Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/503

 U. ROBINSON: ANTICIPATIONS 489 ness of purchasers to take a parliamentary title, the outcry against feudal and manorial rights, drew men's eyes to the law of realty. " It were convenient," wrote an essayist in 1648, " that there might be no estate but absolute, for life or inheritance, without conditions and entayles, whether given by will or purchased by deed in writing ; and this would shorten all suits about estates." Such a change, though considered, was never brought about, ^ and another proposal of the es- sayist, that all customs should be assimilated, was rejected, even as to the customs affecting the inheritance of the land. But every temptation and security was offered to purchasers.^ James had consented to the sacrifice of many feudal inci- dents on condition of being repaid by fee farm rents. Gus- tavus Adolphus had abolished purveyance in Sweden ; the Republicans abolished it in England, and, with it, billet and free quarter. They put an end to the Courts of Wards and Liveries, to wardships, liveries, primer seisin, ouster-le-main, and charges incident to these, to homage, to fines, licenses, and seizures for alienation of lands held by tenure in chief; they turned into common socage all higher tenures. The profits to the State from these were replaced by a real land- tax, itself replaced after the Restoration by an increase of the Republican excise.^ Then it was proposed to take away fines and recoveries, and to compel by simple means the pay- ment of rent.* Trusteeship to preserve contingent remain- ders was invented to evade the confiscatory acts ; as from the statutes against Romanists so much else in conveyancing flowed.^ It would have been rash to disregard the claims of " the common people," as the copyholders (in opposition for the continuance of the process of arrests," etc. (c. 1651). Hugh Peters's " Good work for a good magistrate " was answered by Vaughan [Jones, "The crie of bloud," A 2]. "Exam. legg. Angl." c. 11, §§ 22, 23. ^ Bacon, "Works," ed. Spedding, vol. 10, pp. 178 foil., 266 foil., 304, 305: Stt. 1643, c. 19; 1645, c. 59; 1646, Feb. 24; 1647, c. 92; 1649, c. 25; 1652, c. 14; 1654, c. 9 (abolishing wardship, etc., in Scotland) ; 1656, cc. 4, 7, 10,-25 St. 1656, c. 4, especially: 1 Bl. " Comm." 288, 319. Cp. the Statt. of 12, 13, 14, and 15 Car. ii. •Williams, 1 Jur. Soc. Pap. 54, 55: Davidson, "Precedents," intr. o 1: Prof. Rogers, u. s. pp. 9, 10.
 * " An experimental essay," etc., u. s. Cp. 6 Somers's Tracts, 183:
 * Stt. 1642, c. 4; 1646, c. 67; 1647, c. 124; 1648, c. 122; etc.
 * 6 Somers's Tracts, 182, 183.