PLUMSTEAD COMMONS. 81 
under the Statute of Merton, with or without the 
consent of the freeholders. On all these points Lord 
Romilly ultimately decided against the College. 
On appeal, in 1871, Lord Hatherley—then Lord 
Chancellor—confirmed this decision in a luminous 
judgment. After defining the rights exercised over the 
Common, he said :— 
“The question is whether these rights are vested in the 
Plaintiffs in such a manner that they can sustain a suit 
against the present Lords of the Manor—Queen’s College—who 
have, since the year 1860, controverted and denied the existence 
of any such rights by issuing notices, and threatening with legal 
proceedings all persons attempting to exercise any of their 
rights, and who claim an absolute night to deal with the waste 
of the Manor as they please. . . . This is a very broad 
controversy, and it certainly would be very fatal to the interests 
of justice if, in the face of the evidence I have before me, such 
a claim on the part of the Lords of the Manor could be 
sustained. I have before me the Court Rolls of this Manor, 
extending over two hundred years, from which there appears most 
abundant evidence of some persons not only without inter- 
ruption having exercised all these rights, but having laid down 
rules and regulations under which these rights might be 
exercised. 
“It cannot be disputed that the Court is entitled—nay, 
bound by authority—when it finds rights which have been 
exercised in the manner I have described, to find the origin for 
them in some way if it can. . . . It so happens that the 
Manor has no copyholders; if they ever existed, they have dis- 
appeared. With regard to the condition of freeholders of 
customary Manors, there can be no doubt that they are in a 
different position from that of copyholders. I take it, however, 
that all persons having a common right which is invaded by a 
common enemy, although they may have different rights 
G 
