must be a marriage, and accordingly a marriage there was at St. Edmonds, while he himself was being besieged by the King at Merton and knew nothing of Richard de Clare. If this story be true, the marriage must have been solemnized as early as 1233. It is clear that the marriage question was being agitated before the date of the Provisions, probably while Richard de Clare was in the custody of De Burgh. There is also evidence that the King only heard of the marriage afterwards. He certainly felt very strongly on the subject. It may well be that he proposed at the Parliament at Merton a new law concerning wards; that his proposals were not approved at the time, but that he afterwards succeeded in getting the assent of his council to the clause, which is now considered to form part of the Provisions. It will be remembered that the clause, which deals with the time of limitation in writs of right and certain other writs, does not occur in the writ sent to the sheriffs ordering the new laws to be proclaimed: but that an order was given in the following year that it should be observed in Ireland as in England. The Statutes of the Realm contain a copy of this order, but they do not notice the fact that the whole clause is written on the Close Roll* of 21 Henry III. as a new piece of legislation. Now it is very significant that in the margin opposite to the enrolment the word approbatur is written. The Provisions as they are printed contain two clauses which relate to matters said to have been discussed at the Parliament, but not the subject of legislationspecial bastardy and trespasses in parks. No great effort is required for a belief that the clause which deals with the limitations in writs was also discussed at the Merton parliament; and that the discussion resulted in the ordinance on the subject in the following year. Perhaps the same * Close Roll 49, memb. 17, in dorso. council which approved this ordinance also approved the Provision relating to the unlawful marriage of wards under fourteen. The eighth clause of the Provisions of Merton had already been the subject of an ordinance. In the eighteenth year of the reign a parliament was held at Westminster; and its proceedings and the names of the bishops, earls, and barons who attended it are recorded on the coram rege rolls* for that year. Three ordinances were approved. The first was a bastardy ordinance which declared that when in any plea an exception was raised that the demandant was born before the marriage of his father and mother, the question, whether he was or was not so born, should be referred to the bishop. Pursuant to this ordinance a precedent of a writ was framed, which was directed to the bishop, and required him to answer the question specifically. The second and third ordinances of the same parliament relate to the assizes of darein presentment and juris utrum; and all three of them also occur in Bracton's Note Book. At this time the bishops felt strongly that children born before marriage ought to be as legitimate as those born afterwards. When, therefore, they were directed to make an inquisition pursuant to the ordinance, they objected to giving the specific answer required by it; and at the Merton parliament the law relating to such bastardy, which was called special bastardy, is stated to have been discussed. The bishops said that they would not and could not answer the question quia hoc esset contra communem formam ecclesiae; the barons that they would not change the laws of England quae usitatae sunt et approbatae. Matters remained afterwards as they were then. The bishops * The particular roll is one of those included in the rolls now called Curia Regis Rolls, 115. refused to answer the question, and the barons refused to amend the law. The position which these three ordinances occupy on the coram rege rolls leaves us in no doubt about their date. But if there could be any doubt, it would be dispelled by the fact that the precedent of the writ to be addressed to the bishop ordering him to make an inquisition of special bastardy is written on the Close Roll of the eighteenth year of the reign; and immediately above this precedent there is written one of the other ordinances which were made at the same time. Now Bracton, both in his treatise and his Note Book, appears to have inverted the order of events, and to have imagined that the ordinance of the eighteenth year was the result of the discussion of the twentieth year. The Note Book follows the enrolment on the coram rege rolls, but with some important variations. First, there are no dates. Secondly, the bastardy ordinance is introduced by a clause, which in substance combines the preamble to the Provisions of Merton, as printed in the Statutes of the Realm, with their eighth clause about the refusal of the barons to alter the law. Thirdly, the ordinance begins with the words, Postea uero alio die. In his treatise he gives dates. The introductory clause is dated on the same day as the Provisions of Merton, that is the morrow of St. Vincent; while the ordinance is dated on the same day as the ordinance on the coram rege rolls, but in the same year as the Provisions, that is, the twentieth instead of the eighteenth year of Henry III. In other respects the treatise and the Note Book agree. The story as told in the treatise must be inaccurate; for we have positive proofs that the bastardy ordinance was It is discussed fully in the introduction to the Note Book; but nothing is said of the ordinance relating to attorneys to be noticed presently. made in the eighteenth and not in the twentieth year of the reign. But the Note Book gives us no dates, and it is conceivable that it is, in substance, an accurate account of the sequence of events. It is possible that the baronial Nolumus was not uttered at the Merton parliament; it may, as Bracton states, have preceded the ordinance, and the ordinance may have been intended as a settlement of the dispute. One argument against this proposition is that there was no settlement; the bishops did not consent to answer the question to be referred to them under the ordinance. Another argument is a writ, dated 9th May, 1236, addressed to the Archbishop of Dublin and the Justiciar of Ireland. It states that in the preceding year it had been provided that such an issue should be settled by the bishops; that afterwards the bishops refused to determine the issue in the manner which had been provided; and that it was to be determined, in future, by the King's Courts. The writ is strong evidence that Bracton's story is false, both as regards dates and the sequence of events; and the learned Editor of his Note Book arrives at the conclusion that the Nolumus did in fact follow, and not precede, the ordinance. In spite of this, the evidence that the Nolumus clause belongs to the Provisions of Merton is not very strong. The Provision which follows that dealing with special bastardy is in these words : Provisum insuper quod quilibet liber homo qui sectam debet ad comitatum thrithingam hundredum et wapentachum vel ad curiam domini sui libere possit facere attornatum suum ad sectas illas pro eo faciendas. The writ to the sheriffs already mentioned says nothing about the appointment of attorneys There is no such clause in the Provisions of Merton as they are stated in the history of Mathew Paris, nor in the Annals of Burton, nor in either of the two* codices at the British Museum, which contain early transcripts of the Provisions of Merton. In point of fact there had already been legislation about attorneys and of the same nature. Early in the eighteenth year of Henry III., almost two years before the Merton. parliament, an ordinance issued from St. Edmunds, which treated the subject more fully. The instrument is enrolled upon the Close Rolls,† and there can be no possible doubt as to its date. Rex vicecomiti Kancie Salutem Scias quod per * That is Julius D., vij., and Harleian, 746. |