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continuance thereof was not to depend singly upon the pleasure of the Dean and Chapter. That these covenants, at the time of executing [245] the lease, were certainly binding both in law and equity; and being made upon the most valuable considerations, namely, the great decay and ruin of the premises, and the great charges of rebuilding the same; and as the appellants were obliged by covenant to settle there, which would be of great advantage to the Dean and Chapter, who were owners of a large estate in houses in that neighbourhood; the appellants were thereby, and by the fine and rent to be paid, by the advice to be given by them to the Dean and Chapter when required, and by the great sums of money laid out in rebuilding and other improvements, become purchasers of the benefit of the covenant for renewal. That covenants and agreements entered into for a valuable consideration, were considered in equity as performed; and though no legal estate passes by them before they are carried into execution by proper conveyances, yet the equitable interest of the covenantors is bound from the time of their entering into such covenants, and they are from thence in the nature of trustees for the covenantees.

It was objected, that by the first of the disabling statutes, the Dean and Chapter could not make any lease for more than twenty-one years, or three lives; and by the other, they were restrained from making leases for any longer term than city years, and that only of houses or grounds situate in a city, borough, or market town: that the covenant in question, being to grant a term of ninety-nine years, which by these statutes was prohibited, it was therefore void; and that they cold not, nor ought to grant a term even for forty years, for that the covenant must be taken intire, and no breach of this covenant at law could be assigned, for not making a lease for any less term than ninety-nine years; and if the whole was not, then no part of it ought to be granted.

Put in answer to these objections, it was said to be a harsh way of reasoning, that because a person was now supposed to be prohibited from doing the whole of what he had agreed to do, he therefore should not do what was in bis power, and was lawful for him to perform; or to say, that because part of a thing was taken away, the whole must be so too, though part was still reserved, and in truth such construction and reasoning were apprehended to be inconsistent with the rules of equity. That this covenant for renewal was all along taken to be a good and subsisting covenant, even after the statutes were made; and so it appeared, as well from the certificate of Mr. Serjeant Glynn and Sir Jeffery Palmer in 1664, which was absolutely confirmed by the Court of Chancery, as from the decree of the Court of Judicature at Clifford's Inn, wherein it was said, that after the sixty years term was expired, the covenants in the lease then in being might be resumed. That as the appellants and their trustees, the college, had performed their part of the agreement, by rebuilding and returning to reside in their several apartments; it was reasonable that the Dean and Chapter should be compelled to make such a lease as the statutes did not prohibit, viz. for forty years, and so toties quoties, till the term covenanted for was made up. Lastly, that the lease desired was not within any of the causes assigned in the [246] preamble of the statute for preventing long and unreasonable leases, which were said to be the chief causes of dilapidations and decay of hospitality, and utter impoverishing of all successors; for this lease was made on good considerations, and therefore not unreasonable; nor could it be any cause of dilapidations with regard to the premises demised, building being one consideration thereof, and there being sufficient provision made for keeping the buildings in repair; neither could it be any impoverishment of the successors, there being more rent made payable than had been before reserved; and considering the value of money when the lease of 1567 was made, the sum of £372 which had been since laid out in repairs, was apprehended to be more than the reversion or inheritance of the whole estate, expectant upon the determination of Sir Thomas Pope's lease, was worth.

On the other side it was argued (P. Yorke, E. Edlin), that the Court of Judicature which sat at Clifford's-Inn in 1670, had no jurisdiction but to settle differences arising by means of the fire of London; and consequently were not authorised to determine, that the Dean and Chapter wore bound by the covenants in the lease of February 1567; neither did that Court take upon them to make any such determination; the words in the conclusion of their decree, That at the end of the sixty