstone says, con- 



cerning the fine levied by an heir in order to bar 

 entail, — 



" It seems to have been the intention of that politic 

 prince, Henry VII., to have extended fines to a bar of 

 estates-tail, in order to unfetter the more easily the es- 

 tates of his powerful nobility, and lay them more open to 

 alienations, being well aware that power will always 

 accompany property." 



A passage in Hall's Chronicles, while it con- 

 firms the knowledge that this was one of the most 

 important subjects exciting the minds of men, 

 yet materially qualifies the assertion of the king's 

 readiness to confer the privilege. In the twenty- 

 third year of this reign, according to Hall, the 

 king expressed some dissatisfaction with those 

 members of parliament who sought the redress of 

 their grievances, and — 



" The cause why the king spoke thus was this : daily 

 men made feoffments of their lands to their uses, and de- 

 clared their wills of their lands with such remainders, 

 that both the king and all other lords lost their wards, 

 marriages, and reliefs, and the king the profit of tha 

 livery, which was to him a great loss ; wherefore he, not 

 willing to take all, nor to lose all, caused a bill to be 

 drawn by his learned council, in which it was devised 

 that every man might make his will of the half of his 

 lands, so that he left the other half to his heir by de- 

 scent." 



" Wise men," says Hall, "would gladh"^ have assented 

 to this proposal, but it encountered so much opposition La 

 the Commons, that ' although the Lords had been fa- 

 vourable to it,' the king called the judges and learned 

 men of his realm, and they disputed the matter in the 

 chancery, and agreed that land could not be willed by 

 the order of the common law; whereupon an act was 

 made that no man might declare his will of any part of 

 his land, which act sore grieved the lords and gentlemen 

 that had many children to set forth. Therefore," so Hall 

 concludes with amoral, "you may judge what mischief 

 Cometh of wilful blindness and lack of foresight." — 

 P. 785. 



Knowing as we do that "power will always 

 accompany property," and that the right to dis- 

 pose of our own is one of our greatest privileges, 

 I feel surprised that the emancipation of testa- 

 mentary bequests from feudal restraint should not 

 be put forth in history as clearly and triumphantly 

 as the obtaining a right to vote in parliament. 

 Surely there must be law books, not difficult of 

 access, which throw light on this interesting 

 question ? C. (I) 



Tax on Clocks and Watches. — In a printed 

 form of receipt for a half-year's taxes due from a 

 small farmer in Essex, dated April 10, 1798, 

 occurs the item, "For clocks and watches, 

 5s. T^d." It was a novelty to me that the owners 

 of clocks and watches had been liable to taxation 

 for the luxury at so recent a period. It may also 

 be new to others of your readers. E. L. C. 



