The 13th Edward I., cap. 1, DE DONIS conditionalitiis, provided:
"That tenements given to a man, and the heirs of his body, should, at all events, go to the issue, if there were any; or, if there were none, should revert to the donor."
But while the fiefs of the Crown were forbidden to alien their lands, the FREEMEN, whose lands were Odhal (noble) and of Saxon descent, the inheritance of which was guaranteed to them by 55 William I. (ANTE, p. 13), were empowered to sell their estates by the statute called QUIA EMPTORES (6 Edward I.). It enacts:
"That from henceforth it shall be lawful to every FREEMEN to sell, at his own pleasure, his lands and tenements, or part of them: so that the feoffee shall hold the same lands and tenements of the chief lord of the fee by such customs as his feoffee held before."
The scope of these laws was altered in the reign of Edward III. That monarch, in view of his intended invasion of France, secured the adhesion of the landowners, by giving them power to raise money upon and alien their estates. The permission was as follows, 1 Edward III., cap. 12:
"Whereas divers people of the realm complain themselves to be grieved because that lands and tenements which be holden of the king in chief, and aliened without license, have been seized into the king's hand, and holden as forfeit: (2.) The king shall not hold them as forfeit in such case, but will and grant from henceforth of such lands and tenements so aliened, there shall be reasonable fine taken in chancery by due process."
1 Edward III., cap. 13:
"Whereas divers have complained that they be grieved by reason of purchasing of lands and tenements, which have been holden of the king's progenitors that now is, as of honors; and the same lands have been taken into the king's hands, as though they had been holden in chief of the king as of his crown: (2.) The king will that from henceforth no man be grieved by any such purchase."
De Lolme, chap. iii., sec. 3, remarks on these laws that they took from the king all power of preventing alienation or of purchase. They left him the reversionary right on the failure of heirs.
These changes in the relative power of the sovereign and the nobles took place to enable Edward to enter upon the conquest of France; but that monarch, conferred a power upon the barons, which was used to the detriment of his descendants, and led to the dethronement of the Plantagenets.