estates do depend; and recites (inter alia) that divers lords of manors, and others, have used to grant estates [by copy of court-roll for one, two, or more life or lives, according to the custom of their several manors; and have also granted estates] by lease for one or more life or lives, or else for years determinable upon one or more life or lives; and provides that if such person for whose life any such estate shall be so granted, shall remain beyond the seas, or elsewhere absent himself in the realm, by the space of 7 years together, and no sufficient and evident proof be made of the life of such person, in any action commenced for the recovery of such tenements by the lessor or reversioner, his heirs or assigns, the judges before whom such action shall be brought, shall direct the jury to give their verdict as if the person so remaining beyond the seas, or otherwise absenting himself, were dead. And by s. 3. in any such action wherein the life or death of any such person shall come in question, between the lessor or reversioner and the tenant in possession, the lessor or reversioner may take exception to any of the jurors returned, that the greatest part of the real estate of any such juror is held by lease, [or copy,] for lives; who upon proof thereof shall be set aside as in case of other legal challenges. But it is provided, (s. 5.) that if any person shall be evicted out of any lands or tenements by virtue of this act, and afterwards such person upon whose life such estate depended, shall return from beyond the seas, or shall, on proof in any action to be brought for recovery of the same, be made appear to be living, or to have been living at the time of the eviction; then the tenant or lessee who was outed of the same, his executors, administrators, or assigns, may re-enter and enjoy the said lands, &c., in his former estate during the life or lives, or so long term as the said person, upon whose life the said estate depended, shall be living; and shall upon action to be brought by him against the lessor, reversioner, or tenant in possession, or other person, who since the said eviction received the profits of the said lands, &c., recover, for damages, the full profits of said lands, with lawful interest for and from the time that he was so kept out of said lands, lr. lands, &c., as well in the case when the person upon whose life such estate did depend shall be dead at the time of bringing said action, as if the said person were then living. The 7 W. 3. c. 8. Ir. is very nearly a trans- 7 W. 3. c. 3. cript of this English act; save that so much of the 19 Car. 2. as relates to copyhold tenants is omitted in the latter; and that the clause of the 7 W. 3. which corresponds in substance with the 2d section of the 19 Car. 2., is more concisely worded. $2. Land: II. As to tenants by the curtesy of England: By stat. de tenent. per legem Angliæ incert. temp.: When a man Tenants by the receives land with his wife in marriage, if he have of the cutesy of Engsame wife an heir, son or daughter, crying, heard within the four walls, if the husband survive the wife, whether the heir live or not, the marriage shall remain to the husband, and after his death revert to the donor or his heir. The ordinance of king Henry III. by which this species of estate, obtains in Ireland, may be here stated, not only as a very ancient and curious record, but as one in which, as Sir Martin Wright observes, the description of this estate is with greater authority, and much better expressed, than in Glanvil, which contains the oldest description of it extant. Henrici Rex, &c., Baronibus, And of Ireland. militibus, et aliis liberis tenentibus Lageniæ, salutem, &c. Satis ut credimus vestra audivit discretio, quod cum bonæ memorie Johannes, quondam rex Angliæ, pater noster, venit in Hiberniam, ipse duxit secum viros discretos ct legis peritos, quorum communi consilio, et ad instantiam Hiberniensium, statuit et precepit leges Anglicanas teneri in Hibernia, ita quod leges easdem in scripto redactas reliquit sub sigillo suo ad scaccar: Dublin. Cum igitur consuetudo et ler Angliæ fuerit, quod si aliquis desponsaverit aliquam mulierem, sive viduam, sive aliam hereditatem habentem, et ipse postmodum ex ea prolem suscitaverit, cujus clamor auditus fuerit intra quatuor parietes, idem vir, si supervixerit ipsam uxorem suam, habebit tota vita sua custodiam hæreditatis uxoris suæ, licet ea forte habuerit heredem de primo viro suo qui fuerit plenæ ætatis; vobis mandamus injungentes, quatenus in loquela que est in curia Willi, Com. Mares. inter Mauritium Fitz Gerald Petent, § 3. Petent. et Galfridum de Marisco nostrum Hiberniæ tenentem, vel in alia loquela quæ fuerit in casu prædicto, nullo modo justitiam in contrarium facere præsumatis. Teste rege apud Westm. 10 Decemb. anno 11°. regni nostri.** III. Next as to tenant in dewer: By the great charAssignment of ter 9 Hen. 3. c. 7. E. & I. a widow shall without diffi dower. 9 Hen. 3. c. 7. culty have her marriage and her inheritance, and shall E. & 1. E. & I. dower. give nothing for her dower, her marriage, or her inheritance, which her husband and she held the day of the death of her husband; and she shall tarry in the chief house of her husband 40 days; within which days her dower shall be assigned; and if the house be a castle, a convenient house shall be assigned her; and she shall have in the mean time her reasonable estovers; and for her dower shall be assigned the third part of all the lands of her husband, which were his during coverture; except she were endowed of less at the church door. But by Edw. 1. c. 7. the 6 Edw. 1. c. 7. E. & I. if a woman sell or give in fee, or for term of life, the land that she holdeth in Forfeiture of dower, the heir, or other to whom the land ought to revert after the death of such woman, shall have present recovery to demand the land by a writ of entry made 13 Edw. 1.st.1. thereof in chancery. And by the 13 Edw. I. st. 1. c. 34. c. 34. F. & I. È. & 1. if a wife willingly leave her husband and go away, and cóntinue with her adulterer, she shall be barred for ever of action to demand her dower, that she ought to have of her husband's lands, if she be convict thereupon, except that her husband willingly, and without coercion of the church, reconcile her, and suffer her to dwell with him; in which case she shall be restored to her action. The statutes which provide remedies for cases of deforcement of dower, as also those which relate to the forfeiture of dower in criminal cases, belong to other parts of this digest, and are therefore omitted in this place. Dozer barred by jointure. 27 Hen. 8. c. 10. s. 6. Eng. As to barring dower by jointures: the 27 Hen. 8. c. 10. s. 6. Eng. enacts, that where any estate or purchase shall be * I have transcribed this from Sir M. Hale's History of the Common Law, chap. 9. s. 7. be made of any lands, &c., to the husband and wife, and to the heirs of the husband, or to them and the heirs of their two bodies begotten, or to the heirs of one of their bodies begotten; or to the husband and wife for the term. of their lives, or for the life of the wife; or to any other person or persons, and to their heirs and assigns, to the use of the husband and wife, or to the use of the wife, as before rehearsed, for the jointure of the wife; in every such case, every woman married, having such jointure made, shall not have any dower of the residue of the lands, &c., that at any time were her said husband's, nor shall claim her dower against them that have the lands and inheritances of her said husband. But by s. 7. if any woman be lawfully expulsed or evicted from her said jointure, or from any part thereof, without fraud or covin, by lawful entry, action, or by discontinuance of her husband, then she shall be endowed of as much of the residue of her husband's lands, &c., whereof she was before dowable, as the lands, &c. so evicted shall amount to. And this act provides (s. 9.) that if any wife shall have any lands, &c., given and assured unto her after marriage, for term of her life, or otherwise in jointure, and the said wife over-live her said husband, she shall be at liberty, after his death, to refuse the lands, &c., so assured to her during coverture, except such assurance shall be made by act of Parliament, and thereupon to demand and take her dower, by writ of dower or otherwise, according to the common law, of and in all such lands, &c., as her husband stood seised of any estate of inheritance at any time during the coverture. The 10 Car. 1. 10 Car. 1. st. 2. c. 1. Ir. is the corresponding statute in Ireland. s. 9. st. 2. c. 1. Ir. CHAP. CHAP. V. Leap year. 51 Hen. 3. 24 Geo. 2. Alteration of the old stile. Of Estates less than Freehold. I SHALL follow Sir W. Blackstone in referring to this year 3t. 1. E. & 1. place the statutes respecting the computation of time, as connected with the duration of estates for years. By the statute de anno bissextili, 51 Hen. 3. st. 1. E. & I. it is enacted, that the day increasing, in the leap year shall be reckoned of the same month wherein it groweth; and that day and the next preceding day shall be accounted for one day. And for regulating the commencement of the year, and correcting the calendar, the 24 Geo. 2. c. 23. Eng. after reciting that the legal supputation of the by which the year used to commence on the 25th March, was attended with divers inconveniencies as differing from the usage of neighbouring nations, and from the method of computation in Scotland; and further reciting that the Julian calendar (then in use) was discovered to be erroneous, by means whereof the vernal or spring equinox, which at the time of the general council of Nice in the year 325, happened on or about the 21st day of March, now happens on the 9th or 10th day of the same month; and the said error, if not remedied, would in process of time occasion the several equinoxes and solstices to fall at very different times in the civil year from what they formerly did; therefore enacts, that throughout all the king's dominions in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, the supputation according to which the year beginneth on the 25th March shall be no longer used, and the 1st day of January next following the last day of December, 1751, shall be deemed the first day of the year 1752; and that each new year shall accordingly commence from the 1st day of every month of January next preceding the 25th day of March on which such year would accord |