The Lasting Effects of Feudalism. 13 



competition for landed property ; and where the Scottish law 

 supported an execution by apprisings, the Scottish executive 

 was too feeble to enforce it. At length an increase of 

 national wealth and trade, and a consequently brisker market 

 for landed property, prompted the heads of great families to 

 adopt measures antagonistic to any alienating tendencies in 

 their successors. Even at the beginning of the seventeenth 

 century entails were not so strict as to interfere with the 

 claims of creditors, or to defy the evasive efforts of tenants 

 for life. Soon after, however, people began to insert pro- 

 hibitory clauses in their settlements, which put an end to 

 the heir's powers -to alienate the estate or charge it with 

 debts. These deeds caused so much hardship to creditors 

 who had lent their money in ignorance of the limited nature 

 of the borrower's powers, that the judges decided to uphold 

 all claims for debt in spite of the terms of the settlement. 

 Though no legislative measure like De Donis was passed,^ 

 the outcome of this protracted struggle (for landed proprietors 

 carried it forward by means of different devices for some 

 time to come) is apparent at this very day by the public regis- 

 tration of mortgages in Scotland — a system which might long 

 ago have been well extended to England," where " tacking " 

 and " consolidation " have not nnfrequently ruined innocent 

 mortgagees. 



Turning now to Celtic Scotland, we shall find at the outset, 

 whether we follow the fortunes of the Northern Picts or the 

 Dalriadic Scots of the Western Highlands, the same primitive 

 tribal customs of land tenure, agriculture, and magistracy as 

 we found in our study of Irish history. Then, as time goes on, 

 these tribal usages peacefully yield to some modified form of 

 feudal economy, in which, however, the old patriarchal polity 

 still preponderates. And here let us note a curious pheno- 

 menon in the contrast between what followed the severe 



^ The statute of 1685 (cap. 22) sanctioned entails, but took care that 

 when any deed of entail took place the public should be cognisant of the 

 proceedings. 



^ Mortgages on land have to be registered in Middlesex, Yorkshire, or 

 Jvingsto]\-upon-Hull. 



