A.D. 1692.—By section 15 of 4 William and Mary, c. 24, jurors in every county of the Dominion of Wales were required to have a qualification of £6 per year in estate, provided that any person could serve upon the Tales in every county if he had an interest therein of three pounds by the year. In England the figures were respectively £10 and £5.
A.D. 1693.—In this year the 55th section of 34-35 Henry 8, c. 26 (1542), which had limited the number of Justices of the Peace in any of the shires of Wales to eight, was repealed by 5-6 William and Mary, c. 4. The Crown was to have power to nominate and appoint any number of Justices of the Peace in Wales as was fitting and convenient, according to the ways and methods followed in such appointments in England. Notwithstanding the terms of the repealed section, the number of Justices therein prescribed had been frequently exceeded.
A.D. 1695.—A statute (7-8 William 3, c. 38) was passed in 1695 enabling the inhabitants of Wales to dispose of their property and personal effects by will. It abolished an ancient custom in Wales, whereby widows and children of persons dying there were entitled to a certain portion of the soods and chattels of their late husbands or fathers (called the "reasonable part"), notwithstanding any previous disposal thereof by will or deed, and notwithstanding also that a competent jointure had been made by settlement. By this custom, if a testator left neither wife nor child, the whole was at his disposal. If he left a wife without a child, or if he left a child or children only, his property was divided into two equal parts, one of which he could dispose of by will (called the "dead's part"), the other half belonged to the widow or to the child or children. If he left both wife and children, then the division was tripartite, the wife took one share (the "wife's part"); the child or children took another share (the "bairn's part"); while the remaining share could be disposed of by the testator in his last will and testament.
