account for the protraction of the birth, and in favour of the wife's chastity, had occurred, the judgment might have been for the legitimacy.
So far we had advanced, when on looking into Rolle's Abridgment, 536. we found the same ancient case of Radwell more at large, than either in Lord Coke or Lord Hale.
But Rolle agrees with Lord Coke, as well in respect to the record's not mentioning the forty weeks, as to its stating the birth to be eleven days after the latest time in law for a woman's going with child; and as from Rolle's particularity he seems to have most minutely attended to the record, his authority, till the whole record appears, seems most decisive.
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 sum-
