THE LAW AND CUSTOM OF PRIMOGENITURE 359 



become master of the property, the acquisition of this power 

 might be deferred to a second, or even to a later generation. 

 But, for reasons known to lawyers, that object could not have 

 been accomplished effectually without a further expedient de- 

 vised by Sir Orlando Bridgman and Sir Geoffrey Palmer 

 during the Civil Wars, and generally adopted after the Res- 

 toration. This was the notable contrivance of "trustees to 

 preserve contingent remainders," of which it is enough to say 

 that it protected the interests of tenants-in-tail against the risk 

 of being defeated by the wrongful act of preceding life-tenants. 

 From this epoch, rather than from " Chudleigh's case," which 

 is cited by Lord Bacon, must be dated the modern type of 

 settlement. Still, the principle was maintained that an entail 

 might be cut off by a tenant-in-tail of full age, though it was 

 technically necessary for him, unless in possession, to obtain 

 the concurrence of the person (generally his own father) in 

 whom the immediate freehold was vested. This principle was 

 violated by the legislature for the first time, as Mr. Neate 

 shows, in the great act of William IV, which created the 

 " protector of the settlement." Since this act it has been a 

 positive rule of law, and no longer a mere technical necessity, 

 that, when a tenant-in-tail under a settlement wishes to bar the 

 entail completely, he must obtain the consent of the "' pro- 

 tector," that is, in legal phrase, of the person who has the first 

 estate of freehold prior to his own estate-tail. 



II 



We are now in a position to review the actual operation of 

 primogeniture in this country, whether under the express terms 

 of settlements and wills, or by virtue of the law prescribing 

 the course of descent on intestacy. Unfortunately, the statistical 

 materials requisite for such a review are still very imperfect. 

 No register of settlements, or of other dealings affecting land, 

 exists as yet for the greater part of England, though such a 

 register is kept in Scotland, and very conflicting estimates have 

 been formed of the proportion which settled bears to unsettled 

 property. Wills, it is true, are preserved, but they do not show 



