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ance, which however were assessed by themselves in parliament, they might be called upon by the king or lord paramount for aids, whenever his eldest son was to be knighted, or his eldest daughter married; not to forget the ransom of his own person. 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 Smithd very feelingly complains, "when "he came to his own, after he was out of wardship, his woods "decayed, houses fallen down, stock wasted and gone, lands "let forth and ploughed to be barren," to reduce him still farther, he was yet to pay half a year's profits as a fine for suing out his livery; and also the price or value of his marriage, if he refused such wife as his lord and guardian had bartered for, and imposed upon him; or twice that value, if he married another woman. Add to this, the untimely and expensive honor of knighthood, to make his poverty more completely splendid. And when by these deductions his fortune was so shattered and ruined, that perhaps he was obliged to sell his patrimony, he had not even that poor privilege allowed him, without paying an exorbitant fine for a license of alienation.

A SLAVERY SO complicated, and so extensive as this, called aloud for a remedy in a nation that boasted of its freedom. Palliatives were from time to time applied by successive acts of parliament, which assuaged some temporary grievances. Till at length the humanity of king James I. consentede, in consideration of a proper equivalent, to abolish them all; though the plan proceeded not to effect; in like manner as he had formed a scheme, and began to put it in execution, for removing the feodal grievance of heritable [77] jurisdictions in Scotland, which has since been pur

sued and effected by the statute 20 Geo. II. c. 438. King

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James's plan for exchanging our military tenures seems to have been nearly the same as that which has been since pursued; only with this difference, that, by way of compensation for the loss which the crown and other lords would sustain, an annual feefarm rent was to have been settled and inseparably annexed to the crown, and assured to the inferior lords, payable out of every knight's fee within their respective seignories. An expedient, seemingly much better than the hereditary excise, which was afterwards made the principal equivalent for these concessions. For at length the military tenures, with all their heavy appendages (having during the usurpation been discontinued) were destroyed at one blow by the statute 12 Car. II. c. 24. which enacts, “that "the court of wards and liveries, and all wardships, liveries, "primer seisins, and ousterlemains, values and forfeitures " of marriages, by reason of any tenure of the king or others, "be totally taken away. And that all fines for alienations, "tenures by homage, knight's-service, and escuage, and "also aids for marrying the daughter or knighting the son, "and all tenures of the king in capite, be likewise taken

away (9). And that all sorts of tenures, held of the king 66 or others,.be turned into free and common socage; save

(9) Both Mr. Madox and Mr. Hargrave have taken notice of this inaccuracy in the title and the body of the act, viz. of taking away tenures in capite; (Mad. Bar. Ang. 238. Co. Litt. 108. n. 5.) for tenure in capite signifies nothing more than that the king is the immediate lord of the land-owner; and the land might have been either of military or socage tenure. The same incorrect language was held by the speaker of the house of commons in his pedantic address to the throne upon presenting this bill."Royal sir, your tenures in capite are not only turned into "a tenure in socage, (though that alone will for ever give your majesty "a just right and title to the labor of our ploughs, and the sweat of our "brows,) but they are likewise turned into a tenure in corde. What "your majesty had before in your court of wards, you will be sure to "find it hereafter in the exchequer of your people's hearts." Journ. Dom. Proc. 11 vol. 234.

"only tenures in frankalmoign, copyholds, and the honorary "services (without the slavish part) of grand serjeanty." A statute, which was a greater acquisition to the civil property of this kingdom, than even magna carta itself: since that only pruned the luxuriances that had grown out of the military tenures, and thereby preserved them in vigor; but the statute of king Charles extirpated the whole, and demolished both root and branches.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

OF THE MODERN ENGLISH TENURES.

ALTHOUGH, by the means that were mentioned in the

preceding chapter, the oppressive or military part of the feodal constitution was happily done away, yet we are not to imagine that the constitution itself was utterly laid aside, and a new one introduced in its room: since by the statute 12 Car. II. the tenures of socage and frankalmoign, the honorary services of grand serjeanty, and the tenure by copy of court roll, were reserved; nay, all tenures in general, except frankalmoign, grand serjeanty, and copyhold, were reduced to one general species of tenure, then well known, and subsisting, called free and common socage. And this, being sprung from the same feodal original as the rest, demonstrates the necessity of fully contemplating that ancient system; since it is that alone to which we can recur, to explain any seeming or real difficulties, that may arise in our present mode of tenure.

THE military tenure, or that by knight-service, consisted of what were reputed the most free and honorable services, but which in their nature were unavoidably uncertain in respect to the time of their performance. The second species. of tenure, or free-socage, consisted also of free and honorable services; but such as were liquidated and reduced to an absolute certainty. And this tenure not only subsists to this day, but has in a manner absorbed and swallowed up (since the

statute of Charles the second) almost every other species of tenure. And to this we are next to proceed.

II. SOCAGE, in its most general and extensive signification, seems to denote a tenure by any certain and determinate service. And in this sense it is by our ancient writers constantly put in opposition to chivalry, or knight-service, where the render was precarious and uncertain. Thus Bractona; if a man holds by a rent in money, without any escuage or serjeanty, “id tene❝mentum dici potest socagium:” but if you add thereto any royal service, or escuage to any, the smallest, amount, "illud dici "poterit feodum militare.” So too the author of Fleta b; "ex "donationibus, servitia militaria vel magnae serjantiae non con"tinentibus, oritur nobis quoddam nomén generale, quod est socagium." Littleton also defines it to be, where the tenant holds his tenement of the lord by any certain service, in lieu of all other services; so that they be not services of chivalry, or knight-service. And therefore afterwards d he tells us, that whatsoever is not tenure in chivalry is tenure in socage : in like manner as it is defined by Finch e, a tenure to be done out of war. The service must therefore be certain, in order to denominate it socage; as to hold by fealty and 20s. rent; or, by homage, fealty, and 20s. rent; or, by homage and fealty without rent; or, by fealty and certain corporal service, as ploughing the lord's land for three days; or, by fealty only without any other service for all these are tenures in socage f

BUT socage, as was hinted in the last chapter, is of two sorts: free-socage, where the services are not only certain, but honorable; and villein-socage, where the services, though certain, are of a baser nature. Such as hold by the former tenure are called in Glanvil, and other subsequent authors, by the name of liberi sokemanni, or tenants in free-socage. Of this tenure we are first to speak; and this, both in the nature of its service,

a 1. 2. c. 16.sec. 9. bl. 3. c. 14. sec. 9. e sec. 117.

d sec. 118.

e L. 147.

f Litt. sec. 117, 118, 119.
g L. 3, 6. 7.

VOL. II.

13

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