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Updated: May 19, 2025
The laity were sustained in vigour by the practical obligations of life; the clergy sunk under the influence of a waning religion, the administration of the forms of which had become their sole occupation; and as character forsook them, the Mortmain Act, the Acts of Premunire, and the repeatedly recurring Statutes of Provisors mark the successive defeats that drove them back from the high post of command which character alone had earned for them.
The commons immediately brought in a bill enabling her to alienate this branch of the revenue, and create a corporation by charter, to direct the application of it to the uses proposed; they likewise repealed the statute of mortmain, so far as to allow all men to bequeath by will, or grant by deed, any sum they should think fit to give towards the augmentation of benefices.
Then again, in an unhappy hour, they discovered that the easiest way of getting rich was by persuading sinners, and weak persons, to secure the safety of their souls by leaving land to the Church, in return for the prayers and masses of monks; and that shameful mine of wealth was worked by them for centuries, in spite of statutes of mortmain, and other checks which the civil power laid on them, very often by most detestable means.
Nor is there any agreement upon the still more important question whether the State ought, or ought not, to regulate the distribution of wealth. If it ought not, then all legislation which regulates inheritance the statute of Mortmain, and the like is wrong in principle; and, when a rich man dies, we ought to return to the state of nature, and have a scramble for his property.
The repeal of the laws of entail would prevent the accumulation and perpetuation of wealth, in select families, and preserve the soil of the country from being daily more and more absorbed in mortmain.
I shall leave the Vange property to the Church, and I shall appoint you one of the trustees. You can't object to that." Father Benwell smiled sadly. "The law spares me the ungracious necessity of objecting, in this case," he answered. "My friend, you forget the Statutes of Mortmain. They positively forbid you to carry out the intention which you have just expressed."
The English king sent his son Edward to conquer him; but the king himself, before he could reach Scotland, died. Parliament met in two distinct houses. Against his inclination he swore to the "Confirmation of the Charters," by which he engaged not to impose taxes without the consent of Parliament. The statute of mortmain has been referred to already.
"These are yours, sir," and he handed a pair of black gloves to George. "And these are yours, sir," and he gave another pair to the doctor. But the doctor held them instead of putting them on; otherwise Mr. Mortmain could not be expected to change them after the ceremony for a pair of lighter colour.
The Mortmain Act had prohibited the church corporations from further absorbing the lands; but the Mortmain Act was evaded in detail, the clergy using their influence to induce persons on their deathbeds to leave estates to provide a priest for ever "to sing for their souls."
He was grateful to M. Necker for the courageous suppressions he had accomplished, and for the useful reforms whereof the honor was to remain inseparable from his name; it was at M. Necker's advice that he had abolished mortmain in his dominions.
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