A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy - J. Franck Bright

There were also two great statutes bearing almost entirely upon the feudal relations of landed proprietors. The first was the statute of “Quia Emptores” (1290), which forbad subinfeudation and the formation of new manors. Its original object was to prevent feudal lords from being defrauded of their dues. Henceforward, property alienated ceased to belong in any sense to the subordinate grantor, and returned to the property of the lord superior of the whole estate. The effect, unforeseen by the enacters, was to increase the number of independent gentry holding immediately from the crown or from the great lords. The second statute is known by the name of the Second Statute of Westminster, or “De donis conditionalibus.” When an estate had been given to a man and to his children, it had hitherto been held sufficient that the child should be born. The estate had then become the absolute property of the man to whom it had been granted, and he could alienate it at his will. It was now enacted that he had but a life interest in it, that if his children were not living at his death, it reverted to the original grantor. Thus was established the power of entail. There remains one great statute to be mentioned, the Statute of Mortmain. This was aimed against the increasing power and wealth of the Church, and against a legal trick by which laymen had freed themselves from feudal liabilities. It had become a custom to give property to the Church and to receive it back as tenant of the Church, thus freed from obligation to lay superiors. At the same time, even though this device was not used, the accumulation of property in the hands of the Church withdrew it from many feudal duties. It passed, it was said, “in mortuam manum”—into a dead hand. All transactions by which lands or tenements could in any way pass into mortmain were now forbidden. The same spirit which produced these laws had been felt in the administration of justice, where the three courts of Exchequer, King’s Bench and Common Pleas were finally separated, and each provided with a full staff of officials. Even from this short sketch of the work of Edward I. may be gathered the great constitutional importance of the reign.

[EDWARD II.]
1307–1327.

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Note.—The names of the Justiciaries, who now became legal rather than political officers, are no longer given. Throughout, the names under the head of Spain are those of the Kings of Castile.

The reign of Edward II. affords the best apology for any excessive exertions of power which can be laid to the charge of Edward I. It is plain that there existed a readiness on the part of the nobles to take advantage of any weakness in the government of their ruler; on the part of the clergy to reclaim the liberties of their order; and of the lower classes to find a popular hero in every opponent of the government. It would seem indeed that there was no alternative between a strong and practically despotic government and anarchy. It was not till the feudal barons of England had had their fill of anarchy in the Wars of the Roses, and had destroyed themselves, that constitutional government, in our sense of the word, had a chance of existence, and our sympathies are constantly divided between the Church and barons, whose efforts alone promised freedom, and the power of the encroaching ruler, who alone ensured order. For the weakling who could secure neither one nor the other we can feel no sympathy. In the reign of Edward II. we feel as if we had fallen back again to the time of his grandfather. The great question at issue throughout is the same—Shall foreigners, or indeed any other king-chosen favourites, supersede the national oligarchy of great barons? The constant prominence of this question (which in the present reign was further embittered by the personal character of one at least of the favourites) renders it very difficult to distinguish the part played by real patriotic demands for good government and for constitutional limits to the royal power. It is pretty clear that the favourites were the chief cause of the disturbances of the reign; but, on the other hand, the evident advantages offered by some of the baronial claims, and the love of the populace, who ranked even Lancaster with its saints, compel us to believe that these turbulent disturbers of the peace were worthy of some sympathy.

[EDWARD II.]1307–1327.

[EDWARD II.]
1307–1327.