any former leafe for years was in being, not to be expired, furrendered, or ended within three years next after the making of any fuch new lease, fhould be void, frustrate, and of no effect." And it was further provided by f. 13, "that every bond and covenant thereafter to be made, for renewing or making any leafe or leafes, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, or of the said act made in the 13th year of the Queen, fhould be utterly void." And by a subsequent statute (a), which continues the 13th El. c. 10, " together with all and every explanations, additions, and alterations thereof, or thereunto made, by any other statute or ftatutes fince the making thereof," it is further enacted, "that all judgments thereafter to be had, for the intent to have or enjoy any lease contrary to the faid ftatutes, or any of them, fhould be void, in the fame manner as bonds or covenants are appointed to be void which are made for that purpose."

IT has been decided (b), however, that the ftatute 18 El. c. 11, did not relate to the 14th El. and that confequently a bond or covenant for renewing or making a lease within a city or town may be enforced.

(a) 43 El. c. 9, f. 8.

(b) Crane v. Taylor, Hob. 269. Crane brought an action of covenant against Taylor, one of the prebendaries of Ely; and the cafe' appeared to be, that Doctor Tindall, dean of Lincoln, and this defendant, and all other the prebendaries, by their special names, had covenanted, jointly and feverally, to make a leafe of an inn within the city of London; on demurrer the covenant was argued to be void, on the 18th El. but judgment was given in favour of the plaintiff, and the covenant was held good in law, on the principle that it was not within the statute 18 El. for that though the ftatute 13 El. c. 10, was general against all leafes and grants, other than for twenty-one years, or three lives, yet the 14th El. c. 11, enacted that that ftatute should not extend to houfes in cities and towns, but created a new law with respect to them.

3

BUT

BUT it is prefumed that this ftatute of 43 El. c. 9, does extend to the 14th El. The latter makes an alteration in 13 El. c. 10, and is therefore one of the ftatutes intended to be continued, and, by the enacting part, all judgments -contrary to the faid ftatutes, or any of them, are

rendered void.

By rendering void all leafes of lands, &c. of which any former leafe was in being, not to be expired or furrendered within three years after the making of the new lease, this statute rendered impoffible any distinction between concurrent leases and leafes in reverfion; but the ftatute of the 14th of Elizabeth only prohibiting, in direct terms, leases in reverfion, fome doubt was left whether, in cafes within that ftatute, concurrent leafes were alfo void (a). In their effects,

(a) John abbot of Westminster and the convent being feifed, jure ecclefiæ, of certain lands in St. Martin's demised them for ninetynine years in the 2 P. and M. and in 1637, there being seventeen years of the lease for ninety-nine years to run, John bishop of Lincoln and dean of Westminster, and the convent, made a lease to Sir Richard Winn, to commence presently, and to hold for forty years. John the bishop and dean died in 1651, and John Earles was elected dean, and in 1660 received 351. os. 4d. for one year's rent. On the 13th of Feb. 1661, the dean and chapter entered for the purpose of bringing an ejectment to try the title, which was accordingly brought. We are not told what was in fact the judgment of the court, for Carter, who reports the cafe, tells us that he did not hear the arguments of Brown and Archer, juftices, and he reports the arguments of Tirrel, justice, and Bridgeman, C. J. who ultimately differ in opinion, but he does not tell us what was the judgment of the majority of the court. Two questions were made by thofe two judges whofe arguments are reported. 1. Whether this leafe, being of houfes within Weftminfter, and within the 14th of El. was warranted by that ftatute? Or, in other words, whether this was a leafe in reverfion? 2. If it was not warranted by the 14th of El. yet whether the acceptance of the rent should make it good? As to the firft queftion, they both agreed in effect, though they

differed

effects, they would certainly be productive of the fame inconveniences as leafes in reverfion, and it has accordingly beer decided that they are equally within the prohibition of the ftatute.

AFTER

differed as to the mode of confidering the point, that this was a lease in reversion, for they contended that what was not a lease in poffeffion, within this act, must be a lease in reverfion; that this was not a leafe in poffeffion, because at the time it was to commence, another was in exiftence; that therefore it was not warranted by the 14th El. and the C. J. held that it must fall within the compass of the 13th El. and then it was not good, because for more than twenty-one years; and it was alfo void by the 18th El. because it was made before the end of three years before the expiration of the former leafe. As to the second point, Tirrel thought that the acceptance of rent did not make the lease good, by the reafon of Hunt and Singleton's cafe, cited in 3 Rep. 60, in Lincoln College cafe, though he admitted that during the life of the dean in whofe time the leafe was made, it was good. The C. J. held that the fucceeding dean and chapter might accept the rent, in which, he faid, he differed from his brothers. If dean and chapter, he faid, made a lease not warranted by 13 El. and they accepted or did not accept the rent, it should be avoided by the fucceeding dean and chapter. There had been fo many refolutions on it, that he thought it scarce fit to be difputed. Hunt and Singleton's cafe. Bishop of Salisbury's cafe, 10 Rep. 58. Magdalen College cafe, 11 Rep. 73. Co. Lit. 44. If the law should be altered in that point, he faid, many foundations would be shaken: there was a difference, where a thing was void by statute, and where by the common law; if by ftatute, the intent of the makers must be obferved; as in Hunt and Singleton's cafe, not void against the grantor himself, but void against the fucceffor; why fhould it not be so in the case of a dean and chapter? They were indeed bodies invifible, yet they must do natural acts; the head must do those natural acts. So, the law was always held 2 Ed. 3, 27. 3 H. 8, 13. If the dean die, the fucceffor may avoid it, with the fame chapter. The fucceeding dean accepting a rent did not bind at all; he could not, without the chapter, do any thing alone to the making good or making void of leafes, unless in some measure during his life; now this leafe

was

AFTER the 14th El. the dean and chapter of St. Paul's made a lease for forty years of a house in London to a ftranger, which was then in leafe for ten years; it was held by the whole Court of Common Pleas that this lease was merely void by the 13th El. and not warranted by the 14th El. which requires that it fhould not be made in reverfion of any other leafe; for though this leafe was to commence immediately, yet it was in law a lease in reverfion, and therefore within the words of the ftatute (a).

I

THE ftatute 13 El. 10, contained no clause in favour of alienations to the Queen; but notwithstanding this, many of the bodies politic mentioned in it, prefuming on a maxim of law "that the King is not bound by an act of parliament unless he be exprefsly named," and, on this account, fuppofing that the Queen and her fucceffors were not included in the words perfon or perfons, bodies politic or corporate," conveyed eftates to the Queen in the fame manner as the bishops had done, after the ftatute El. for the purpose of having them granted by her to private individuals among the most remakable of these circuitious conveyances, was the cafe of the master and fellows of Magdalen College, in Cambridge (b), of which the circumstances were thefe-Roger Kelke, profeffor of divinity, mafter, and the fellows of the college of St. Mary Magdalen, were seised in their demefne as of fee in right of their college, of a certain meffuage in the parish of St. Botolph, without Aldgate, in the ward of Aldgate, Lon

was not totally void ipfo facto when it was made, but only voidable; for if it were void by the ftatute, it must be totally void ab initio.— This was the fum then; if the act of the head of a corporation did in many respects bind them during his life, fo much more, a fortiori, the act of dean and chapter. Carter, 9—16.

(a) Cro. El. 564.

(b) Magdalen College cafe, 11 Co. 66. b.

don,

don, and on the 13th of Dec. in the 17th of Elizabeth, by indenture between the Queen on the one part, and themfelves on the other, inrolled of record in Chancery, "for divers confiderations them thereunto especially moving," granted the meffuage to the Queen, her heirs and fucceffors, at a yearly rent of 151. payable to the said master and fellows and their fucceffors at Michaelmas, with a clause of distress for non-payment, and under a provifo, that if the Queen, her heirs and fucceffors, should not fufficiently convey and affure, by letters patent under the great feal of England, the said meffuage, with the appurtenances, to one Benedict Spinola, merchant, of Genoa, and his heirs, before the first of April then next enfuing, the indenture, and every gift, grant, and article therein contained, should cease, and be utterly void, and of no effect.-The Queen, according to the provifo, on the 29th of January, in the fame year of her reign, by letters patent under the great feal, granted the meffuage and appurtenances to Spinola, who was then a denizen, and his heirs and affigns for everRoger Kelke, the master of the college, died in the 44th of Elizabeth; on his death Barnaby Gooch was elected mafter of the college, and entered on the premises, claiming them in right of the college.

In the eighteenth of Elizabeth an act of confirmation of letters patent was made, by which, 'after reciting, that fince the 18th of November, in the first year of the Queen's reign, feveral honours, caftles, lands, tenements, rents, reverfions, fervices, and other hereditaments, had been conveyed to the Queen, her heirs and fucceffors, by divers and fundry perfons, and bodies politic, as well for the difcharge and fatisfaction of great debts and fums of money, as for other good confiderations,' it was enacted, "that for the further furety of thefe, all feoffinents, fines, furren