Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/757

Rh  every journalist of position, were in prison. In September 1868 Serrano and Prim returned, and Admiral Topete, commanding the fleet, raised the standard of revolt at Cadiz. For the public events of the subsequent ten months the reader is referred to the article. In July 1869 Serrano was elected regent, and Prim became president of the council and was made a marshal. On 16th November 1870 Amadeo, duke of Aosta, was elected king of Spain, but Prim was not destined to receive the new monarch, for on leaving the chamber of the cortes on 28th December he was shot by unknown assassins and died two days later. The cortes at once declared that he had deserved well of his native land, and took his children as wards of the country; three days afterwards King Amadeo I. swore in the presence of the corpse to observe the new Spanish constitution.

 PRIMATE (primas, i.e., primus), a title more than once bestowed in the Codex Theodosianus on various civil functionaries, came about the beginning of the 4th century to be used also, especially in Africa, as a designation of the &quot;primæ sedis episcopus.&quot; In the canon law the word &quot;primate&quot; is regarded as essentially the Western equivalent of the Eastern &quot;patriarch.&quot; See and.  PRIMOGENITURE. The term &quot;primogeniture&quot; is used to signify the preference in inheritance which is given by law, custom, or usage to the eldest son and his issue, or in exceptional cases to the line of the eldest daughter. The practice prevailed under the feudal codes throughout all the Western countries. It is now almost entirely confined to the United Kingdom, having been abolished (except in the succession to the crown) by the various civil codes which have superseded feudalism on the Continent, and having been universally rejected in the United States of America as being contrary to the spirit of their institutions. The system has of late years been persistently attacked in Great Britain, chiefly on the ground of hard ship in cases of intestacy where the property is small ; but the rule was found to operate so successfully in former times towards keeping large properties together that it seems likely to be still maintained by law; and even if abolished as a rule of law it would most probably be maintained in full vigour as a habit or rule of practice.

In dealing with the whole subject it will be convenient to state in the first place the nature of the rules of primogeniture as they now exist in England, with some notice of the exceptional usages which illustrate the meaning and origin of the system, and in the second place to give an account of those archaic customs in which we may find the actual origin of primogeniture before it was altered and extended by the policy of the feudal sovereigns, and by traditional usages which governed their succession to the throne. The English law provides that in ordinary cases of inheritance to land the rule of primogeniture shall prevail among the male children of the person from whom descent is to be traced, but not among the females; and this principle is applied throughout all the degrees of relationship. There are exceptions to this rule in the gavelkind lands of Kent, where all the males take equally in each degree, in the burgage tenements of certain ancient boroughs, where the descent is to the youngest son under the custom called &quot;borough-English,&quot; and in the copyhold lands of a great number of manors, where customs analogous to those of gavelkind and borough-English have existed from time immemorial. In another class of exceptions the rule of primogeniture is applied to the inheritance of females, who usually take equal shares in each degree. The necessity for a sole succession has, for example, introduced succession by primogeniture among females in the case of the inheritance of the crown, and a similar necessity led to the maxim of the feudal law that certain dignities and offices, castles required for the defence of the realm, and other inheritances under &quot;the law of the sword&quot; should not be divided, but should go to the eldest of the co-heiresses (Bracton, De Leyibus, ii. c. 76; Co. Litt., 165a). In the case of dignities the rule of sole succession is adopted without reference to the right of primogeniture, the dignity lying in abeyance until the line of a particular co-heiress is selected by the sovereign as &quot;the fountain of honour.&quot; Another exceptional usage gives a preference to the line of the eldest daughter in the inheritance of customary holdings in the Isle of Man, in various lordships in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham, as well as in isolated manors in Surrey and Sussex, and in other parts of the southern and midland counties. At Tynemouth in Northumberland it was the custom that the eldest daughter surviving her parents should inherit her father’s estate for her life, and in some of the southern manors already mentioned the rule of primogeniture among females is not confined to daughters but is extended to the eldest sister or aunt, or even to female relations in more remote degrees. There are many other special customs by which the ordinary rules of descent are varied according to manorial usage, as that the youngest son shall inherit if the father dies seised, but otherwise the eldest, or that fee-simple shall go to the youngest and entailed land to the eldest, or that the special custom shall only affect lands of a certain value (as is said to be the usage in several manors near London), or that male and female issue should share together (as formerly was the practice at Wareham and Exeter and in certain other ancient boroughs, as well as in some of the copyholds belonging to the see of Worcester), or that the eldest or the youngest should be preferred among the daughters in the claim to a renewal of a customary estate for lives, with other analogous variations.

It will be seen that the English law of inheritance creates a double preference, subject to the exceptions already mentioned, in favour of the male over the female and of the firstborn among the males. This necessitates the rule of representation by which the issue of children are regarded as standing in the places of their parents. This is called &quot;representative primogeniture.&quot; The rule appears to have been firmly established in England during the reign of Henry III., though its application was favoured as early as the 12th century throughout the numerous contests between brothers claiming by proximity of blood and their nephews claiming by representation, as in the case of King John and his nephew Prince Arthur (Glanville, vii. c. 3; Bracton, De Legibus, ii. c. 30). We must now describe some of those ancient usages in which the origin of primogeniture is to be sought.

In addition to the rule of eldership as applied to inheritances of land there are traces of a multitude of customs which applied a similar rule to certain classes of &quot;principals&quot; or heirlooms, such as the best bed or piece of furniture, or horse and cart, and the like, which descended to the eldest son; and by a similar rule of the common law the ancient jewels of the crown are heirlooms which descend to the successor according to the rule of primogeniture. In the district of Archenfield near the Welsh border the house and lands were divided between the sons on their father’s death, but certain &quot;principals&quot; passed to the eldest as heirlooms, such as the best table and bed, &quot;all which the men of Archenfield retained as derived to them from great antiquity, even before the Norman Conquest &quot; (Quo Warranto Roll, 20 Edw. I., &quot;Irchinfield &quot;). 