years from the seisin of an ancestor or any other person. This statute contains no saving, except as to rights which were in existence when it was passed, and (a) does not extend to any writ of sight of advowson or assize of darrein presentment, or jure patro natus. By the 21 Jac. I. c. 16, (b) the period for all writs of formedon is limited to twenty years; and it enacts. generally, that no person shall make entry into any lands but within twenty years next after his right of entry has accrued. But by sect. 2, the rights of persons being under the age of twenty-one years, femes covert, non compos mentis, imprisoned or beyond seas, may bring action, or make entry within ten years after full age, discoverture, coming of sound mind, enlargement out of prison, or coming into the realm. By the 4 Hen. VII. c. 24, a fine with proclamations is made a bar to all persons having present rights of entry, if they do not claim within five years after these proclamations made; to all persons under disabilities, if they do not claim within five years after their disabilities are removed; and to all persons not having present rights, if they do not claim within five years after these rights of entry accrue, unless they are under disabilities, and then within five years after the removal of their disabilities. To actions of dower, escheat, and waste, and other actions in which seisin need not be alleged, there is no bar; and there is no period of limitation fixed either by statute or judicial presumption with respect to the right to advowsons; and the title may thus be questioned after a family has been for centuries in the undisturbed possession of it. Tithes also, whether in the hands of ecclesiastics or laymen, are not in any way affected by these statutes. (a) Since the 9 Geo. I. c. 16, the rights of the crown are barred by adverse enjoyment for sixty years.(b) A presumptive right to incorporeal hereditaments can only be established by proof of enjoyment of them for such a period as will justify a jury, under the direction of a judge, to infer that the enjoyment has continued ever since the commencement of the reign of Richard I. (c) In case of intestacy, as to all rights occurring after the death of the intestate, the Statutes of Limitations only begin to run from the grant of the letters of administration. (d) The Statutes of Limitations, with one exception, (e) apply only to legal remedies, and have no direct operation on equitable estates or interests. But as equity follows the law, courts of equity have, in analogy to the Statutes of Limitations, laid down rules by which they have refused relief, where, if the estate of the claimant were legal instead of equitable, lapse of time would be a bar to a legal remedy; and they have adopted, as the limit of their relief, the period of twenty years given by the statute of 21 Jac. I. c. 16, adhering likewise to the statutable provisions respecting disabilities, but excepting certain cases affected by fraud or trust. (f) There is at present no limitation either as to title or actions with respect to certain rents, except that (a) Quære, whether the nullum tempus act, 9 Geo. III.c. 16, does not apply to advowsons. See Gibson v. Clark, 1 Jac. & Walk. 161; and ante, p. 112. (b) See post. (c) First Report of the Real Pro perty Commissioners, p. 40. (e) 58 Geo. III. c. 127. s. 5, con- of fifty years created by the statute 32 Hen. VIII. (a) In a court of equity, it should be observed, "the lapse of twenty years affords a substantive insuperable plea in bar. It is the fixed limit of remedy, the tempus constitutum. One day beyond, is as much too late as one hundred years. No plea of poverty, ignorance, or mistake, can be of any avail. However clear and indisputable the title, if the merits could be inquired into however demonstratively tortious and wrongful the adverse possession, the fact of such possession, and the time, preclude all investigation of the title. The claimant cannot be heard, to show his title. It is a decisive answer to him, that he comes too late. That alone is the bar. His title remains, but his remedy is lost." (b) VII. TITLES UNDER PRESCRIPTION. A right claimed by prescription must strictly be proved to have commenced from the time of legal memory, or the reign of Richard I., being six hundred and forty years ago. But the practice of the courts has created a remedy to this inconvenient rule in ordinary cases; for proof of enjoyment as far back as living witnesses can speak, raises a presumption of an enjoyment from a remote era. However, if it be shown that the right did not exist at any one point of time since the commencement of legal memory, or, although it originated before the commencement of legal memory, that at some subsequent period the servient tenement, or (a) Report, p. 50. (b) Per Sir T. Plumer, M. R. Chol mondeley v. Clinton, 2 Jac. & Walk. 139; and see 192. that over which the right is exercised, and the dominant tenement, or that to which the right is attached, once belonged to the same individual, whereby the prescriptive right was extinguished, the claim by prescription will fail. (a) (a) See 1st Report of the Real Property Commissioners, p. 51; and see post, and Index, word Presumption. CHAPTER XVI. OF ABSTRACTS OF TITLE UNDER PERSONS LABOURING UNDER LEGAL DISABILITY. THIS chapter will be divided into-I. Titles under infants.-II. Titles under married women.-III. Titles under lunatics, ideots, and persons of unsound mind. IV. Titles under felons and traitors. - V. Titles under aliens and denizens.-VI. Titles under excommunicants, outlaws, and persons out of the jurisdiction.-VIII. Titles under Roman Catholics.Titles under bastards :-and IX. Titles under churchwardens. I. TITLES UNDER INFANTS. An infant cannot convey his lands by deed, as such a deed will be absolutely void. (a) But if an infant convey by feoffment and deliver seisin himself, it will be voidable, but not void; but if the feoffment had been made by attorney, it would be void. (b) (a) Co. Litt. 171 b, 172 a. (b) 1 Prest. Abs. 323. |