disputes as to the succession, the army, like the Praetorian Guards of
Rome, had the election of the monarch. The Red and White Roses of the
Plantagenets reappeared under the altered names of Whig and Tory; but
it was proved that the decision of a leading soldier like the Duke of
Marlborough would decide the army, and that it would govern the nation;
fortunately the decision was a wise one, and was ratified by Parliament:
thus FORCE governed LAW, and the decision of the ARMY influenced the
SENATE. William III. succeeded, AS AN ELECTED MONARCH, under the Bill
of Rights. This remarkable document contains no provision, securing the
tenants-in-fee in their estates; and I have not met with any treatise
dealing with the legal effects of the eviction of James II. All patents
were covenants between the king and his heirs, and the patentees and
their heirs. The expulsion of the sovereign virtually destroyed the
title; and an elected king, who did not succeed as heir, was not bound
by the patents of his predecessors, nor was William asked, by the Bill
of Rights, to recognize any of the existing titles. This anomalous state
of things was met in degree by the statute of prescriptions, but even
this did not entirely cure the defect in the titles to the principal
estates in the Kingdom. The English tenants in decapitating one landlord
and expelling another, appear to have destroyed their titles, and then
endeavored to renew them by prescriptive right; but I shall not pursue
this topic further, though it may have a very definite bearing upon the
question of landholding.

It may not be uninteresting to allude rather briefly to the state of
England at the close of the seventeenth century. Geoffrey King, who
wrote in 1696, gives the first reliable statistics about the state of
the country. He estimated the number of houses at 1,300,000, and the
average at four to each house, making the population 5,318,000. He says
there was but seven acres of land for each person, but that England was
six times better peopled than the known world, and twice better than
Europe. He calculated the total income at L43,500,000, of which the
yearly rent of land was L10,000,000. The income was equal to L7, 18s.
0d. per head, and the expense L7, 11s. 4d.; the yearly increase, 6s. 8d.
per head, or L1,800,000 per annum. He estimated the annual income of 160
temporal peers at L2800 per annum, 26 spiritual peers at L1300, of 800
baronets at L800, and of 600 knight