been used by any heir or heirs before the making of this statute; and saving and reserving also fines for alienations of such manors, lands, tenements, or hereditaments holden of the King our Sovereign Lord in socage, or of the nature of socage tenure in chief, whereof there shall be any alteration of freehold or inheritance, made by will or otherwise, as is aforesaid.

4. And it is further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that all and singular person and persons having any manors, lands, tenements, or hereditaments of estate of inheritance holden of the King's Highness in chief by knight-service, or of the nature of knight-service in chief, from the said twentieth day of July, shall have full power and authority by his last will, by writing or otherwise, by any act or acts lawfully executed in his life, to give, dispose, will or assign two parts of the same manors, lands, tenements, or hereditaments in three parts to be divided, or else as much of the said manors, lands, tenements or hereditaments as shall extend or amount to the yearly value of two parts of the same in three parts to be divided, in certainty and by special divisions as it may be known in severalty, to and for the advancement of his wife, preferment of his children, and payment of his debts or otherwise at his will and pleasure; any law, statute, custom or other thing to the contrary thereof notwithstanding.

5. Saving and reserving to the King our Sovereign Lord the custody, wardship and primer seisin, or any of them as the case shall require, of as much of the same manors, lands, tenements, or hereditaments as shall amount and extend to the full and clear yearly value of the third part thereof without any diminution, dower, fraud, covin, charge or abridgment of any of the same third part or of the full profits thereof.

6. (Saving of fines for alienation 1.)

7-13. (Further provisions extending the power of devising lands in all cases to two-thirds of knight-service lands, and to the whole of those held in socage; the wardship of the lord being reserved as to the remaining third part of knight-service lands.)

1 See 34 and 35 Henry VIII, c. 5. sect. 6. This is interpreted to mean that when lands held of the King are devised by will, the devisee must sue out of Chancery the King's 'pardon for alienation,' paying for it the third part of the yearly value of the lands.

14-17. (Miscellaneous provisions reserving rights of king and lords.)

(2) AN ACT FOR THE EXPLANATION OF THE STATUTE OF WILLS. 34 and 35 Henry VIII, cap. 5.

The former Statute is explained in sections 3-8 to cover cases of a person or persons having a sole estate, or interest in fee simple, or seised in fee simple or coparcenary, or in common in fee simple in possession, reversion, or remainder.

The devise may be 'to any person or persons, except Bodies Politick and Corporate.'

14. And it is further declared and enacted by the authority aforesaid, That wills or testaments made of any manors, lands, tenements or other hereditaments by any woman covert, or person within the age of twenty-one years, idiot, or by any person de non sane memory, shall not be taken to be good or effectual in the law1.

(3) THE ACT FOR THE AMENDMENT OF THE LAWS WITH RESPECT TO WILLS. 7 William IV and 1 Victoria, cap. 26.

This Statute repeals the former Statutes upon the subject of wills, and constitutes the basis upon which the present law of wills of real property rests. The most important of its general provisions are the following:

Sect. 3. It shall be lawful for every person to devise, bequeath or dispose of by his will, executed in manner hereinafter required, all real estate and all personal estate which he shall be entitled to, either at law or in equity, at the time of his death, and which, if not so devised, bequeathed or disposed of, would devolve upon the heir-at-law, or customary heir of him, or, if he became entitled by descent, of his ancestor, or upon

2

1 The numbering of the sections in these Statutes is taken from 'Statutes at Large.' The divisions in Statutes of the Realm' are different.

2 See above, p. 257.

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1

his executor or administrator; and that the power hereby given shall extend to all real estate of the nature of customary freehold or tenant right, or customary or copyhold, notwithstanding that the testator may not have surrendered the same to the use of his will, or notwithstanding that being entitled as heir, devisee, or otherwise to be admitted thereto he shall not have been admitted thereto, or notwithstanding that the same, in consequence of the want of a custom to devise or surrender to the use of a will, or otherwise, could not at law have been disposed of by will, if this Act had not been made, or notwithstanding that the same, in consequence of there being a custom that a will or a surrender to the use of a will should continue in force for a limited time only, or any other special custom, could not have been disposed of by will according to the power contained in this Act, if this Act had not been made; and also to estates pur autre vie, whether there shall or shall not be any special occupant thereof, and whether the same shall be freehold, customary freehold, tenant right, customary or copyhold, or of any other tenure, and whether the same shall be a corporeal or an incorporeal hereditament; and also to all contingent, executory, or other future interests in any real or personal estate, whether the testator may or may not be ascertained as the person or one of the persons in whom the same respectively may become vested, and whether he may be entitled thereto under the instrument by which the same respectively were created, or under any disposition thereof by deed or will; and also to all rights of entry for conditions broken, and other rights of entry; and also to such of the same estates, interests, and rights respectively, and other real and personal estate as the testator may be entitled to at the time of his death, notwithstanding that he may become entitled to the same subsequently to the execution of his will.

7. No will made by any person under the age of twenty-one years shall be valid.

1 See above, p. 258, n. I. By this provision wills of copyhold estates are assimilated to wills of freeholds.

2 See above, p. 261, n. I. 4 3 See above, p. 142, n. I. See above, p. 234. 5 A right of entry, though it could only be reserved in favour of the grantor or his heirs (above, p. 230), is thus rendered capable of alienation by will. These rights are also, by 8 and 9 Vict. c. 106. s. 6, made alienable by deed inter vivos.

8. No will made by any married woman shall be valid, except such a will as might have been made by a married woman before the passing of this Act1.

18. Every will made by a man or woman shall be revoked by his or her marriage 2, (except a will made in exercise of a power of appointment, when the real or personal estate thereby appointed would not in default of such appointment pass to his or her heir, customary heir, executor, or administrator, or the person entitled as his or her next of kin under the Statute of Distributions).

19. No will shall be revoked by any presumption of an intention on the ground of an alteration in circumstances.

20. No will or codicil or any part thereof shall be revoked otherwise than as aforesaid, or by another will or codicil executed in manner hereinbefore required, or by some writing declaring an intention to revoke the same, and executed in the manner in which a will is hereinbefore required to be executed, or by the burning, tearing, or otherwise destroying the same by the testator, or by some person in his presence and by his direction, with the intention of revoking the same.

1 See above, p. 306, n. 2. A married woman can make a will in exercise of a power of appointment vested in her (see above, pp. 326-328). She can also dispose by will of her equitable interest in real property held to` her separate use.

2 Before this enactment the marriage of a man was not sufficient to revoke his will unless he had also a child born to him.

CHAPTER IX.

ABOLITION OF MILITARY TENURES.

IT was doubtless the prevalence of the system of conveying lands to uses which, by alleviating the pressure of the feudal burdens, delayed the change in the law which is the subject of this chapter. When by the selfish legislation of Henry VIII this mode of alleviation was rendered ineffectual, and the pressure was still further increased by the creation, under the provisions of the Statute 32 Henry VIII, cap. 46, of a Court of Wards and Liveries, for the express purpose of providing a more effectual and speedy mode of asserting the king's feudal rights, the burdens became too heavy to be borne; and the king being now the immediate lord of a vast portion of the land of the country, all classes of tenants were more interested in obtaining relief from feudal burdens owing to the king, than in preserving those due to such of them as were lords of manors. A striking picture of the condition of a tenant in capite by knight-service is given by Blackstone1. 'The heir, on the death of his ancestor, if of full age, was plundered of the first emoluments arising from his inheritance, by way of relief and primer seisin; and, if under age, of the whole of his estate during infancy. And then, as Sir Thomas Smith very feelingly complains", "when he came to his own, after he was out of wardship, his woods decayed,

1 Vol. ii. p. 76.

2 The Commonwealth of England, book iii. c. 5, written in the reign of Elizabeth.