Royal estate

“ I say that of all the tyrannies of Europe, I know of none like that newspaper. Why, sir, whose station, I would ask, nowadays, can exempt him from its impertinent criticisms? Can Keldrum say—can I say—that to-morrow or next day we shall not be arraigned for this, that, or t'other? I choose, for instance, to manage my estate,—the property that has been in my family for centuries,—the acres that have descended to us by grants as old as Magna Charta. I desire, for reasons that seem sufficient to myself, to convert arable into grass land. ”

“ You will pass in your journeys many a fine park and noble palace going to decay through the fines and alienations which have fallen upon them, and you will thus see for yourself how truly it has been lately written, that ‘an estate is but a pond, but trade a spring;’ for you will also come upon fair houses, whose owners’ names were unknown before the late Civil Wars, and you will find them flourishing by means of trade, honourably carried on from father to son, whereby not only wealth, but titles too have been won for this generation, and which promise to last for many yet to come. ”

“ The three estates of the realm are the estate of the Lords Spiritual, the estate of the Lords Temporal, and the estate of the Commons. An estate is a popular class established into a political order. It is a section of the nation invested for the public and common good with certain powers and privileges. Lord John Russell first writes upon the English constitution, and then reforms it, and yet, even at this moment, is absolutely ignorant of what it consists. A political estate is a complete and independent body. Now, all power that is independent is necessarily irresponsible. ”

“ But a great nobleman, who had an estate of fifteen or twenty thousand pounds a year, and who commanded two or three boroughs, would no longer be able to put his younger son, his younger brother, his man of business, into Parliament, or to earn a garter or a step in the peerage by finding a seat for a Lord of the Treasury or an Attorney General. ”

“ When the Crown, originally elective, became hereditary, the barons sought to have their possessions governed by the same rule, to remove them from the class of TERRAREGIS (FOLC-LAND) , and to convert them into chartered land. Being gifts from the monarch, he had the right to direct the descent, and all charters which gave land to a man and his heirs, made each of them only a tenant for life; the possessor was bound to hand over the estate undivided to the heir, and he could neither give, sell, nor bequeath it. ”

“ The taking possession of a great estate, and the first assuming of the responsibilities attached to it, are no small events, and bring upon the man left sole heir numberless new duties, therefore the new Duke had many occupations to attend to—much counselling with his legal advisers, many interviews with stewards, bailiffs, and holders of his lands, visits to one estate after another, and converse with the reverend gentlemen who were the spiritual directors of his people. ”

“ In every nation that accepted the reformation the feudal monarchy was retained, and still subsists. The crown in them all is an estate, as in England, and in some of them is, in fact, the only estate recognized by the constitution. ”

“ But yet there is not any thing amongst civil affairs more subject to error, than the right valuation and true judgment concerning the power and forces of an estate. The kingdom of heaven is compared, not to any great kernel or nut, but to a grain of mustard-seed: which is one of the least grains, but hath in it a property and spirit hastily to get up and spread. ”

“ But this statute of entails put a stop to the progress that course of things were in; estates became unalienable, and indivisible. The property of no lord could lessen; and if it happened, as it frequently did, that they acquired, either by descent or marriage, or the purchase of an estate not tied up, a new entail connected it inseparately with the old one; and thus the lords, towards the end of the Plantagenet line, grew up to such a pitch of power, as was dangerous to the constitution, and when they were divided into the factions of the York and Lancaster, deluged the land with blood. ”

“ In like manner for our properties, our estates, inheritance, lands, goods, lives, liberties, &c. These are effectually secured by laws of the land, and the sovereign in this country, having no right, but by law, to any part of the subject's estate, causes that estate to be called PROPERTY. The kings and queens of Britain are monarchs limited to act by the laws. When they cease to rule by law, the constitution is broken, and they become tyrants, and arbitrary, despotic invaders of right. ”

“ Besides the public revenue, which an absolute monarch might levy and expend according to his pleasure, the emperors, in the capacity of opulent citizens, possessed a very extensive property, which was administered by the count or treasurer of the private estate. ”

“ The Prince for the Publick Good has a Sovereign Property in every Private Person's Estate, and consequently his Riches must encrease or decrease in proportion to the Number and Riches of his Subjects. ”

“ But the king told him: "You shall have my daughter and my estate."
So he married the princess, and afterwards got the king's estate. Then his step-father came and wanted to own him, but the young king didn't know such a man. ”

“ Every man therefore, absolute master of his estate, having a right to give it on what terms he pleased, they began, not as before, to give lands to a man and his heirs in general, for that would have given an absolute dominion, but to heirs limited, as to the heirs of his body, or to the heirs male of his body, or to the heirs of his body by such a woman. ”

“ Such was the estate, and such the man who founded and enjoyed it sixty years ago; and many an equal estate, founded and occupied by equally valuable men, then existed, and still exist in all our older states; and if our private and public virtues are preserved, will ever exist in every state of our union. ”

“ Long terms in some states have annexed to them the properties of freehold estates. In some states estates pur autre vie descend like real property; in others an estate pur autre vie is deemed freehold only during the life of the grantee ”

“ I suppose, now, a large estate may turn out a fortunate or unfortunate legacy accordingly as you use it; but if your legacy is only the knowledge that the estate ought to be yours, and isn't, that is a fine set of circumstances! ”

“ There are also (no doubt) counsellors and governors which may be held sufficient (negotiis pares) , [4] able to manage affairs, and to keep them from precipices and manifest inconveniences; which nevertheless are far from the ability to raise and amplify an estate in power, means, and fortune. But be the workmen what they may be, let us speak of the work; that is, the true Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates, and the means thereof. An argument [5] fit for great and mighty princes to have in their hand ”

“ To give to my eldest son Arthur, Marquis of Douro, and the heirs male of his body the use of the House in Piccadilly, of the furniture thereto belonging, and to pay him and the heirs male of his body the annual interest which may be received for such money in the funds in Exchequer Bills or wherever it may be and the rent arising from any estate which the trustees may think proper to purchase with the said money. ”

“ Men of estate studied the public good, and gave examples of true piety, loyalty, justice, sobriety, charity; and the good of the neighborhood composed most differences. Laws were reasons, not craft; men's estates were secure: they served their generation with honor, left patrimonial estates improved to a hopeful heir, who, passing from the free school to the college, and thence to Inns of Court, acquainting himself with a competent tincture of the laws of his country, followed the example of his worthy ancestors. ”

“ Estate after estate was sold for several generations, till, at last, my father found himself the heir to a half-ruined castle on the borders of the ocean, and a few thousand acres of unproductive land in the same neighbourhood. My mother, who is now a saint in heaven, was as much so as a mortal can be when on earth ”

“ But if a man grant an estate in fee-simple, reserving to himself and his heirs a certain rent; and that, if such rent be not paid at the times limited, it shall be lawful for him and his heirs to re-enter, and avoid the estate ”

“ So that if you give your estate by will unequally among your children, as they may have behaved more or less dutiful to you, that which has the least may take the other's part from him; or another relation may possibly hire such another mob, to take away the whole from them. We shall not at such times see property determined by judge and jury, but by force of arms; and the richest and most powerful man will be able to swallow up all the estates of his lesser neighbours. ”

“ It was ordained by the charter that, if the heir be a minor, he shall, immediately upon his majority, enter upon his estate, without paying any relief: the king shall not sell his wardship; he shall levy only reasonable profits upon the estate, without committing waste, or hurting the property: he shall uphold the castles, houses, mills, parks, and ponds, and if he commit the guardianship of the estate to the sheriff or any other, he shall previously oblige them to find surety to the same purpose. ”

“ All three of the estates of the realm—clergy, nobility, and third estate—each sent an equal number of representatives, who were expected to consider not the interests of the nation but the special interests of the particular social class to which they respectively belonged. ”

“ If a lord had given his villein any certain estate, it was, as I before observed, an absolute manumission for ever. But some lords, either in reward for services done, or out of bounty, gave many of those underling tenants, if not an absolute right to their holdings, at least, a fair claim and title to a permanent estate, which, in honour, the lord or his heirs could not defeat, and yet kept them in a particular kind of dependance, between freedom and absolute villenage. ”

“ It is contrary to the policy of the law that there should be any outstanding titles, estates, or powers, by the existence, operation or exercise of which, at a period of time beyond lives in being and twenty-one years and a fraction thereafter, the complete and unfettered enjoyment of an estate, with all the rights, privileges and powers incident to ownership, should be qualified or impeded. ”

“ This rule is explained by the conception of a freehold estate as an interest in lands held by the freeholder from some lord, the king being lord paramount. (See Estate.) The granter retains an interest in the land similar to that of the donor of an estate for life, to whom the land reverts after the life estate is ended. As there are now few freehold estates traceable to any mesne or intermediate lord, escheats, when they do occur, fall to the king as lord paramount. ”

“ The King, in consideration of the old friendship which subsisted between your father and himself, in youthful days, before political strifes divided them, has granted that the estate yet unappropriated shall be restored to you, on two conditions, one of which is already fulfilled—your marriage with an English Protestant gentleman, and the other, which doubtless you will fulfil, residence in this country, and obedience to the laws. ”

“ The brutal ruler of this estate has for his subjects a vast number of families, all of whom have been born on his land, all of whom recognise him as their king, and are ready and anxious to pay him respect, all of whom have a natural claim upon him for protection, all of whom work for him and contribute to the expenses of his household. ”

“ How little was accomplished in the matter of law-making in subsequent centuries, may be gathered from the fact that Mr. James Williams who writes the article on real estate in the Encyclopedia Britannica ninth edition, says that from 1290 to the reign of Henry VIII., that is down to the Sixteenth Century, there is no statute of the first importance dealing with real estate.
In a word, then, it may be said that these law-makers of the Thirteenth Century anticipated most of the legal difficulties of the after-time. ”

“ Where an estate has passed, under a legislative grant, into the hands of a purchaser for a valuable consideration, without notice, the state is restrained, either by general principles which are common to our free institutions, or by the particular provisions of the Constitution of the United States, from passing a law whereby the estate so purchased can be impaired and invalidated. ”

“ No transfer of real estate, no 'donatio inter vivos' of mansions and messuages, parks and farms, herds and flocks, could have been effected in a more business-like manner than the gift thus made by the most prudent king to his beloved daughter. ”

“ Every once in a while a rumor leaks out that some great estate has been left in England, or somewhere else across the water, with no native heirs. You or I, if we happen to have a family name that fits in, are invited to contribute to a sum which is being made up to pay the cost of establishing the rights of the American descendants, and there you are. ”

“ The following are the words of my lord Coke. “When all estates were fee simple, then were purchasers sure of their purchases, farmers of their leases, creditors of their debts; the king and lords had their escheats, forfeitures, wardships, and other profits of their seignories: and for these, and other like cases, by the wisdom of the common law, all estates of inheritance were fee simple; and what contentions and mischiefs have crept into the quiet of the law by these fettered inheritances, daily experience teacheth us.” ”