Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/49

 1920 EARLDOM OF CHESTER 41 of the tenure and rights of female coparceners had been authorita tively laid down in a royal letter close ^ dated 30 August 1236 (known usually by the name of Statutum Hibernie de coheredibus) , directed to the justiciar of Ireland in reply to a request for a state- ment of the law in England. If the dead man held in chief of the king all the co-heirs hold their shares in chief of the king, and each must do him homage. (This had been the practice for some time.) Further the letter makes clear the equality and inequality of sisters in point of inheritance ; the eldest had no right to claim any advantage over the youngest nisi capitale messuagiuvi nomine aesnescie? Reverting to our case, the assumption in the mere question of tenure that the comitatus was partible was challenged by de Forz and his wife, who claimed they were entitled to the whole county, with the title also. The king (and this is significant) also raised the question of partibility,and sought, if the lands were divisible, to have allotted to him the share of John de Balliol and his wife, for which he had agreed to give them an exchange. (He had not then made any arrangements with the other co-heirs, though they were completed before the case was over.) In reply to the allegation by de Forz of impartibility Henry de Hastings and the other coparceners averred that hitherto it had always been the custom in England that if any inheritance descended to sisters, it was divisible among them equally. Further, that if sisters claimed any inheritance by the assize of mort d'ancestor one could not claim without the other, and if seisin were given, the rule was that it must be given to all the sisters together — all which presupposed equality of right in the inheritance. The answer of William de Forz to these arguments for divisibility was that there was no precedent, this was not like common cases and never occurred in England before, the county was a county palatine (Paleys), and as such ought not to be divided. To this Hastings replied that there was a precedent : a partition of the county had actually taken place, namely, on the death of Ranulph de Blundeville, and (he said) by common agreement of all the co-heirs, and in such a way that the comitatus of Chester as a whole remained to John the earl as his share, and the other lands of Ranulph outside Cheshire were divided by an ' extent ' among the other parceners. Not only that, but they subsequently sued the earl on the equalizing clause in the partition agreement, because he had, as they said, more than he ought ; but his death prevented a decision. Hastings also pointed out that if, as Pollock and Maitland (2nd edition), ii. 277. (Collatio, in Acta oj ParliameTU of Scotland, i. 19).
 * Cal. oj Close Rolls, 30 August 1236, and in many collections of statutes. See also
 * Cf. Glanville : salvo tamen primogenite filie capitali mesuagio svb forma preacripta