ject before, or even after, it accrued; but now, by the statute 14 Ed. III. st. 4. c. iv. & v., the crown may, after the vacancy, lease the temporalities to the dean and chapter, saving to itself all advowsons, escheats, and the like. Our ancient kings, particularly William Rufus, were not only remarkable for keeping the bishoprics a long time vacant, for the sake of enjoying the temporalities, but also committed horrible waste on the woods and other parts of the estate; and, to crown all, would never, when the see was filled up, restore to the bishop his temporalities again, unless he purchased them at an exorbitant price. To remedy which king Henry I. granted a charter, at the beginning of his reign, promising neither to sell, nor let to farm, nor take any thing from the domains of the church till the successor was installed. And it was made one of the articles of the great charter (9 Hen. III. c. v.), that no waste should be committed in the temporalities of bishoprics, neither should the custody of them be sold. The same is ordained by the statute of Westminster the first (3 Edw. I. c. xxi.); and the statute 14 Ed. III. st. 4. c. iv. (which permits, as we have seen, a lease to the dean and chapter) is still more explicit in prohibiting the other exactions. It was also a frequent abuse, that the king would for trifling, or no causes, seize the temporalities of bishops, even during their lives, into his own hands; but this is guarded against by statute 1 Ed. III. st. 2. c. ii.

"This revenue of the queen, which was formerly very considerable, is now, by a customary indulgence, almost reduced to nothing; for at present, as soon as the new bishop is consecrated and confirmed, he usually receives the restitution of his temporalities quite entire and untouched from the crown, and at the same time does homage to his sovereign; and then, and not sooner, he

has a fee simple in his bishopric, and may maintain any action for the profits."1

II. "The queen is entitled to a corody, as the law calls it, out of every bishopric, that is, to send one of her chaplains to be maintained by the bishop, or to have a pension allowed him till the bishop promotes him to a benefice. This is, also, in the nature of an acknowledgment to the queen as founder of the see, since her predecessors had formerly the same corody or pension from every abbey or priory of royal foundation. It is now fallen into total disuse; though Sir Matthew Hale says that it is due of common right, and that no prescription will discharge it."

III. "The queen also is entitled to all the tithes arising in extra-parochial places: though, perhaps, it may be doubted how far this article, as well as the last, can be properly reckoned a part of the queen's royal revenue, since a corody supports only her chaplain, and these extraparochial tithes are held under an implied trust that the queen will distribute them for the good of the clergy in general."

IV. "The next branch consists in the first-fruits and tenths of all spiritual preferments in the kingdom; both of which we shall consider together.

"These were originally a part of the papal usurpations over the clergy of this kingdom, first introduced by Pandulph, the pope's legate, during the reigns of king John and Henry III., in the see of Norwich, and afterwards attempted to be made universal by popes Clement V. and John XXII., about the beginning of the fourteenth century." The first-fruits, primitiæ or annates, were the first 2 Fitzherb. Nat. Brev. 230.

1 Co. Litt. 67, 341.

3 Notes on Fitz. Nat. Brev. above cited.

4 2 Inst. 647.

year's whole profits of the spiritual preferment, according to a rate or valor made on the occasion of pope Innocent IV. giving the first-fruits and tenths to king Henry III. for three years, and which is sometimes called pope Innocent's valor, or the Norwich taxation, because it was made by Walter bishop of Norwich under a papal commission. In 1288 pope Nicholas IV. granted the tenths to Ed. I. for six years, towards defraying the expense of a crusade ; and, that they might be collected to their full value, a taxation, by the king's precept, was begun in that year, and finished in the province of Canterbury in 1291, and in that of York in the following year; the whole being under the direction of John bishop of Winchester, and Oliver bishop of Lincoln.

A third taxation, entitled nova taxatio, as to some part of the province of York, was made A.D. 1318 (11 Ed. II.), by virtue of a royal mandate directed to the bishop of Carlisle, chiefly on account of the invasion of the Scots, by which the clergy of those border counties were rendered unable to pay the former tax. The taxation of pope Nicholas, which is still preserved in the exchequer, is a most important record, because all the taxes, as well to our kings as to the popes, were regulated by it until the survey made in the 26th Henry VIII., and because the statutes of colleges which were founded before the reformation are also interpreted by this criterion.1

A variety of acts were passed to prevent and restrain the payment of these impositions to the pope, particularly the stat. 6 Hen. IV. c. i., which calls it "a horrible mischief, and damnable custom;" and it was thought proper,

1 See note by Mr. Justice Coleridge to this part of the Commentaries; where he corrects certain errors of Blackstone. And see Report of Commiss. on Public Records, 1812; App. l. i. p. 146; Fitz. Nat. Brev. 176; 3 Inst. 154; Nicholason, Publ. Rec. p. 84.

when the papal power was abolished by law, and the king was declared the head of the Church of England, to annex that revenue to the crown. This was accordingly done by statute 26 Henry VIII. c. iii. (confirmed by stat. 1 Eliz. c. iv.); and a new valor beneficiorum was then made, by which the clergy are at present rated.

"By these last-mentioned statutes, all vicarages under ten pounds a year, and all rectories under ten marks, are discharged from the payment of first-fruits; and if, in such livings as continue chargeable with this payment, the incumbent lives but half a year, he shall pay only one quarter of his first-fruits; if but one whole year, then half of them; if a year and a half, three quarters; and if two years, then the whole; and not otherwise. Likewise, by the stat. 27 Hen. VIII. c. viii., no tenths are to be paid for the first year, for then the first-fruits are due; and by other statutes of queen Anne, in the fifth and sixth years of her reign, if a benefice be under fifty pounds per annum clear yearly value, it shall be discharged of the payment of first-fruits and tenths."

The piety of queen Anne restored to the church what had been indirectly taken from it. "This she did, not by remitting the first-fruits and tenths entirely; but in a spirit of the truest equity, by applying these superfluities of the larger benefices to make up the deficiencies of the smaller. And to this end she granted her royal charter, which was confirmed by stat. 2 and 3 Anne, c. ii., whereby all the revenue of first-fruits and tenths is vested in trustees for ever, to form a perpetual fund for the augmentation of poor livings. This is usually called Queen Anne's bounty, which has been further regulated by subsequent statutes."1

3

15 Anne, c. xxiv.; 6 Anne, c. xxvii.; 1 Geo. I. st. 2. c. x. ; Geo. I. c. x. And see Burn, Eccles. Law, vol. ii. p. 260-268. See

V. "The next branch of the queen's ordinary revenue (which, as well as the subsequent branches, is of a lay or temporal nature), consists in the rents and profits of the demesne lands of the crown. These demesne lands, terræ dominicales regis, being either the share reserved to the crown at the original distribution of landed property, or such as came to it afterwards by forfeitures or other means, were anciently very large and extensive, comprising many manors, honours, and lordships. The tenants of the royal demesnes anciently enjoyed certain privileges: and thence arose the tenure called ancient demesne, to which those estates are subject, which were in the hands of king Edward the Confessor, and afterwards in those of William the Conqueror, and are mentioned in William's survey of the kingdom, commonly called Domesday-book, as terræ regis. That record is the only evidence received by the courts to prove that land is of ancient demesne.1 The crown lands are at present contracted within a very narrow compass, having been almost entirely granted away to private subjects. This has occasioned the parliament frequently to interpose; and, particularly after king William III. had greatly impoverished the crown, an act passed,2 whereby all future grants from the crown for any longer term than thirty-one years, or three lives, are declared void; except with regard to houses, which may be granted for fifty years. And no reversionary lease can be made, so as to exceed, together with the estate in being, the same term of three lives and thirty-one years: that is, when there is a subsisting lease, of which there are twenty years still to come, the queen cannot also stat. 1 Vict. c. xx. An act for the consolidation of the offices of first-fruits, tenths, and queen Anne's bounty.

1 Cruise, Dig. vol. i. c. iii. § 30, &c. Case of Town of Leicester, 2 Leon. 191. 4 Inst. 269, 270.

2 Stat. 1 Anne, st. i. c. vii.