Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/654

 640 V. BENCH AND BAR gious life by devising a large portion of his lands to the church. Fitz Peter as the husband of one of the co-heiresses e*" was directly interested in the case. Yet he is said to have I ruled that a will of lands was invalid. From that day to the ^ passage of the Statute of Wills, a devise of lands was impos- sible, except by virtue of some local custom. And so it is to-day that the realty devolves upon the heir, the personalty upon the executor. Fitz Peter served as a justice itinerant; he was a serjeant at law and upon John's accession became Chief Justiciar. He held the place of head of the law for fifteen years, and with Hubert Walter, the chancellor, was able to keep King John under some restraint. The King joy- fully exclaimed when he heard of his death : " He has gone to join Hubert Walter in hell. Now, by the feet of God, I am, for the first time, king and lord of England." John at once entered upon the course that brought him into con- flict with his baronage and ended with Magna Charta., The long reign of John's son, Henry III., may fairly be claimed as the golden age of the common law. The regular succession of the judges is now settled. John had promised in Magna Charta that he would appoint as judges only those men who knew the law. The judges whom the rolls show as sitting at Westminster establish the character of the court. The judges are promoted in regular order. The head of the court during the first years of this reign was William, Earl of Arundel; then for two years it is Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford ; then for seven years Pateshull, who had been a puisne, was head of the court. He is suc- ceeded by Multon, who served for a long term. Raleigh, the second man in the court, followed Multon. In regular order follow Robert de Lexington, Thurkelby, Henry de Bath, Preston, and Littlebury. Thus it appears that the character of this court, a tribunal filled with trained lawyers, has be- come fully established. The Earl of Arundel, who was Henry III.'s Chief Jus- ticiar, belongs to a legal family whose successive marriages with other great legal families form a curious study in his- tory. In the days of Henry I. a certain William de Albini was the son of the king's butler or pincerna. He married