144 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S ultimately superseded the machinery of Edward's enactment ; but, at least until Elizabeth's day, capitalists lent their money on " statutes," no less than on mortgages. And if " statutes " were abused by a Sir Giles Overreach, we must not forget, that an institution is to be judged by its uses, not by its abuses. One injustice Edward's advisers unquestionably did, in making the entire inheritance of a wealthy landowner responsible for the debts and follies of his eldest son. But this was the inevitable consequence of the ' policy which, before Edward ascended the throne, had forced the feudal custom of primogeniture, in all its naked simplicity, upon an unwilling nation. Nothing but an excusable dislike of the dry details of legal history can explain the failure of the many able histo- rians who have treated of the reign of Edward, to detect the close connection between the Statute of Merchants and the . yet more famous Statute of Entails, which so soon followed "^ it. On the King's return from his Welsh campaign, he summoned a great Parliament to meet at Westminster at Easter of the year 1285. It was a very different body from the small Council of ministers which had drawn up the Statute of Merchants. Though the precise details of its composition are, unhappily, obscure, it is obvious that the reactionary feudal element was strong enough to deal a severe, though temporary, check to the policy of the latter statute.^ Nor is it at all difficult to understand the motives which produced such an outbreak. If the lands of an improvident baron or I knight were liable to be seized by his creditors, what was to become of the great feudal families whose pride of lineage . was only equalled by their recklessness and extravagance?! The feudal landowners were quite shrewd enough to see, that a long family pedigree is cold comfort unless accompanied by a substantial rent-roll — nay, that it is practically impos- sible for the pedigree to be maintained without the estate. And so, banding all their forces together, they refused to pass
- Mr. Pearson in his admirable England in the Middle Ages (vol.
ii., p. 337) suggests, that the Parliament of Easter, 1285, consisted only of the King's officials. This is incredible in the face of the statement made by Walter of Hemingburgh, that "in that Parliament the King informed the magnates of his intention of visiting Gascony."
