king by knight's service was bound, if so required by the king, to serve him personally in arms, with the knights for the fees he held, for forty days in every year.

On three occasions of extraordinary expense, the king's tenants-in-chief were bound to give an AID, AUXILIUM to the king: First, when the king made his eldest son a knight; secondly, when he married out his eldest daughter; and, lastly, should he be captive, to ransom his person. These auxilia were assessed upon the fee; and, except on the three occasions before mentioned, the king had no right to put his hand upon the purse of a military tenant.

The incidents and casualties of the feudal tenure were, principally, as follows: On the death of a tenant-in-chief, in capite, the king came in to ward off intruders until the heir appeared to claim the lands and do homage to him as lord; and, in return for this, had a right to a year's profits of the lands, which was termed Primer seisin. Where the heir was a minor, under twenty-one years of age, and therefore incapable legally of performing knight service to the king, the king kept his person in ward, maintaining, educating, and training him to arms, and kept his lands in possession, providing out of the profits a person capable of performing the services due from the minor for the lands.

Where the infant was an heiress, the king might select a husband for her, and give her away in marriage to a person of suitable position willing and able to do knight service to the king. This right was subsequently much abused. Royal wards were given to

favourites of the king, or were sold for money. The maritigium, or right of bestowal in marriage, came to be considered of direct money value, and if the infant declined a proffered marriage, or married without the king's consent, she or he (for the maritigium was subsequently extended to males-sive sit masculus, sive fœmina,' as Bracton says) forfeited to the king duplicem valorem maritigii, double the value of the marriage.

The following are extracts from the Exchequer Rolls in illustration of the revenue from fines for permission to marry or for excuse from marriage: Walter de Caucey gives 15l. for leave to marry when and whom he pleases; Wiverone of Ipswich, 4l. and a mark of silver, that she may not be married, except to her own good liking, ne capiat virum nisi quem voluerit;' and so, upon the like occasion,' Albreda Sansaver, Alice de Heriz and many others, men and women, make fine.1 Perhaps the highest priced ward on the Rolls is Isabell, countess of Gloucester, for whom, with all her lands and knight's fees, Geoffrey de Mandevill gave to king Henry III. 20,000 marks.2

The heir, at the age of twenty-one, and the heiress, originally at the age of fourteen, but subsequently at the age of eighteen, sued out his or her livery or ousterlemain (take the hand off), and obtained release from royal protection and control. For this they paid to the king a fine of half a year's value of their lands.

If a tenant died without heirs or made default in performance of due service to the king, his lands escheated that is, reverted or returned to the king as 2 Ibid. p. 322.

1 Madox, Hist. Exch. p. 320.

paramount lord. And on his attainder for treason, his lands were forfeited to the king.

On the alienation of lands, a fine was paid to the king; and on taking up the inheritance of lands, a relief. The relief originally consisted of arms, armour and horses, and was arbitrary in amount, but was subsequently ascertained,' that is, rendered certain, by the Conqueror, and fixed at a certain quantity of arms and habiliments of war. After the assize of arms of Henry II., it was commuted for a money payment of 100s. for every knight's fee, and as thus fixed continued to be payable ever afterwards.

The king as lord paramount had also a right to the following: Waifs, bona waviata-goods stolen and thrown away by the thief in his flight; estrays' -valuable animals found wandering in a manor, the owner being unknown, after due proclamation made in the parish church and two market towns next adjoining to the place where they were found; wreck of the sea; whales and great sturgeons, which were considered to be royal fish by reason of their excellence;1 bona vacantia-property for which there was no owner; and treasure trove, that is to say, money, coin, gold, silver plate or bullion found hidden in the earth or other private place, the owner thereof being unknown. In the absence of any better claim, the king took the waif, the estray, and the goods or treasure without an owner.

1 See 17 Edward II. stat. 1, c. xi. The men of Roger de Poles were amerced, tem. Henry II., 'quia injuste saisiaverunt se de crasso pisce,' because they took a royal fish. The town of Haltebarge paid two marks for a royal fish, which they took without license and concealed.-Madox, Hist. Exch. pp. 349, 381.

He had also the custody of lands of 'natural fools, taking the profits without waste or destruction' and finding them their necessaries.

Other sources of revenue springing from the king's prerogative or his right to the demesne existed inGrants of liberties and charters to towns and guilds; compositions for tallage, a head which strictly falls within the revenue from demesne; and grants to individuals of markets, fairs, parks and monopolies.

For instance, the Londoners fined, in the fifth year of Stephen's reign, a hundred marks of silver that they might have sheriffs of their own choosing; the burgesses of Bedford fined, in the thirteenth year of Henry II., in forty marks to have the same liberties as the burgesses of Oxford had; the burgesses of Bruges fined in twenty marks to have their town at ferm, &c., &c. ; the citizens of Hereford fined, in the second year of Henry III., in a hundred marks and two palfreys, to have the king's charter that they might hold the city of Hereford at ferm of the king and his heirs to them and their heirs for ever for 40l. to be yielded at the exchequer, and that they might for ever have a merchant guild, with a hanse and other liberties and customs thereto belonging, and that they might be quit throughout England of toll and lastage, of passage, pontage and stallage, and of leve, and danegeld, and gaywite, and all other customs and exactions. And, in the same year, the citizens of Lincoln fined in two hundred marks, that they might not be tallaged that time in the tallage which was laid upon the king's demesnes, and that they might have their town in ferm

that year as they had in the time of king John, the father of the king, and that for the same year they might be quit of the XL. increment of the ferm of their town ('de cremento firmae villae suae'). The burgesses of York fined two hundred marks for their liberties. The fullers of Winchester gave ten marks for the king's charter of confirmation of their liberties. They also paid a yearly rent, as did the guilds in several towns: the weavers and bakers of London, the weavers of Oxford, Nottingham, York, Huntingdon and Lincoln, and others. The vintners of Hereford fined forty shillings to have the king's grant that a sextertium of wine might be sold for tenpence in Hereford for the space of a year.

The bishop of Salisbury and the abbot of Burton gave palfreys that they might have respectively market and a fair until the king's full age. Roger Bertram gave ten marks that his fair at Mudford, which lasted four days, might last eight days. Peter de Goldington gave one hawk for leave to enclose certain land part of his wood of Stokes, to make a park of it; and Peter de Perariis gave twenty marks for leave to salt fishes as Peter Chivalier used to do.1

The Exchequer Rolls abound in records of payments made to the king to have right done, or for expedition of justice, and counter-payments by defendants to have writs denied or proceedings delayed or stayed. It was against practices such as these that the clause in Magna Carta was aimed, which declares :- Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus, aut differemus rectum

1 Madox, Hist. Exch. cases quoted from the Rolls.