"That the Court of Ward and Liveries, primer seizin, etc., and all fines for alienation, tenures by knight's service, and tenures in capite, be done away with and turned into fee and common socage, and discharged of homage, escuage, aids, and reliefs. All future tenures created by the king to be in free and common socage, reserving rents to the Crown and also fines on alienation. It enables fathers to dispose of their children's share during their minority, and gives the custody of the personal estate to the guardians of such child, and imposes in lieu of the revenues raised in the Court of Ward and Liveries, duties upon beer and ale." The land was relieved of its legitimate charge, and a tax on beer and ale imposed instead! the landlords were relieved at the expense of the people. The statute which accomplished this change is described by Blackstone as "A greater acquisition to the civil property of this kingdom than even Magna Charta itself, since that only pruned the luxuriances that had grown out of military tenures, and thereby preserved them in vigor; but the statute of King Charles extirpated the whole, and demolished both root and branches." The efforts of James II. to rule contrary to the wish of the nation, led to his expulsion from the throne, and showed that, in case of future disputes as to the succession, the army, like the Praetorian Guards of Rome, had the election of the monarch. The Red and White Roses of the Plantagenets reappeared under the altered names of Whig and Tory; but it was proved that the decision of a leading soldier like the Duke of Marlborough would decide the army, and that it would govern the nation; fortunately the decision was a wise one, and was ratified by Parliament: thus FORCE governed LAW, and the decision of the ARMY influenced the SENATE. William III. succeeded, AS AN ELECTED MONARCH, under the Bill of Rights. This remarkable document contains no provision, securing the tenants-in-fee in their estates; and I have not met with any treatise dealing with the legal effects of the eviction of James II. All patents were covenants between the king and his heirs, and the patentees and their heirs. The expulsion of the sovereign virtually destroyed the title; and an elected king, who did not succeed as heir, was not bound by the patents of his predecessors, nor was William asked, by the Bill of Rights, to recognize any of the existing titles. This anomalous state of things was met in degree by the statute of prescriptions, but even this did not entirely cure the defect in the titles to the principal estates in the Kingdom. The English tenants in decapitating one landlord and expelling another, appear to have destroyed their titles, and then endeavored to renew them by prescriptive right; but I shall not pursue this topic further, though it may have a very definite bearing upon the question of landholding.