to White Hall, and there find Sir D. Coventry: and he carried me to the King, the Duke of York being with him, and there I told my story: whereupon the King, without more ado, granted that, if it was found, the estate should be to the widow and children. I presently to each Secretary's office, and there left caveats, and so away back to my cousin's. When I came thither, I find her all in sorrow, but she mightily pleased with my doing this for her, and which, indeed, was a very great courtesy, for people are looking out for the estate." On another day, Pepys writes "Thence stole away to my cousin Kate's, and there find the Crowner's Jury sitting, but they could not end it, but put off the business to Shrove Tuesday next, and so do give way to the burying of him, and that is all; but they all incline to find it a natural death, though there are mighty busy people to have it go otherwise, thinking to get his estate, but are mistaken. Thence, after sitting with her and company for a while, comforting her; though I can find she can, as all other women, cry, and yet talk of other things all in a breath.” On another day, "Coming home, my wife and I went and saw Kate Joyce, who is still in mighty sorrow, and the more from something that Dr Stillingfleet should simply say in his sermon, of her husband's manner of dying, as killing himself." On another day, "When come home, I find Kate Joyce hath been there, with sad news that her house stands not in the King's liberty, but the Dean of Paul's; and so, if her estate falls, it will not be in the King's power to do her any good. But I do believe this arises from somebody that hath a mind to fright her into a composition for her estate." On another day, On another day, "To Kate Joyce's, where the jury did sit about her husband's death, and their verdict put off for fourteen days longer, at the suit of somebody, under the pretence of the King; but it is only to get money out of her to compound the matter. But the truth is, something they will make out of Stillingfleet's sermon, which may trouble us, he declaring, like a fool, in his pulpit, that Joyce did confess that his

losses in the world did make him do what he did. This vexes me to see how foolish our Protestant Divines are, while the Papists do make it the duty of Confessor to be secret, or else nobody would confess their sins to them. All being put off for to-day, I took my leave of Kate, who is mightily troubled at it for her estate's sake, not for her husband; for her sorrow for that, I perceive, is all over."

In the following transaction it may appear that Charles II. was not uniformly as compliant in matters of forfeiture, as he may seem to have been in the case of pretty Kate Joyce. It should be premised that at the Restoration, the Crown, the Church, and broad-acred Royalists re-entered triumphantly on their lands without any satisfaction to purchasers; except where property had become part of the public domains by confiscation during the Commonwealth, in which case, it would appear that it devolved irrecoverably on the King. An inscription on an edifice erected in 1732, by an Earl of Derby, runs, "James, Earl of Derby, was beheaded at Bolton, 15 October, 1652, for strenuously adhering to Charles II., who refused a Bill passed unanimously by both Houses of Parliament for restoring to the family the estate lost by his loyalty to that King."

Roger North, in his Life of Lord Keeper Guilford, mentions acts of what he calls his lordship's negative benevolence, inasmuch as "when forfeitures of estates and goods flew about at Court, and the harpies continually begging them, his lordship never had a thought of profiting to himself out of the misfortunes of families, as when Lord R. obtained the Lord Grey of Wark's estate, and Lord J. that of Prideaux, &c. and when his lordship interceded with Charles II. for his favour to one who was obnoxious, the King facetiously told him, It is very strange that every one of my friends keeps a tame knave."

North adduces particulars of the Lord Keeper's intercession for a person whom he calls one of the "miserables." A man had been executed at Tyburn, apparently owing to a mishap of

justice; his widow was advised to petition for a grant of her husband's goods for her subsistence. The Lord Keeper furnished a humane friend, who took an interest in the matter, with instructions for the Petition, wherein his lordship advises that no argument should be made with a reflection on the proceedings of justice; but that the only arguments should be, that 66 was but a small matter which was left, and that the widow's friends were very loyal." North concludes with saying, “What was done in this matter is not now material to be known." If, however, the result had been favorable, it is probable that he would have made it redound to his brother's glorification.

it

Of excessive Fines of Courts in the reign of Charles II., which were near akin to judicial escheats and forfeitures, examples have been given in treating of Sedition: other cases might be instanced in the punishment of the London and Nottingham rioters. By the Bill of Rights it is declared that "excessive fines ought not to be imposed." Sir J. Hawles writes that the Fines of Courts in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. materially contributed to the success of the Revolution.

This head may be concluded by noticing that within memory has been abolished the oppressive prerogative of deodands, and the forfeiture of goods and chattels in cases of homicide se defendendo, and by misadventure, and for the flight of acquitted felons, all of which were standing prodigies of criminal jurisprudence in the reign of Charles II. On the subject of flight, Sir Matthew Hale writes, in that reign, "It holds, indeed, that a fugam fecit presented before the Coroner is not traversable, quia auncient ley de Corone;" and, again, " On all hands it is agreed, that, if the Coroner, upon an Inquest, present one as guilty, and that he fled for it, but the party, when arraigned, is found not guilty, and also that he did not fly; yet that doth not avoid the first inquisition as to the flight, but the best shall be taken for the King."

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(c) Miscellaneous Incidents of feudal tenures.

Some Incidents of feudal tenures may be noticed, not on account of much relevancy to the vigor of the Constitution, but as shewing the qualifications with which it is necessary to season Blackstone's remarks on the extirpation of all feudal appendages of tenure in the reign of Charles II. The retaliatory forfeiture for Mortmain was originally a punishment inflicted on a feudal tenant for giving land to a Monastery or other Corporation which yielded no wardship or other fruit of tenure, but held the land, as it were, in a dead hand (mortuâ manu). Several important relaxations of this severe law have been made in modern times, and licenses to alien in mortmain were placed, at the Revolution, on a more constitutional footing than they stood in the reign of Charles II. But the Law of Mortmain, in point of its feudal forfeiture, remains in unfavourable contrast with the modern law in pari materiâ of Charitable Uses, in which, by the simple avoidance of a conveyance, the law is maintained, not avenged.

The exemption of freehold and copyhold lands, upon feudal principles, from debts, subject to numerous distinctions, has been abolished within memory: whilst it continued, the public law of the country could not pretend to perfection: it was, in this respect, a law of Feudal Barons, enamoured of their domains, deaf to the voice of Justice.

II. Purveyance.

Of the Act of the Convention Parliament, which abolished Wardship and Purveyance, Mr Hallam sagaciously remarks, "This Act may be said to have wrought an important change in the spirit of our Constitution, by reducing what is emphatically called the prerogative of the Crown, and which, by its practical exhibition in these two vexatious exercises of power, Wardship and Purveyance, kept up in the minds of the people a more

distinct perception, as well as more awe, of the monarchy, than could be felt in later periods, when it has become, as it were, merged in the common course of law, and blended with the very complex mechanism of our institutions." This great innovation, however, in the case of Purveyance, in like manner as is above noticed with regard to Wardship, did not originate in the reign of Charles II.; and its confirmation in that reign was the result of present financial pressure rather than a foresight of political consequences.

The Prerogatives of Purveyance and Pre-emption had been retrenched by a statute passed in the 16th year of Charles I.; they had been abolished by Barebones's Parliament. They were among the most odious of the ancient royal prerogatives; so much so, that after their excesses had been checked by forty-eight statutes, it was enacted "que le heignous nome de purveyar soit change en nome d'achateur." The benefit of the Statute of Charles, therefore, consists in not permitting the old law of the monarchy to revive, by the general supercession of the ordinances of the Commonwealth, so far as regarded the prerogatives of purveyance and pre-emption, which savoured of obsolete manners, were hateful to the nation, and could not have been restored in their integrity with safety to a newly re-established throne. And the advantages of the Act, even in this respect, were impaired by a statute passed shortly afterwards (13th Car. II. c. 8), entitled "An Act for providing necessary carriages for his Majesty in his royal progresses and removals." It recites that the Act abolishing Purveyance "may prove very prejudicial and inconvenient to the King's Majesty on his royal progresses upon his necessary occasions to several parts of this realm, in case any person or persons shall obstinately refuse voluntarily to provide sufficient carriages for royal service at ordinary and usual rates for such carriages as are paid by others of his subjects in such places." The enacting clauses of the Act extend to diet for his Majesty's servants, to horse-meat, to lodging and