Note 678 — MAGNA CARTA. (continued 4)

Royal prerogatives in the twelfth century were still elastic and undefined. Henry II. used them freely, but on the whole fairly. His sons stretched every doubtful claim to its utmost limits. The Crown was the legal heir of all Jews (cf. c. 10) and apparently of all Christian usurers as well, at least of such as died unrepentant. (See Pollock and Maitland, II. 486, and authorities there cited.) It is interesting in this connection to note that the making of a will was looked on as a necessary condition of a usurer’s repentance. (See Dialogus de Scaccario, 224–5, nn.) The king, further, took the goods of all who died a felon’s death (cf. c. 32) and of men who committed suicide (itself a felony). John, so we may infer from Magna Carta, went further, and appropriated the chattels of all intestates. Were there any precedents from his father’s reign for this wider claim? Madox (I. 346) cites an entry from the Pipe Polls of 1172, recording 60 marks due the exchequer as the value of the chattels of an intestate; and, two years later, mention is made de pecunia Gilleberti qui obiit intestatus. There is nothing to show whether such men were, or were not, usurers. The Pope was another competitor for the personal estates of intestate clerks. In 1246, he issued an edict making this demand. Even Henry III. (dependent and ally of Rome as he was) protested, and the edict was withdrawn. (See Pollock and Maitland, II. 357.)