in any court of record the particular tenant does any act which amounts to a virtual diſclaimer; if he claims any greater eſtate than was granted him at the firſt infeodation, or takes upon himſelf thoſe rights which belong only to tenants of a ſuperior claſs[1]; if he affirms the reverſion to be in a ſtranger, by accepting his fine, attorning as his tenant, colluſive pleading, and the like[2]; ſuch behaviour amounts to a forfeiture of his particular eſtate.
III. Lapse is a ſpecies of forfeiture, whereby the right of preſentation to a church accrues to the ordinary by neglect of the patron to preſent, to the metropolitan by neglect of the ordinary, and to the king by neglect of the metropolitan. For it being for the intereſt of religion, and the good of the public, that the church ſhould be provided with an officiating miniſter, the law has therefore given this right of lapſe, in order to quicken the patron; who might otherwiſe, by ſuffering the church to remain vacant, avoid paying his eccleſiaſtical dues, and fruſtrate the pious intentions of his anceſtors. This right of lapſe was firſt eſtabliſhed about the time (though not by the authority[3]) of the council of Lateran[4], which was in the reign of our Henry the ſecond, when the biſhops firſt began to exerciſe univerſally the right of inſtitution to churches[5]. And therefore, where there is no right of inſtitution, there is no right of lapſe: ſo that no donative can lapſe to the ordinary[6], unleſs it hath been augmented by the queen's bounty[7]. But no right of lapſe can accrue, when the original preſentation is in the crown[8].
The term, in which the title to preſent by lapſe accrues from the one to the other ſucceſſively, is ſix calendar months[9]; (following in this caſe the computation of the church, and not the uſual one of the common law) and this excluſive of the day of
