In this suit also no one is admissible to prove the Accusation, unless he be allied in blood to the deceased,[514] or be connected with him by the tie of Homage, or Dominion, so that he can speak of the death upon the testimony of his own sight. It should also be added, that a Woman[515] is heard in this suit, accusing any one of her Husband’s death,[516] if she speak as being an Eye-witness[517] to the fact, because Husband and Wife are one flesh. And a Woman is generally admitted to be heard, accusing any one of having committed an injury upon her person, as will be presently shewn. It is at the election of the accused either to abide by the Woman’s proof, or to purge himself by the Ordeal, from the crime imputed to him. A person accused of Homicide is sometimes compelled to undergo the legal Purgation, if he was taken in flight by a Crowd pursuing him, and this be regularly proved in Court by a Jury of the County. [Footnote 514: Vide Co. Litt. 25. a.] [Footnote 515: “And yet not of all the wives, but of her only who lieth between his arms, which is as much as to say, in whose seisin he was murdered; for if he had many wives, and all were alive at the time of his murder, nevertheless she only is admitted to bring the appeal of all the rest, whom he last took to wife; and the reason thereof is, because it belongeth not to the Temporal Court to try who was his wife of right, and which, in fact, and the appeals of all others are to be suspended, pendant the same appeal brought” (Mirror c. 2. s. 7. See also Bracton 125. a. Fleta L. 1. c. 35. and 2 Inst. 316.)] [Footnote 516: Lord Coke, in two instances, cites the present chapter of Glanville as one of the authorities on which he founds his assertion, that previously to the Great Charter a woman, as well as a man, might have had an appeal of the death _of any of her Ancestors_. (Co. Litt. 25. b. and 2 Inst. 68.) It is impossible to conceive how Glanville corroborates this bold position. He is a very strong authority for the contrary doctrine, and excludes expressly in this chapter and by relation in the first chapter of the present Book, a woman’s right of appeal in every instance, except that of the death of her Husband, and that of a personal injury. _Bracton_ also in the most decided language confines a woman’s right of appeal to these two instances. (fo. 125, and 148.) Great as Lord Coke is, his deductions and citations from the more ancient writers are not by any means implicitly to be relied upon. His name has thrown a lustre over many an error. Nothing would be more easy than to adduce innumerable instances in support of the truth of this assertion.] [Footnote 517: For it was a good ground of defence, that the Plaintiff was not present at the time when the mortal blow was given. (Vide 2 Inst. 316.)] CHAP. IV. The Crime of Burning[518] is proceeded upon, discussed and terminated, under the form and order we have described.