provided attainder follows[1]: for ſuch conveyance by them may tend to defeat the king of his forfeiture, or the lord of his eſcheat. But they may purchaſe for the benefit of the crown, or the lord of the fee, though they are diſabled to hold: the lands ſo purchaſed, if after attainder, being ſubject to immediate forfeiture; if before, to eſcheat as well as forfeiture, according to the nature of the crime[2]. So alſo corporations, religious or others, may purchaſe lands; yet, unleſs they have a licence to hold in mortmain, they cannot retain ſuch purchaſe; but it ſhall be forfeited to the lord of the fee.
Idiots and perſons of nonſane memory, infants, and perſons under dureſs, are not totally diſabled either to convey or purchaſe, but ſub modo only. For their conveyances and purchaſes are voidable, but not actually void. The king indeed, on behalf of an idiot, may avoid his grants or other acts[3]. But it hath been ſaid, that a non compos himſelf, though he be afterwards brought to a right mind, ſhall not be permitted to allege his own infanity in order to avoid ſuch grant: for that no man ſhall be allowed to ſtultify himſelf, or plead his own diſability. The progreſs of this notion is ſomewhat curious. In the time of Edward I, non compos was a ſufficient plea to avoid a man's own bond[4]: and there is a writ in the regiſter[5] for the alienor himſelf to recover lands aliened by him during his infanity; dum fuit non compos mentis ſuae, ut dicit, &c. But under Edward III a ſcruple began to ariſe, whether a man ſhould be permitted to blemiſh himſelf, by pleading his own infanity[6]: and, afterwards, a defendant in aſſiſe having pleaded a releaſe by the plaintiff ſince the laſt continuance, to which the plaintiff replied (ore tenus, as the manner then was) that he was out of his mind when he gave it, the court adjourned the aſſiſe; doubting, whether as the plaintiff was ſane both then and at the commencement of the ſuit, he ſhould be permitted to plead an intermediate deprivation of reaſon; and the queſtion
