Let us then suppose the record to be as it is in Rolle; which is the more probable to be the truth, because a contemporary judge, who reports its having been _produced_ on a trial of legitimacy, represents it much in the same way. Cro. Jam. 541. But still it will not warrant Lord Coke’s inferring from it, that _forty weeks_ constitute the latest time the law allows for a woman’s going with child. On the contrary, no particular time being mentioned, what period was meant, must be found out through some other _medium_; and as the record states _other_ unfavourable circumstances besides the excess of time, and that the _jury presumed_ against the child’s being the issue of the deceased husband, it seems fair to suppose, that the law was understood, not to be so strict in the time alluded to, whatever that time might be, as indiscriminately to condemn as illegitimate all children not born within it, but rather to consider every excess, unless very extraordinary indeed, as only raising a presumption against them. This construction is clearly most consistent with the terms of the record in question. In the next note we shall attempt to satisfy the reader, that the rule resulting from it is most conformable to other precedents and authorities, as well as to the reason of the thing. After the case of Radwell from the Record of E. 1. Lord Hale thus gives the four following cases. “Rot. Parl. 9 E. 2. M. 4. Gilbert de Clare comes Glouc. obiit 30 Junii 7 E. 2. In parliamento tent. quindena Hil. 9 E. 2. _the sisters and coheirs pray livery. Matilda_, quæ fuit uxor comitis, _pretends to be big by the earl, which was accordingly found_ per inquisitionem. _The coheirs reply, that_, si comitissa prægnans esset, tantum tempus elapsum est, ut secundum cursum pariendi non potest dici imprægnari a comite. _Yet they could not obtain livery till_ Pasch. 10 E. 2. _but the question hung in deliberation_. “Note 18 R. 2. _where a woman in such a case immediately after the death of the first husband took a second husband, and had issue born forty weeks and eleven days after the death of the first husband, and it was held to be the issue of the second husband_. “M. 17. Jac. B. R. _Alsop and Stacey. Andrews dies of the plague. His wife, who was a lewd woman, is delivered of a child forty weeks and ten days after the death of the husband. Yet the child was adjudged legitimate and heir to Andrews; for_ partus potest protrahi _ten days_ ex accidente.