Beyond the casual mention in his ‘remembrances[291]’ there is no precise record of Cromwell’s connexion with this important measure. It is worthy of note, however, that the attainments needed to plan and draft such a statute were precisely those which Cromwell possessed in the very highest degree--intimate knowledge of the law, and great shrewdness in finance. The bold and effective way in which the measure struck at the root of the evil, and caused the extra-legal practice which had grown up to become its own ruin, is very characteristic of him. Furthermore, Cromwell was certainly believed to be the originator of the measure by the rebels in the Pilgrimage of Grace, which was partially caused by it, and as such his death was demanded. It therefore seems highly probable that it was he who devised this scheme in order to deal the death blow to a very annoying practice of evading the law, and to enrich the royal treasury. The statute, however, was not entirely successful in attaining the ends at which it aimed, for by a strained interpretation of the letter of the Act, the courts managed to evade the spirit of it, so that it failed to do away with the old distinction between beneficial and legal ownership, which it had been intended to destroy. In addition to this, the popular outburst of indignation aroused by the Statute of Uses was so strong that a few months before Cromwell’s death he saw the actual right of at least partial testamentary disposition of landed property obtained by the people. The Act concerning the willing of land by testament[292], passed in the spring of 1540, gave to every tenant in fee simple the right to bequeath at his pleasure all lands which he held by socage tenure, and two-thirds of the lands which he held by knight-service. The force of usage was such that when the King and Cromwell attempted to abolish a practice, which had rendered the willing of land possible under another name, the actual right to bequeath landed property without circumventing the law was wrested from them.