Further Land Legislation Examined. 257 



manors, etc., any law, statute, etc., to the contrary notwithstand- 

 ing. By the same Act an infant up to the age of twenty-one 

 years could make no will of his lands except in case of special 

 local customs ; though a boy at the age of fourteen and a maid 

 of twelve years might make a testament of their goods and 

 chattels, and a feme covert could, with or without her hus- 

 band's consent, make neither will of lands nor testament of 

 her goods and chattels.^ 



This short examination of the national code, though com- 

 prehending only the history of a few centuries, discloses a 

 system of legislation alternating between fresh enactments 

 directed against abuses, and abuses directed against fresh 

 enactments. The national lawyers were ransacking their 

 brains at one time to counteract some subtle evasion of law, 

 and at another to reduce such to a recognised legal practice — • 

 thus, in the words of Shelley, " ensnaring justice in the toils 

 of law." The august assembly of the legislature was to-day 

 solemnly legalising a deceit which only yesterday had upset 

 one of its previous enactments, and which to-morrow would be 

 in turn upset by some fresh law. It is a relief to turn from 

 legal quibbles and examine the condition of society for which 

 such legislation, as has just been discussed, was required. It 

 has already been pointed out that the unsettled and dangerous 

 circumstances of civil war had induced landed proprietors 

 to give more careful heed to that process of tying up estates 

 which seems to have been so inimical to the royal interests ; 

 and it can be well credited that methods such as "uses," which 

 deprived the king and other landed grandees of their feudal 

 dues, might truly be termed inimical to royal interests. But 

 then this scarcely explains the ultimate success which attended 

 the royal efforts when, during the last Henry's reign, the pos- 

 session of land became no more secure than after the enact- 

 ment of Quia Emptores. The cause of the Crown's success 

 must be sought in some later acquisition of support from one 

 or other of the three estates of the realm. Dr. Stubbs put the 

 whole subject into a nutshell when he wrote as follows : — 



' Jacobs, Lcuv Diet., sub voc. AVill. 



