Page:The statutes of Wales (1908).djvu/157

A.D. 1284] it be objected unto her that her husband lost the land whereof she demandeth dower, by judgment, as that whereunto he had not right; if this be denied, and be proved by the record of the Justices before whom that land was lost, or by the country if it were lost in the County, or inferior Court, she shall be precluded from having her action of dower.

The other dower is when a son endoweth his wife by the assent of his father; the form of the Writ whereof is to be found among the rest; wherein the proceeding is after this manner: The deforciant shall be summoned as in the other Writ of Dower, and in like manner his contumacy shall be punished as in the other Writ of Dower; but if he come at the day given him then the woman's demand being made he shall answer thereto; and if the endowment made in the said form and the consent of the dower be denied, and it be established by the country that the husband did endow her, at the Church door, of his father's tenement, and that the father in his own person or by a special messenger therefor sent did consent to that dower, the woman shall recover her dower and damages. It is also to be known that in either Writ the tenant may vouch to warranty, with the aid of the Court, and the proceeding in the plea of warranty shall be as is before directed; but there is a difference between this case of dower and that above, by præcipe, where the mode of proceeding endeth in the warranty; because there the demandant in that case always recovereth the thing demanded, and the tenant, out of the land of the warrantor to the value: In the case of dower it is otherwise, because the tenant will keep his land in peace, and the woman will have to the value of her dower demanded, out of the land of the warrantor. Provided that the tenant hath of the land of her husband to the value whereby this may be done, but if otherwise not. Concerning other assignment of dower there is nothing said for the present.

XIII.

Whereas the custom is otherwise in Wales than in England concerning succession to an inheritance inasmuch as the inheritance is partible among the heirs male, and from time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary hath been partible, our Lord the King will not have that custom abrogated; but willeth that inheritances shall remain partible among like heirs as it was wont to be; and