statute of 27 Hen. VIII., as to uses and wills; the power of disposal. To modify these evils was passed the famous statute of 27 Hen. VIII. c. 10, entitled "An Act Concerning Uses and Wills," whose primary object was, by joining the possession or seizin to the use, to abolish the distinction between the legal and beneficial ownership, and in that way to make the ostensible tenant also the legal tenant, and liable as such to the feudal lord and to the world.1 One of the immediate effects of this statute was to facilitate the transit facilitates fer of land by giving legal validity to "bargains and sales," 2 and sales;" a means of transfer which required no particular ceremony, or open and notorious act, such as livery of seizin. livery of seizin. On the other hand, this statute entirely abolished, as a collusive device, the power to dispose of interests in land by will which the fiction of uses had brought about. Not until the passage, a few years "bargains VIII., re ing the right of devise; statute of later, of the statute of 32 Hen. VIII. c. 1, was the power of 32 Hen. devising interests in lands by will-a power which had been exercised in some form ever since uses had been protected and enforced by the chancellor - fixed upon a firm legal foundation. By "The act of wills, wards, and primer seizins, whereby a man may devise two parts of his land," whose terms are somewhat complicated, every tenant in fee was allowed to devise all his lands held by socage tenure, and two thirds of that held by knight-service, subject to careful provisions for the protection of the lord in both cases. Another statute passed at this time, whose ultimate design was to facilitate the transfer of land by fixing a limit within which certain suits concerning it should be brought, was the statute of 32 Hen. VIII. c. 2, known as statute as the Statute of Limitations.5 As restraints upon alienation tious uses, were passed the statute of 23 Hen. VIII. c. 10, prohibiting VIII. c. 10; all gifts of lands to what were then and since known as super Statute of Limitations, 32 Hen. VIII. c. 2; to supersti 23 Hen. 1 Efforts had long before been made to protect creditors, the king, and the feudal lords against the effects of feoffments to use by 1 Rich. II. c. 9, 1 Rich. III. c. I, and by 4 Hen. VII. c. 17. 2 Digby, Law of Real Property, p. 355. In order to prevent secret conveyances of this character a second act was passed in the same year providing for their enrolment. As to the subsequent history down to the conveyancing acts of 1881, 1882, see Ibid., pp. 364, 365. 3 34 & 35 Hen. VIII. c. 5 was "An Act for the Explanation of the Statute of Wills." The law of wills of all property, real and personal, now rests on the provisions of the Wills Act, 7 Will. IV. and I Vict. c. 26. Upon the whole subject, see Digby, Law of Real Property, pp. 375-390. 5 "The principle of this statute had already been established in the statute of non-claim (4 Hen. VII. c. 24).” — Reeves' Hist. Eng. Law, vol. iii. p. 310, note a (Finlason ed.). to common stitious uses; and the statute of 32 Hen. VIII. c. 31, restrict- statute as ing the method of conveyancing known as common recoveries recoveries, by the proviso that all such recoveries had by the assent of 32 Hen. parties against the life-tenant, tenant by the courtesy, and others should be void as to those in reversion of remainder without their consent, unless it was by a good title. From the time of the famous "Taltarum's Case" (12 Edw. IV.), the fictitious suits known as common recoveries had been employed as a method of conveying lands, and they continued to be so employed down to 1834, when by the statute of 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 74, "fines and recoveries were abolished, and tenant their recent in tail may now, by a deed enrolled in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice, alienate his lands for any estate in fee simple or otherwise, and thus defeat the expectations of his own issue and of all remaindermen and reversioners." 2 abolition. of monas ferred care of church to Another important change brought about by the dissolution Dissolution of the religious houses which should be noted here was that teries transwhich resulted in the transfer of the care of the poor from the church to the state. During the Middle Ages, the relief of poor from the poor which the church assumed finally devolved in the state; main upon the monasteries, not only because such work was one of the objects of their foundation, but for the further reason that there had been appropriated to their use a large portion of the tithes, a third of which had always been devoted to the care of the poor. Under this condition of things the state 1 "In this manner, by obviating the abuse of it, did the parliament tacitly acknowledge and ratify the application of a recovery as an assurance of land." - Reeves' Hist. Eng. Law, vol. iii. p. 272. 2 Digby, Law of Real Property, p. 252. 8The recognition of the legal obligation of tithes dates from the eighth century, both on the continent and in England. In A. D. 779 Charles the Great ordained that every one should pay tithe, and that the proceeds should be disposed of by the bishop; and in A. D. 787 it was made imperative by the legatine councils held in England, which being attended and confirmed by the kings and ealdormen had the authority of Witenagemotes. From that time it was enforced by not unfrequent state first assumed statute of beginning parochial poor-law system; contented itself with the negative duty of enacting statutes begging for the punishment of begging and vagrancy.1 But when the and vagrancy; crown took away from the monasteries the means by which the care of the poor had been maintained, it was confronted by a correlative duty which it could not refuse to assume. The first assumption of this duty was embodied in the statute the care of of 27 Hen. VIII. c. 25, whereby the incorporated towns, hunthe poor by dreds, parishes, and manors were charged with the duty of putting to labor all such as were able to work, and of receiving and supporting all such as were unable, the means for that purpose to be collected as alms on Sundays, holidays, and other festivals, or otherwise among the people. Such was the beginning of the parochial poor-law system which, after much im1 In their inception such statutes were a mere corollary of the Statutes of Laborers (see above, p. 47), because by their terms the laborer who refused to work where he happened to be, at the wages there offered him, became as soon as he went away a vagrant and a criminal. To punish vagrants for crimes committed while wandering from place to place, and to force them back to their usual places of abode, were passed 1 Rich. II. c. 6 (1377); 2 Rich. II. c. 6 (1378); 7 Rich. II. c. 5 (1383); 12 Rich. II. (1388); 2 Hen. V. c. 4 (1414); II Hen. VII. c. 2 (1494); 19 Hen. VII. c. 12 (1503); and 22 Hen. VIII. c. 12, a very severe act (see abstract in Nicholas' Hist. of the Poor Laws, vol. i. pp. 119-124), which was amended by 27 Hen. VIII. c. 25 (1535, 1536). In 1547 all these acts, upon the ground that they were not sufficiently severe, were repealed by the specially cruel statute of i Edw. VI. 2, which at the end of two years was repealed by 3 & 4 Edw. VI. c. 26, which revived the acts of Hen. VIII. In 1552 was passed 5 & 6 Edw. VI. c. 2, which confirmed those acts with a provision for licenses to beg under certain conditions. In 1555 the system of licensed begging was elaborated by 2 & 3 Phil. & Mary, c. 5, which connected with it a provision for weekly collections for the poor. In 1572 all prior statutes upon the subject were repealed by 14 Eliz. c. 5, superseded in 1597 by 39 Eliz. c. 4, which, with an amendment made in 1604 by 1 Jas. I. c. 7, remained in force for more than a century, to the terror of all rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars. Not long after the passage of Elizabeth's act of 1597 followed her famous poor law of 1601 (43 Eliz. c. 2), from which time the legislation against vagrancy "may be regarded to a great extent as forming the criminal aspect of the poor laws," which undertook to provide for the helpless, to furnish work for the willing and able, and punishment for the able-bodied who were unwilling to work. In 1713 Elizabeth's act of 1597, as amended by James, was reenacted by 12 Anne, st. 2, c. 23, with a few omissions and alterations; and in 1737 that act was so explained by 10 Geo. II. c. 28 as to extend it to persons acting plays in certain places, or without license from the lord chamberlain. In 1740 all such acts were repealed and reenacted by 13 Geo. II. c. 24, which was merged four years later into 17 Geo. II. c. 5, which was amended in 1792. by 32 Geo. III. c. 45, and repealed in 1822 by 3 Geo. IV. c. 40, designed to consolidate the law upon the subject. Two years later that act was repealed by Geo. IV. c. 83, now in force, which so extends the definition of a rogue and vagabond as to include many persons of a suspicious class not actually criminals. Upon the subject of vagrancy and wages, see Amos, Reformation Parliament, pp. 83, 84, 92-94. As to the vagrancy statutes considered as a part of the history of the criminal law, see Sir J. F. Stephen, vol. iii. pp. 266–275. 32 Hen. tithes; ute of bankrupts, 34 & VIII. c. 4; VIII. c. 30; provement in the intervening reigns, was finally settled in that of Elizabeth,1-a system which grew more and more necessary as the conversion of feudal into free labor swelled the ranks and increased the distress of the laboring classes. Another act made necessary by the transfer of monastic property to lay hands which may be mentioned here is the statute of statute of 32 Hen. VIII. c. 7, whereby a legal remedy was for the first VIII. c. 7, time given to laymen who had estates, or interests in parson- laymen to authorizing ages or vicarages, enabling them to sue for the subtraction of sue for tithes in the church courts.2 The first statute of bankrupts is that of 34 & 35 Hen. first stat`VIII. c. 4, which was intended rather to prevent trade-debtors from fraudulently concealing or disposing of their goods than 35 Hen. as a means through which they could be discharged from their statute of amendment debts after an honest surrender. By the statute of amendand jeofail, ment and jeofail, 32 Hen. VIII. c. 30, the administration of 32 Hen. substantial justice in civil proceedings was greatly promoted; while by the statute of 23 Hen. VIII. c. 1, taking away the benefit of benefit of clergy in many cases in which it had been before taken away enjoyed, manifold abuses resulting from that source were removed from the criminal administration.3 7. Before Cromwell was hurled by his ungrateful master The closing from the bad eminence to which his genius had exalted both, years of Henry's the revolutionary policy he had undertaken to enforce had reign reached a perfectly successful consummation. High as the general power of the monarchy had been lifted by Wolsey, his pupil Cromwell's had lifted it higher still. Not only had the crown been emanpolicy; cipated from without by the complete abolition of the papal exaltation overlordship, but it had also been raised from within above every rival force, temporal or spiritual. When Cromwell's administration began, the one really formidable foe by which it was confronted stood forth in the corporate person of the church, whose immemorial spiritual authority was greatly enhanced, not only by its vast temporal possessions, but by its more or less independent assemblies and tribunals, subject in 1 43 Eliz. c. 2. The history of that act as the basis of the modern poorlaw system will be considered hereafter. 2 As to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction over tithes, see Reeves' Hist. Eng. Law, vol. iii. p. 95 et seq., and p. 3 For a masterly review of that sub- clergy in many cases by 23 Hen. VIII. c. I. (1540-47): results of of the crown; of the church; the last resort to the direction of a foreign head. That Cromhumiliation well should have undertaken to prostrate the church at the feet of the monarchy is not so remarkable as that he should Cromwell have essayed such a task with the aid of the parliament. the parlia- From the accession of Edward IV. down to the fall of Wolsey, ment as the the settled policy of the crown had been to discourage parlia employs tool of the crown; the lords a spiritless body, and the commons made nominees; mentary action, by calling the estates together only on rare and critical occasions, and by confiding as far as possible the entire central administration of the state to the privy council. Under that system the council, in its judicial aspect as the star chamber, had overawed the entire administration of justice in the ordinary tribunals by making them subservient to the royal will, while, in its political aspect as an administrative body, it had to a serious extent substituted the system of royal benevolences in the place of parliamentary taxation. Under this condition of things, which the collapse of the estate system at the end of the civil war had made possible, there seemed to be but little hope of a parliamentary revival. The fact that the lords were still a subservient, spiritless body that cowered at the feet of the king, the fact that the commons were largely up of royal made up of members nominated directly or indirectly by the privy council, were no doubt the determining causes which emboldened Cromwell to reverse the royal policy by the constant employment of parliament as the agent through whose acts the papal supremacy was overthrown and the church stripped at once of its estates and of its independence. So far from shrinking from an appeal to the estates, it was the gether year essence of Cromwell's policy to call them together year after tation year, and to force upon their attention every possible question to which he desired to add the forms of legality or the apparent sanction of popular approval. The review which has just been made of that unbroken series of parliamentary enactments, beginning with the comparatively mild measures of 1529 and ending at last with the act of the Six Articles, has shown how completely the revolution which Cromwell carried on by the authority of the crown was at every step sanctioned and approved by the national legislature. When that series of royal edicts, over which was thus thrown the thin veil of national assent, are examined as a connected whole, the fact appears that Cromwell permitted nothing to rob his work of estates called to after year the royal policy; |