Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/292

 276 in any court of record the particular tenant does any act which amounts to a virtual diclaimer; if he claims any greater etate than was granted him at the firt infeodation, or takes upon himelf thoe rights which belong only to tenants of a uperior clas ; if he affirms the reverion to be in a tranger, by accepting his fine, attorning as his tenant, colluive pleading, and the like ; uch behaviour amounts to a forfeiture of his particular etate.

III. is a pecies of forfeiture, whereby the right of preentation to a church accrues to the ordinary by neglect of the patron to preent, to the metropolitan by neglect of the ordinary, and to the king by neglect of the metropolitan. For it being for the interet of religion, and the good of the public, that the church hould be provided with an officiating miniter, the law has therefore given this right of lape, in order to quicken the patron; who might otherwie, by uffering the church to remain vacant, avoid paying his eccleiatical dues, and frutrate the pious intentions of his ancetors. This right of lape was firt etablihed about the time (though not by the authority ) of the council of Lateran, which was in the reign of our Henry the econd, when the bihops firt began to exercie univerally the right of intitution to churches. And therefore, where there is no right of intitution, there is no right of lape: o that no donative can lape to the ordinary, unles it hath been augmented by the queen's bounty. But no right of lape can accrue, when the original preentation is in the crown.

term, in which the title to preent by lape accrues from the one to the other ucceively, is ix calendar months ; (following in this cae the computation of the church, and not the uual one of the common law) and this excluive of the day of Rh