62 HISTOEICAL SKETCH OF THE fxv. 



ceased in the fifteenth century, and has never since 

 been revived. A few estates given for eminent public 

 services, such as "Woodstock and Strathfieldsaye, 

 have, it is true, been strictly entailed, but this has 

 been effected by special Acts of Parliament, in 

 contravention of the general law of the land. 



Soon after strict entails had thus been virtually 

 abolished, the practice of settling lands, for the 

 limited period which the rules of law permitted, 

 was introduced. The owner of an estate desirous, 

 for example, of making provision, on his son's 

 marriage, for the son and his family, instead of 

 granting the land to the son and the heirs male of 

 the son's body, would give it to the son for his life 

 only, in order to obviate the possibility of the son 

 obtaining the power, through a recovery, of alienating 

 the land absolutely. And the donor would provide 

 by the settlement that, after the son's decease, the 

 land should go to the son's eldest son and the heirs 

 of his body. And in case of failure of the eldest 

 son's issue, that the land should pass to the second 

 son and the heirs of his body, with similar provisions 

 for other sons according to seniority, or in any other 

 order, and with any omissions which the settler might 

 think proper to make. The security obtained by 

 such a settlement that the land would long remain 

 in the same family, fell far short of that which could 

 be gained before the validity of recoveries to bar 

 an estate tail had been established ; for if the son to 



