It had cognizance of all Escheats, Novels Tabulate and Malprisions Reguardaunt in the County of Ponthieu and the Seniory of Lucq. But when active jurisdiction over these continental territories was interrupted under King Henry VI., there remained no function for the Court but the trial of cases arising in or without foreign ports upon decks subject to the Crown of England. It lingered thus into the beginning of the sixteenth century, at which moment it was reduced to a Clerk known as the _Mangeur_, and a Warden, each holding what were virtually sinecures (and not highly paid sinecures at that) about the Palace. Henry VIII., whom we cannot call a good but whom surely we may call a great man, rudely suppressed the office of Mangeur with a cruel jest at the executioner’s expense, and only permitted the Wardenship itself to survive on the strict understanding that the salary should be paid to himself. The title, however, remained, a minor distinction among the numerous baubles of the time, and was, if I may so express it, resurrected from obscurity by the great family of Heygate at the moment of the Restoration of Charles II. In their gladness at their recovery of a legitimate sovereign, this dominant house (now represented by the Parrells) trapped themselves in every accoutrement of joy, and, among other posts, the Wardenship of the Court of Dowry was voted in 1661 an annual salary of £2000, for which sum held by the same Act as an hereditary right, the head of the House of Heygate was content to license the annual holding of the Court within the Royal Manor and Liberties of Tooting. At first this Court sat for one full day in each year--St. Luke’s--but later, from 1731, this session was maintained in fiction alone. A crier in Westminster Hall, at the opening of every Hilary Term, would rapidly read out a list of three fictitious cases which went by default, claim seventeen and sixpence, and for ever after hold his peace. During the eighteenth century the fixed yearly salary of £2000 hereditarily enjoyed by the Heygate family steadily grew, till, by the time of the Reform Bill, it had reached the very considerable sum of £15,000, still payable to the Heygates though now all vestige of activity in the office had disappeared. Our grandfathers, in the zeal of that somewhat iconoclastic moment, swept away the corrupt figment. The emoluments of the post were ruthlessly cut down to the original £2000; its hereditary character was, after a violent debate in the House of Lords, destroyed by a majority of over fifty votes, determined (as were so many of the great changes of that time!) by the voice of Eldon. The Detainer of the office (for such was his official title) received in compensation a lump sum of half a million only--not twenty years’ purchase--and certain apparently unimportant functions were attached to the place which from that day forward became an appointment changing with the Administration.