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Crown, he would have the right to call the prerogative

in aid (e).

the Crown in

The Crown, or, in other words, the public, has an in- The interest of terest in everything which is done in the duchy, and relation to the whether the act done is done under the authority of the Duchy. king, or under the authority of the duke, when there is a duke; for in all these matters the interest of the Crown is equally concerned; and considering the very peculiar nature of the duchy of Cornwall, whether the duchy be vested in the Crown or in the duke, the Crown has a peculiar interest in it at all times, and whatever is done at any period is to be received in the same manner. Whatever is done during the existence of a duke is to be treated in the same manner as if it were done by the Crown (ƒ).

The Duke of Cornwall, in cases of prescriptive rights Statutes of claimed against him in or upon the possessions of that Limitation applied to. duchy, of the nature of those provided for by the statutes passed in the reign of William the Fourth (g), is expressly embraced by those statutes.

The duke, however, is not within either those provisions of the statute abolishing compositions for tithes in Ireland and substituting rent-charges in lieu thereof (h), similar to, but with some modifications (hereafter noticed) of, the provisions of the 2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 100, or the other provisions of the statute effecting such abolition.

The present Duke of Cornwall and his corporeal possessions, shortly after his birth, became, in the present reign, for the first time, also subject to a separate and special law, similar to the Nullum Tempus Act (i), and that act was subsequently extended (j). The expression "the Duke of Cornwall," in both these acts, in

(e) Wightw. 242, 252.
(ƒ) 3 Man. & Ry. 158, 224.
(g) 2 & 3 Will. 4, cc. 71, 100.
(h) 1 & 2 Vict. c. 109, ss. 18-

L.

23.

(i) 7 & 8 Vict. c. 105.

(j) 23 & 24 Vict. c. 53, amended by 24 & 25 Vict. c. 62.

S

Effect of dispositions by the Duke or the Crown.

cludes the present duke and his predecessors and successors Dukes of Cornwall, and also the Queen and her predecessors and successors kings and queens of England for the time being, entitled to the possessions or the revenues of the duchy during a vacancy of it (k).

The duke and his possessions as respects himself personally, until he came into esse, could not be affected by any of the laws of limitation, and such separate and special statute was equivalent to a legislative declaration that, after his birth, he was not affected either by the laws of limitation affecting the Crown, or by the general laws of limitation affecting the subject.

Whatever concerns the prince concerns the king, and whatever concerns the king concerns every subject in England; and therefore the acts relating to the duchy of Cornwall are public laws, of which everybody is to take notice (7).

The nature of the estate of the Duke of Cornwall and of the Crown in the possessions of the duchy involves all dispositions, even those essential for the mere management of them, in more or less difficulty. Thus, although in case of advowsons, the clerks presented by the Crown continue after the birth of a duke, yet a lease for years by the Crown determines by the birth of a duke (m). The shifting of the title is of a very peculiar nature, and singularly calculated to interfere with grants of leasehold interests. For if the Crown devolves upon the Duke of Cornwall, having no son, there ceases to be a duke, and then the duchy is in the Crown; and so, if the duke die. But at any moment a son may be born, and his birth divests the duchy; and the duke then holds it subject to the double contingency of his own and his father's death. Originally, therefore, no acts done either by the Crown or the duke could give any permanent leasehold interests to the tenant; yet

(k) 7 & 8 Vict. c. 105, s. 92; 23 & 24 Vict. c. 53, s. 4.

(1) Fortesc. Rep. 411.
(m) Ca. Ch. 215.

it so happened much, indeed most, of the duchy pro-
perty was of a kind that required the outlay of capital;
as mines in Cornwall, or building land in or near Lon-
don (n).
Hence the various statutes in relation to the
management of the possessions of the duchy (o).

It is undeniable, however, that the property of the duchy may, like that of any other body or any individual, be so administered as to create rights, against which those who may have suffered them to be established will in vain struggle (p).

SECTION II.

Persons in general, other than the Crown and the Duke of Cornwall, affected by these Laws.

Persons are divided by Lord Coke into persons Division of natural, created of God, as J. S., &c., and persons in- persons. corporate or politic, created by the policy of man, and therefore called bodies politic (q). Bodies politic, or corporations, as they consist of several persons, or of an individual only, are either aggregate or sole; and considered with reference to the objects or purposes to which they are directed, are either spiritual or lay, and, when lay, are either civil or eleemosynary (r); and a civil or an eleemosynary corporation, although it may be, or may have for its head, a spiritual person, does not acquire, from that circumstance alone, anything of a spiritual nature or character. A benefice is not spiritual because only a person in holy orders can hold it; the object for which the benefice is established makes it either a spiritual or a lay foundation. If an hospital be

(n) Clayton v. The Lords of the Treasury, Arnold's Rep. 312, n. (c).

(0) Ib. See also Att.-Gen. v. St. Aubyn, Wightw. 167.

(p) Per Lord Brougham, Ar-
nold's Rep. 314.

(4) Co. Litt. 2 a.
(r) 1 Com, c. xviii.

Who within

cc. 71 and 100,

and 3 & 4

established for the relief of the poor, and the founder has annexed, as a qualification for the office of master or warden of it, that he shall be a clerk in holy orders, but no cure of souls is attached to the office, the foundation is not spiritual, but lay merely (s).

Generally, all persons, other than the Crown and the 2 & 3 Will. 4, Duke of Cornwall, having claims in or to property, the subject of the statute 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 27, are Will. 4, c. 27. within it, and all persons, including, as noticed in the last section, the Crown and the duke, are within the statutes 2 & 3 Will. 4, cc. 71, 100.

Persons claiming deriva

tively.

"Person," meaning of in c. 27.

The former Statute of Limitations (t), after enacting that no person shall make an entry but within twenty years next after, &c., enacted, that in default thereof, such persons so not entering, and their heirs, shall be excluded from entering afterwards; and this included the heirs of a donee in tail as well as the heirs of a person seised in fee simple (u). The 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 27, fixes the period of limitation next after the accruing of the right to enter, &c., to some person through whom the person entering claims, or to himself; and some person through whom, &c., means any person claiming as heir, issue in tail, &c., &c. (x).

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In the first of these three statutes the term " person" only is used in most of the enactments, and, as is enacted by section 1, comprises or extends to not only individuals, but also bodies politic, corporate, or collegiate, and a class of creditors or other persons, unless the nature of the provision or the context exclude such meaning, as, for instance, in sects. 13, 16, 17, 18, and 29; and therefore includes every description of corporation, spiritual, eleemosynary and civil, whether sole or aggregate, and as well those who are, as those who are not, restrained from alienating their possessions.

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And that this was the intention of the legislature, this statute, besides the interpretation clause, affords internal evidence. Thus by the section 29, all spiritual and eleemosynary corporations sole are allowed a more extended period for asserting their claims than they would have had under the sections 2 and 24; and that section 29 is not an independent enactment in the negative as respects such corporations sole, but is an affirmative enactment grafted upon or operating in favour of such corporations, by way of exception out of the negative enactments in the sections 2 and 24. If corporations generally had not been included in the word "person," and thus comprised within the terms of these two sections, the section 29, framed as it is, would, plainly, have been unnecessary. Again, as regards advowsons, charges upon land or rent, legacies, arrears of rent, of interest in respect of money charged on land or rent, and in respect of any legacy, and damages in respect of such arrears, no enactment similar to the section 29 is found in the statute. The subsequent statute 7 Vict. c. 54, as respects advowsons belonging to bishops who, in right of their sees, are patrons, also affords evidence of such intention.

statutes.

The term "person," however, used generally in a When used statute, may include corporations as well as natural generally in persons. Thus Lord Coke, in his commentaries on the 39 Eliz. c. 5, says, "person and persons" regularly do extend to any body politic or corporate, but not to such as are restrained by any act of parliament to alien, &c., but doth extend to such bodies politic and corporate as may alien, and to all other persons whatsoever (y); and the intention of the legislature may require the person" to be applied to and to comprehend corporations (z), and sometimes natural persons or individuals

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(y) 2 Inst. 722. See also Plowd. 538.

(z) See Plowd. 538; Cortis v.

The Kent Waterworks Company,
7 B. & C. 314; The Conservators
of the River Tone v. Ash, 10 Ib.

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