Page:The English Reports v1 1900.pdf/873
of the royal person only. Its principal duty is, an attendance upon the sacred person of the King, to bring his inmost garment, to apparel him in his royal robes and ornaments. It is a mere personal dignity, fixed in the blood and descendible to posterity, as long as the heirs are capable of holding it. It is annexed to nothing local or real, and though it has a descendible quality, viz. to descend to a capable heir, yet it has not all the qualities or properties of a fee-simple; for it cannot be intailed by the owner, because that might change the grant. It is unalienable by the owner, for the grantee cannot transfer the trust to another, without the assent of the granter.
Mr. Justice Dodridge says (same book, p. 122), if the trust may descend, it is not material whether the estate be fee-simple or otherwise, for the estate in fee-simple is as well subject to trust as any other estate.—"And here," says he,
two objections are to be removed. First, it may be said, that when the grant is in fee-simple of an office, that the grantee may grant that over to any other, and the intent of the granter may be so conceived by reason of the generality of the persons comprehended in the generality of the estate in fee-simple, for that may descend as well to females as to males, idiots, lunatics, infants, or other persons unfit as well in mind as in body, and by the same reason it may be granted unto strangers:
"but," says the learned judge,
I answer and deny the consequence; for we see, rather than it should descend unto such unable persons, the granter, and his heirs, have such a power over the grant, by reason of the confidence, that he and his heirs, and none other, shall make a substitute or an assignee.
In the present instance, two of the specified disabilities occur, those of a female and infant heir. The Attorney General, in his report, inclines to think that there is no difference, in this respect, between offices annexed to lands, manors, or honours, and a personal dignity or office, like the present, which is in gross. And he admits, that the offices of constable, steward, and champion, are annexed to some honour, manor, or lands, as they undoubtedly are. (Same book, p. 127.) But it is apprehended that the legal difference is clear and manifest. All lands, and inheritances local, may be conveyed by way of use; but inheritances personal, which have no relation to lands or local hereditaments, cannot be conveyed by way of use; for, if so, this great officer might be made and [157] unmade at the pleasure of the grantee, and there would be two distinct confidences, the king's confidence and that of the cestuy que use. Offices annexed to local inheritances are rather in the light of services reserved instead of rent. The inheritances would be forfeitable by non-performance of the services. If the owners of such inheritances were incapable of performing the services, they must of necessity find and tender their deputy, to pervent a forfeiture. The King would allow such deputy, if a proper one, if not, he would appoint one, but it is conceived that he could not seize the inheritance, though he disapproved of the deputy, there being no refusal of the service, but an offer and tender of it. This is apprehended to be the case where such local inheritances descend to a female heir, or to coparceners. And it must be reasonably supposed, that the husband of such female, or of the eldest coparcener, would be the properest person to perform the services, as being more interested than a mere deputy, to attend to the due performance of them; and if the other coparceners had husbands, as one could only execute the office, it is fit that one should be the eldest.
But it is conceived, that the profits of the lands, manor, or honour, to which such offices were annexed, would belong to the coparceners. This doctrine appears in the case of the Duke of Buckingham, quoted by Mr. Attorney General, and mentioned in Dyer's Reports, 285, b. Plo. 39. but more fully in Keilway's Reports, 170, 171.
Humphrey de Bohun, late Earl of Hereford, held the manors of Harlefield, Newnam, and Whytenhurst, in the county of Gloucester, of the King, by the service of being Constable of England, and had issue two daughters, and died seized; they entered into the manors, and took husbands. The husband of the youngest was afterwards King of England, and partition was made, and the King and his Queen took the manor of Whytenhurst for their part, and the other two manors were allotted to the other husband and his wife three questions were made. First, if the reservation of this tenure was good, that is, whether this office was or could be reserved upon the feoffment or not? and the judges held that the office might be reserved, and that the reservation of the tenure was good. Secondly, when the manors were descended to the wives, how they could execute the office? And the judges seemed
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