The lunacy acts : containing all the statutes relating to private lunatics, pauper lunatics, criminal lunatics, commissions of lunacy, public and private asylums, and the commissioners in lunacy with an introductory commentary, notes to the statutes, including references to decided cases, and a copious index / by Danby P. Fry.

  • United Kingdom
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The lunacy acts : containing all the statutes relating to private lunatics, pauper lunatics, criminal lunatics, commissions of lunacy, public and private asylums, and the commissioners in lunacy with an introductory commentary, notes to the statutes, including references to decided cases, and a copious index / by Danby P. Fry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/790 (page 8)
    idiot, who cannot defend or govern himself, nor order his lands and tenements, goods and chattels, the King of right ought to have him, and to order him, his lands, goods, and chattels; and this, it appears, was the com- mon law; for Briton, fol. i6, who wrote anno 5 E. I., saith, that if any heir is a fool natural, by which he is not able to demand and keep his inheritance, &c., that such heirs, of whomsoever they hold, male or female, remain in the custody of the King, with all their in- heritance ; and thence it follows that the stat. of Prserog. Regis, cap. Q, made in 17 E. IL, long time after Briton wrote, was but a declaration of the common law. That the practice in the reign of Edward the First was in accordance with this view is clear. In Madox's History and Antiquities of the Exchequer, ch. 10 (vol. i. p. 348, second edition, 1769), it is stated that, in the thirty-third year of King Edward I., John Berthaud accounted for the Profits of the Lands of William Bert- haud, an Idiot; which were seized into the King's hands for the said William's Idiocy. Johannes Berthaud [debet] xij marcas de firma terrarum et tenementorum Willelmi Berthaud idiot^e; quze terrze et tenementa ex- tenduntur ad xijV. \\\]s. ixd. per annum, et quae sunt in manu Regis pro eo quod idem Willelmus est idiota, et non sufficit ad regimen sui nec suorum; Tenend. per talem firmam a festo Paschse anno xxviij, quamdiu Regi placuerit; reddendo unam videlicet medietatem ad Scaccarium S. Michaelis, et aliam medietatem^ ad Scaccarium Paschae ; et de residuo extentJE pra^dictae inveniet dicto Willelmo rationabilem sustentationem suam; sicut continetur in Memor. anni xxviij.—Ma£. Rot. 33 E. I. Resid. Ebor.post Item Kane'.' It is worthy of notice, that Blackstone, whose Com- mentaries were published in 1765, treats of this sub- ject in the chapter devoted to the King's revenue, in- troducing it with this remark:—I proceed, therefore, to the eighteenth and last branch of the King's revenue, which consists in the custody of idiots, from whence we shall be naturally led to consider also the custody