two ſons, A and B, and A dies leaving two ſons, and then the grandfather dies; now the eldeſt ſon of A ſhall ſucceed to the whole of his grandfather's eſtate: and if A had left only two daughters, they ſhould have ſucceeded alſo to equal moieties of the whole, in excluſion of B and his iſſue. But if a man hath only three daughters, C, D, and E; and C dies leaving two ſons, D leaving two daughters, and E leaving a daughter and a ſon who is younger than his ſiſter: here, when the grandfather dies, the eldeſt ſon of C ſhall ſucceed to one third, in excluſion of the younger; the two daughters of D to another third in partnerſhip; and the ſon of E to the remaining third, in excluſion of his elder ſiſter. And the ſame right of repreſentation, guided and reſtrained by the ſame rules of deſcent, prevails downwards in infinitum.
Yet this right does not appear to have been thoroughly eſtabliſhed in the time of Henry the ſecond, when Glanvil wrote; and therefore, in the title to the crown eſpecially, we find frequent conteſts between the younger (but ſurviving) brother, and his nephew (being the ſon and repreſentative of the elder deceaſed) in regard to the inheritance of their common anceſtor: for the uncle is certainly nearer of kin to the common ſtock, by one degree, than the nephew; though the nephew, by repreſenting his father, has in him the right of primogeniture. The uncle alſo was uſually better able to perform the ſervices of the fief; and beſides had frequently ſuperior intereſt and ſtrength, to back his pretenſions and cruſh the right of his nephew. And even to this day, in the lower Saxony, proximity of blood takes place of repreſentative primogeniture; that is, the younger ſurviving brother is admitted to the inheritance before the ſon of an elder deceaſed: which occaſioned the diſputes between the two houſes of Mecklenburg, Schwerin and Strelitz, in 1692[1]. Yet Glanvil, with us, even in the twelfth century, ſeems[2] to declare for the right of the nephew by repreſentation; provided the eldeſt ſon had not received a proviſion in lands from his father, (or as the
