should descend, be administered, and governed, in like manner as if he had never attained the regal dignity.
The duchy and estates thus descended to his son and grandson, Henry V. and Henry VI. On the attainder of Henry VI. in 1 Edward IV., the duchy was declared in Parliament to have become forfeited to the crown, and an Act was passed incorporating the duchy, and continuing the County Palatine, making it parcel of the duchy, and vesting the whole in King Edward and his heirs, Kings of England, for ever, but under separate guiding and governance from the other inheritances of the crown.
The Honour of Pontefract has ever since this time been kept as a separate crown estate, managed by its own officers, as part of the Duchy of Lancaster.
The origin is thus shown of that connection between Cawthorne as belonging to the Honour of Pontefract and the Duchy of Lancaster which has continuously existed to the present day.
By a circular dated so recently as Feb. 8th, 1881, the Chancellor of the Duchy has now given notice to the Constable of Cawthorne, that the yearly summons to attend the ancient Court Leet of the Honour of Pontefract, held from time immemorial at Darton, will be discontinued, "it appearing to the Chancellor that recent legislation has deprived such courts of the public utility they once possessed. The court will henceforth only be held to appoint such Leet officer on a proper requisition from any township desiring it."
Long after the disappearance of the substance, there has now disappeared the shadow also of that ancient Court of Record, granted by royal charter to the Lord of the Wapentake, which was held to view the "frank pledges," that is, the freemen within the liberty, who, according to the institution of Alfred the Great, were all mutually pledges for each other's good behaviour. It was the court, too, to which all the king's subjects were summoned as they came to years of discretion and strength to take the oath of allegiance, and at which all the crimes within the liberty were presented by jury. "De omnibus quidem cognoscit, non tamen de omnibus judicat." Everything affecting the public weal and the good government of the district came within its cognisance, "from common nuisances," as Blackstone
