Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/247

 Ch. 14. did decend from king Edward the ixth to queen Mary, and from her to queen Elizabeth, who were repectively of the half blood to each other. For, the royal pedigree being always a matter of ufficient notoriety, there is no occaion to call in the aid of this preumptive rule of evidence, to render probable the decent from the royal tock; which was formerly king William the Norman, and is now (by act of parliament ) the princes Sophia of Hanover. Hence alo it is, that in etates-tail, where the pedigree from the firt donee mut be trictly proved, half blood is no impediment to the decent : becaue, when the lineage is clearly made out, there is no need of this auxiliary proof. How far it might be deirable for the legilature to give relief, by amending the law of decents in this ingle intance, and ordaining that the half blood might inherit, where the etate notoriouly decended from it's own proper ancetor, but not otherwie; or how far a private inconvenience hould be ubmitted to, rather than a long etablihed rule hould be haken; it is not for me to determine.

rule then, together with it's illutration, amounts to this: that, in order to keep the etate of John Stiles as nearly as poible in the line of his purchaing ancetor, it mut decend to the iue of the nearet couple of ancetors that have left decendants behind them; becaue the decendants of one ancetor only are not o likely to be in the line of that purchaing ancetor, as thoe who are decended from two.

here another difficulty aries. In the econd, third, fourth, and every uperior degree, every man has many couples of ancetors, increaing according to the ditance in a geometrical progreion upwards, the decendants of all which repective couples are (repreentatively) related to him in the ame degree. Thus in the econd degree, the iue of George and Cecilia Stiles and of Andrew and Ether Baker, the two grandires and grand- Rh