44 LAND REFORM 



the old folk land had become the king's and all private 

 land is held mediately or immediately of him."^ 



It is worthy of note that in the old statutes referring to 

 the question, the fact that the ownership of land is vested 

 in the nation, as represented by the king, seems to be 

 unquestioned. Every holder of land is a tenant except 

 the king. The Charter granted by Henry III, which 

 confirms the provisions of Magna Charta, contains, 

 in the second chapter, the conditions on which the 

 tenants-in-chief renewed their holdings. 



o 



" If any earls or barons or any other which hold of 

 us in chief by knight's service dye and at the time of 

 his death his heir be of full age and oweth to us relief, 

 he shall have his inheritance by the old relief, that is 

 to say the heir or heirs of an earl for a whole earldom 

 by one hundred pounds ; the heir or heirs of a baron 

 for a whole barony by one hundred marks ; the heir 

 or heirs of a knight for one knight's fee one hundred 

 shillings at the most," etc.^ 



Also it is enacted in the same reign that : — 



"No one shall constrain a freeholder to answer for 

 his freehold without the King's commandment."^ 



Again, a Statute of Edward II enacted: — "When 

 anyone who holds of the King in chief and his heir 

 enters on the land before he has done homage to the 

 King and received seisin of the King he shall gain 

 no freehold thereby."* 



1 Stubbs' "Constitutional History." 



2 9 Henry HI. 



^ 51 Henry HI, Ch. 22. 



4 17 Edward II, Ch. 13. 



These and other Statutes on the subject are set out in English in an 

 edition (black letter) by Joseph Keble published in 1681. They are "not 

 abridged nor parceled but taken intire as in the Public RoUs." 



