Opinion of the Court. The appointment of persons, having adverse interests, to be guardians ad litem of the grandchildren then living and made parties defendant, may, so far as those parties were concerned, have been a mere irregularity in the mode of proceeding, for which they could not afterwards collaterally impeach the decree. Colt v. Colt, 111 U. S. 566. But neither the living grandchildren, nor the guardians appointed to represent them, could represent the estate devised by the testator to his executors in trust for unborn grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In suits affecting the rights of residuary legatees or of next of kin, the general rule is that all the members of the class must be made parties. Davoue v. Fanning, 4 Johns. Ch. 199; Dehart v. Dehart, 2 H. W. Green (N. J.) 471; Hawkins v. Hawkins, 1 Hare, 543, 545 and note; Calvert on Parties (2d ed.), 49, 237. Where they are numerous, and only some of them, together with the executor and trustee under the will, are made parties, the court, upon being satisfied that it has a sufficient number before it to secure a fair trial of the question at issue, may hear the cause. Bradwin v. Harpur, Ambler, 374; Harvey v. Harvey, 4 Beav. 215, and 5 Beav. 134. But it would seem that the decree must be without prejudice to the rights of those who are not made parties, and who do not come in before the decree. Harvey v. Harvey, 5 Beav. 139; Willats v. Busby, 5 Beav. 193, 200; Powell v. Wright, 7 Beav. 444, 450; Calvert on Parties, 72; Hallett v. Hallett, 2 Paige, 15; Rule 48 in Equity, 1 How. lvi. And where a suit is brought by or against a few individuals as representing a numerous class, that fact must be alleged of record, so as to present to the court the question whether sufficient parties are before it to properly represent the rights of all. Lanchester v. Thompson, 5 Madd. 4, 13; Calvert on Parties, 44, 169. In the proceeding to contest the validity of Duncan McArthur's will, on the contrary, so far from the attention of the court being called to any such question, it was positively alleged in the bill, and not contradicted in any of the answers, that those named as parties in the bill were the only persons specified in that will, and the only persons having an interest in it. Under the Ohio statute and decisions, the court had Opinion of the Court. nothing to do with the construction or the legal effect of the provisions of the will, but had only to try the question of will or no will as between the parties before it, and with no effect upon the rights of those not made parties. The rights of those infant grandchildren who were made defendants, to show cause against the decree, were saved by the express terms of the statute and of the decree itself until their coming of age and for six months afterwards; and no provision was made for the preservation of the rights of after-born grandchildren. But the graver objection is that at the time of rendering the decree the court had before it no one representing the office of the executors, or the trust estate devised to them. A trustee who has large powers over the trust estate, and important duties to perform with respect to it, is a necessary party to a suit brought by a stranger to defeat the trust, and often sufficiently represents the beneficiaries. Calvert on Parties, 273; Kerrison v. Stewart, 93 U. S. 155, 160; Campbell v. Watson, 8 Ohio, 498. Where such a trustee for a married woman was not made a party, Mr. Justice Milter, delivering the judgment of this court reversing the decree, said: "How the decree can clear the property of this trust without having the trustee before the court it is difficult to see. This was the object of the suit; but how can it be måde effectual for that purpose in the absence of the person in whom the title is vested?" O'Hara v. MacConnell, 93 U. S. 150, 154. When a will has been once admitted to probate, the estate, so long as the probate remains unrevoked, can only be adminis tered by the executor or by an administrator with the will annexed. The executor is the principal and the necessary representative of the estate vested in him, and of all those interested in it; "the executor," said Lord Hardwicke, "in all cases sustaining the person of the testator, to defend the estate for him, creditors and legatees." Peacock v. Monk, 1 Ves. Sen. 127, 131. By the settled doctrine of the English ecclesiastical courts, in any proceeding to contest the probate or the rejection of a will, or to compel probate in solemn form, the executor is a necessary party, and, unless fraud or collusion is suggested, the only party to represent the will. The executor, in the words Opinion of the Court. of Sir John Nicholl, "prima facie is to be considered as pars principalis or legitimus contradictor;" Wood v. Medley, 1 Hagg. Eccl. 645, 668; and, as observed by Sir Herbert Jenner, "represents and is the protector of the legatees under the will, being specially entrusted by the deceased with the care and management of his property and to see his intentions carried into effect." Hayle v. Hasted, 1 Curt. Eccl. 236, 240, 241. When there has been a probate in common form and there is no executor, the administrator with the will annexed is the proper party to be cited to prove the will in solemn form or to show cause why an intestacy should not be declared. Gascoyne v. Chandler, 2 Cas. temp. Lee, 241. By the devise in fee to these executors, their appointment by the Court of Probate, and their acceptance of the trust, the legal title in the real estate under the will vested in them. The subsequent acceptance by that court of their resignation of the office of executors no doubt discharged them from the performance of the duties of executors and trustees under the will. But the legal title in the real estate, which had once vested in them, could not be divested without a conveyance, or a decree of a court of chancery, or an appointment by the Court of Probate of new executors and trustees in accordance with the will. At common law, a conveyance, sanctioned or ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction, or at least a new appointment pursuant to the instrument by which the trust was created, would be necessary to divest the title of each trustee; and no statute or decision in Ohio, establishing a different rule in this respect, has been brought to our notice. The three executors and trustees who had once accepted and acted as such, therefore, still held the legal title. In re Van Wyck, 1 Barb. Ch. 565, 570; Drury v. Natick, 10 Allen, 169, 183; Wooldridge v. Planters' Bank, 1 Sneed, 296; 2 Washburn on Real Property (4th ed.) 512, 513. And as holders of that title they were necessary parties to the suit. Adams v. Paynter, 1 Collyer, 530, 534. But even if the mere legal title could be deemed, upon the acceptance by the Court of Probate of the resignation of two of the executors and trustees, to have vested in the remaining Opinion of the Court. one, Mrs. Coons, and upon the acceptance of her resignation to have vested in the heirs at law, the more serious difficulty remains. The heirs did not succeed to the office of executors, and neither Mrs. Coons after her resignation, nor all the heirs, could represent the testator's will, or the trust created by it, or the beneficiaries of that trust. The heirs were not alleged in the bill to be trustees, were not made parties as trustees, did not answer as trustees; but were actors in support of their individual rights only, asserting, one of them by allegations in his bill, and the others by confession in their answers of those allegations, a title adverse to the will and to the trusts created by it. The resignation of the persons who had been appointed executors and trustees did not dispense with the presence of representatives of the testator and of the trust estate. It was necessary that others should be appointed in their stead to represent the estate devised to the executors in trust for the protection of the cestuis que trust designated in the will, and especially the interests of those who might be born in the future, and who could not be otherwise sufficiently represented. No additional force is given to the decree, rendered without having any such representatives before the court, by the allegation in that bill that no persons could be found whom the court was willing to appoint executors and who were able to give the requisite bonds, or by the allegation in the answer of Mrs. Coons that one reason for her resignation of the office of executrix was the impossibility of procuring suitable associates. Those were wholly irrelevant allegations, which the court, sitting in chancery to try the single issue of the validity of the will, had no authority to pass upon, or to assume to be true. The power and the duty, upon any vacancy in the office of executors or trustees under a will, to appoint new executors or trustees, or administrators with the will annexed, was in the court acting strictly as a court of probate. Statutes of Ohio of March 12, 1831, § 22, and February 18, 1831, §§ 16, 25; 3 Chase's Statutes, 1779, 1787, 1788. The alleged impossibility of finding proper persons to accept the, office of executors Opinion of the Court. affords no more excuse for holding a decree binding upon persons not otherwise represented, than it would for disregarding a will which had been admitted to probate, and settling the estate as if the deceased had died intestate. Nor can we doubt that the court, in the exercise of the appropriate branch of its jurisdiction, might in its discretion have granted administration limited to the single object of defending the will and the probate against the bill in equity of the heirs. Courts vested with the jurisdiction of granting letters testamentary and of administration have the inherent power of granting a limited administration, whenever it is necessary for the purposes of justice; as, for instance, durante minore ætate, while the executor named in the will is under age; durante absentia, when he is out of the jurisdiction and therefore has not taken out letters testamentary; or ad litem, to defend a suit in chancery while the probate of a will is under contest; and the powers exercised by the English courts in this respect appertain to the courts of like jurisdiction in this country, although not specified in the statutes under which they act. Davis v. Chanter, 2 Phillips, 545, 550, 551; 1 Williams on Executors (7th ed.) 479, 502, 523, 524; Griffith v. Frazier, 8 Cranch, 9, 26; Martin v. Dry Dock Co., 92 N. Y. 70; McNairy v. Bell, 6 Yerger, 302; Jordan v. Polk, 1 Sneed, 429, 434. These defendants rely on Andrews v. Andrews, 7 Ohio St. 143, as showing that to a bill in equity by the heirs at law under the Ohio statute to set aside a will which has been admitted to probate, the executors are not necessary parties. But in that case, a will bequeathing the bulk of the testator's property to certain charitable corporations having been set aside upon a bill by the heirs against the executors and the residuary legatees, the only point decided was that the executors were not bound to assume the burden of the defence, or entitled to charge the expense thereof to the estate; and the court, in delivering judgment, said that, in analogy to ordinary cases in chancery, it had been the general, and perhaps uniform, practice to make the executors, as well as legatees and devisees, parties defendant, and that, "granting the propriety, and even the necessity, of the practice," it did not follow that the execu |