PLUMS TE AD COMMONS. ' 81 



under the Statute of Merton, with or without the 

 consent of the freeholders. On all these points Lord 

 Ilomilly ultimately decided against the College. 



On appeal, in 1871, Lord Hatherley then Lord 

 Chancellor confirmed this decision in a luminous 

 judgment. After defining the rights exercised over the 

 Common, he said: 



"The question is whether these rights are vested in the 

 Plaintiffs in such a manner that they can sustain a suit 

 against the present Lords of the Manor Queen's College who 

 have, since the year 1860, controverted and denied the existence 

 of any such rights by issuing notices, and threatening with legal 

 proceedings all persons attempting to exercise any of their 

 rights, and who claim an absolute right to deal with the waste 

 of the Manor as they please. . . . This is a very broad 

 controversy, and it certainly would be very fatal to the interests 

 of justice if, in the face of the evidence I have before me, such 

 a claim on the part of the Lords of the Manor could be 

 sustained. I have before me the Court Rolls of this Manor, 

 extending over two hundred years, from which there appears most 

 abundant evidence of some persons not only without inter- 

 ruption having exercised all these rights, but having- laid down 

 rules and regulations under which these rights might be 

 exercised. 



u It cannot be disputed that the Court is entitled nay, 

 bound by authority when it finds rights which have been 

 exercised in the manner I have described, to find the origin for 

 them in some way if it can. . . . It so happens that the 

 Manor has no copyholders ; if they ever existed, they have dis- 

 appeared. With regard to the condition of freeholders of 

 customary Manors, there can be no doubt that they are in a 

 different position from that of copyholders. I take it, however, 

 that all persons having a common right which is invaded by a 

 common enemy, although they may have different rights 

 Q 



