However the two last particulars, in which Lord Coke differs from Lord Hale, still remain, to which Rolle adds these further circumstances: namely,—that the _husband languished of a fever a long time before his death_;—that on the taking of an inquisition afterwards in the court of a lord, of whom he held lands by knight’s service, _the wife swore she was not pregnant_, and to prove it uncovered herself in open court;—and that, in consequence of all this, the lord received a _collateral_ relation as heir. The words describing the wife’s exposure of her person are remarkable; for the record states, that she, being interrogated, _juramento asserebat, se non esse prægnantem; et, ut hoc omnibus manifestè liqueret, vestes suas ad tunicam exuebat, et in plená curiá sic se videri permisit_. 1 Ro. Abr. 356. pl. 3. and 18 E. 1. rot. 13. in B. R. there cited. It reflects great discredit, on the lord’s court, which permitted such a gross indecency; and still more on the king’s judges, who suffered it to be recorded as one of the grounds for a verdict before them. How laudably contrariant is the proceeding on the writ _de ventre inspiciendo_? This remedy for the heir against the pretence of pregnancy, so well known to be of earlier date than the reign of Edward the first, as it was framed in the times of Bracton, Britton, and Fleta, delicately requires the widow to be inspected by a jury _of her own sex_; and though in subsequent times the sheriff was ordered to summon a jury composed both of men and women, yet still the _search_ was to be made by the latter only. Bract. 69. a. Brit. 165. b. Flet. lib 1. c. 15. Reg. Br. Orig. 227. a. What harsh ideas of the times might we be led to adopt, if the early introduction of the writ _de ventre inspiciendo_ did not demonstrate, that the unseemly record we are observing upon was a _singularity_, and so many other testimonies of a more advanced refinement in judicial proceedings did not concur to rescue the age of our English Justinian from the suspicion of a _general practice_ of such barbarism!