[522] Croke’s Reports, vol. iii., Trin. 4 Caroli, Rot. dcciv. case 7. Custom that copyholder for life may cut down trees pronounced “a void and unreasonable custom and not allowable by law. For it is the destruction of the inheritance and against the nature of a copyholder for life. But peradventure there may be such a custom for a copyholder of inheritance."
[523] Ibid., vol. iii., p. 198, case 8, Hill, 5 Car., Rot. 125: “The question was whether a lord of a mannor may assess two years and a half value of copyhold land according to racked rent for a fine upon surrender and admittance, and for non-payment enter for forfeiture. And all the Court conceived that one year and a half of rent improved is high enough; and the defendant assessing two years and a half it is unreasonable, and therefore the plaintiff might well refuse the payment thereof." Ibid., vol. i. p. 779, case 13, takes the rule that unreasonable fines need not be paid back to 1600 ("It was holden per curiam that if the lord demands an unreasonable fine of his coppyholder where the fine is uncertain, if he denies it, it is not any forfeiture of his copyhold"), but his judgment does not say how many years' rent is a reasonable fine. The Calendar of Chancery Proceedings, temp. Eliz., is full of petitions from tenants asking the court to declare fines excessive. The rule that a fine must not exceed two years' rent does not appear to have been accepted as binding till 1781 (Grant v. Ashe, Douglas Reports, 722–723). But it is plain from the cases cited above that by 1600 it was recognised that some fines were unreasonable, and by 1630 that a reasonable fine should not exceed one and a half years' rent. The fact that the Chancery intervened to protect the equitable interests of copyholders earlier than the Common Law Courts leads one to suspect that there must be earlier cases than these of the Courts declaring fines unreasonable. But I have not found them.
[524] Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. xix.
[525] Roxburghe Club, Surveys of Pembroke Manors. The twenty-one manors are as follows: Washerne, South Newton, North Ugford, Brudecombe, Foughlestone, Chalke, Albedeston, Chilmerke and Rugge, Staunton, Westoverton, Remesbury, Stockton, Dichampton, Berwick St. John, Wyley, North Newton, Byshopeston (all in Wilts), Donyett, Chedseye, South Brent (all in Somerset), and Paynton in Devonshire. Estates of inheritance are found at Byshopeston, and also fixed fines. At Paynton copies are granted for 4 lives or less. The common formula for fines runs: “Pro talibus finibus ut emptores et captores cum domino et officiariis suis concordare vel barganizare possunt tam de terra in possessione quam in reversione."
[526] MSS. Transcript in Wrexham Free Library by A.N. Palmer, of “The Presentment and Verdict for the Manor of Hewlington,” 1620 (in which the proceedings in the reign of Elizabeth are recorded), and “The Surveys of the Town and Liberty of Holt,” 1620. At Hewlington it is stated that the Crown Commissioners made an arrangement with the tenants “that if the said tenants would relinquish these said pretended estates, revive the said decayed rents, and pay two yeres Rent of the landes to the late Queen for a fine, that then the said tenants and their heirs and assignes should have leases granted them for fortie years, and so from fortie years to fortie years in perpetuity.” It is not expressly stated that the same arrangement was made at Holt, but it is to be inferred from the context that it was.
[527] Coke, The Complete Copyholder.
[528] Northumberland County History, vol. viii. p. 238.
[529] See below, pp. [305–306].
[530] Northumberland County History, vol. viii. pp. 238–239.
[531] Ibid. For conditions on the Crown estates under Elizabeth see S. P. D. Eliz., vol. xii. pp. 69–70: “Abstract of the Commission to the lord Chancellor ... for letting the queen’s lands and tenements in Northumberland within 20 miles of the border and in the seigniories of Middleham and Richmond, Yorkshire and Barnard Castle, Bishopric of Durham,” June 24, 1565.