As to the proceedings which are to be resorted to, in case the Lord should not obey this Summons, and the means by which he shall be distrained to appear in Court, they may be collected from the former part of this Treatise. When, at last, he appears in Court, he will either acknowledge that the Tenant is the right Heir, or deny that he is the Heir, or he will doubt, whether he is the right Heir or not. If he should acknowledge him to be the Heir, he will, then, either deny that the Tenant has tendered him the Homage and reasonable Relief, or he will admit it. If he confess both the one and the other, he shall either immediately receive the Tenant’s Homage and reasonable Relief in Court, or he shall appoint him a fit day for doing it. The same observation may be made, although he deny that the Tenant has proffered to him his Homage or Relief, provided he admit the Tenant to be the Heir. But if in decided terms he denies the Tenant to be the Heir, then, indeed, may the latter, if out of possession, require against his Lord an Assise _de morte Antecessoris sui_. Should the Tenant, however, happen to be in possession, he may hold himself in it, and patiently await, until it pleases his Lord to accept his Homage; because, no one is previously bound to answer his Lord as to the Relief, until the latter has received his Homage for the Fee, on account of which Homage is due to him. But if the Lord doubts, whether the person tendering the Homage be the right Heir or not,[352] being for example unknown to the Lord himself, or even to the Vicinage in the character of Heir, then the Lord of the Fee may take the Land into his own hands, and retain it, until the point be fully cleared up, a course of proceeding, which the King generally adopts with respect to all his Barons holding of him _in Capite_. [Footnote 352: Fleta tells us, that an examination ought to precede the Homage, in order to ascertain, whether the person offering himself, was the natural Son of the man to whom he made himself Heir, both with respect to the right of possession, and of propriety &c. &c. that the Lord might not inadvertently be deceived. (L. 3. c. 16. s. 23. 24.)]