Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/683

 19. ZANE: THE FIVE AGES 669 the King, by appointing eleven commissioners to administer the government. The King at first tried to elect a more favorable parliament. When the election proved unfavor- able, Tresilian called the judges together, among them Bel- knap, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Fulthorpe, Burgh, and Holt (Skipwith excused himself), and by violent threats induced the judges to sign a series of prepared answers, holding the act of Parliament invalid. Poor Belknap as he signed the paper said : " Now here lacketh nothing but a rope, that I may receive a reward worthie for my desert," This is an early instance of a practice that became common under the Stuarts, and was put into use as late as 1792 by Lord Eldon ; while it has often been used in some of our States. Fulthorpe, one of the judges, at once communicated the matter to Parliament. The judges were appealed of high treason. Tresilian was beheaded, and the other judges were banished. Belknap had been a great advocate and an excel- lent judge; but he lacked courage, for in 1381 when he went the circuit, the rioters broke up his court and made him swear to hold no more sessions. His banishment caused a very remarkable ruling, Gascoigne held that Belknap's ■wife could be sued as a feme sole, although her husband was living. The decision was certainly wrong. Chief Justice Markham at a later time made a rhymed couplet over this decision : Ecce modo mirum, quod femina fert breve regis Non nominando virum, conjunctum robore legis.* Belknap was allowed to return, the judgment against him was reversed, and his property that had not been alienated was restored. The year 1388, when the judges were banished, was, of course, marked by a total change in the courts, — the first instance in English history when the whole bench was changed for political reasons. Even in 1399, when Henry of Bolingbroke supplanted Richard II. and the reigning king Not joining her husband, as law maketh fit. But the learned Markham was mistaken. The wife did not bring the writ; she was made defendant.
 * 'Tis a marvel indeed that a wife brings her writ,