XL] 'DISTRIBUTION OF LAND IN ENGLAND. 45 



of legislation, without being convinced that it was 

 the work of men well versed in the laws as they 

 then existed : not the result of a sudden effort, but 

 of continuous labour and mature deliberation, and 

 that these laws had for their authors the learned 

 Serjeants of Westminster Hall. 



There is a class of writers on law, especially on 

 laws relating to land, who attribute various legislative 

 acts to profound political designs, now of the nobles, 

 now of the sovereign ; and accordingly allege that 

 the statute De Donis was the work of the nobility, 

 intent on increasing the power of their order. But 

 even without recalling the just maxim of Napoleon, 

 that in politics the present alone is regarded, the 

 notion that the law of entail was framed by the 

 peers, with such a political purpose as I have 

 mentioned, is singularly wanting in probability. The 

 barons had not only been discredited, by the failure 

 of their attempt to govern the country, by means of 

 a ministry or committee selected by themselves from 

 their own order, but their power had been crushed, 

 for the time, by Prince Edward at Evesham, where 

 their great military and political leader Simon de 

 Montfort was slain. On the demise of Henry Til. 

 seven years afterwards, Prince Edward, a cautious 

 man, felt his power so assured, that he did not hasten 

 to England in order to take possession of the Crown, 

 but spent two years in Italy and France, on his 

 homeward journey from the Holy Land. After his 



