Note 85 — Chapter I · THE RURAL POPULATION

It is stated by good authorities that between 12 Ed. IV., when the collusive action known as a common recovery used to evade the Statute de donis conditionalibus was confirmed by a judicial decision (Taltarum’s case), and the introduction into settlements of “Trustees to preserve contingent remainders” by Sir Orlando Bridgeman and Sir Geoffrey Palmer under the Commonwealth, the tieing up of lands in one family was impossible (e.g. Johnson, The Disappearance of the Small Landowner, pp. 11–13). But in 1538 Starkey’s Dialogue speaks strongly of the practice of entailing lands. “This faute sprange of a certayn arrogancy, whereby, wyth the entaylyng of landys, every Jake would be a gentylman, and every gentylman a knight or a lord” (E. E. T. S., England in the Reign of Henry VIII., Part II. pp. 112–113, and pp. 195–196.)