and not liable to feudal burdens, the man who had only the use could commit treason without forfeiting his lands. Especially did this manner of conveying lands prevail "among all ranks and conditions of men by reason of the civil commotions between the Houses of York and Lancaster, to secrete their possessions, and to preserve them to their issue, notwithstanding attainders; and hence began the limitation of uses with the power of revocation" (Gilbert, "Law of Uses").
For eighty-six years—from the deposition of Richard II. to the accession of Henry VII.—the succession to the Crown was in dispute, and during thirty of these years the country was torn by civil war. Most of the considerable holders of land in England had fought on one or on both sides; when a man was a loyal subject to-day, and a traitor to-morrow, according as the fortune of war inclined to the White or the Red Rose. In the time of Henry VII. it was determined that "uses" might be enforced without going to Parliament—indeed, it would often have been highly inconvenient, and sometimes impossible, to go to Parliament. So the Court of Chancery winked at fraudulent recoveries; and though the 15 Richard II. prohibited the holding of land under the condition that someone else had the use. Chancery set the Common Law at defiance, and thus "the creation of a use became a means whereby the benefit of ownership might be secured to persons without any of its burdens. … The factious baron vested his estate in a few confidential friends, and committed treason with comparative safety. The peaceful proprietor adopting the same precautions enjoyed and disposed of the beneficial interest unvexed by the exactions of the lord, and regardless of the rules of Common Law" (Hayes on "Conveyancing").
The device was also resorted to by swindlers and fraudulent debtors. In the last year of Edward III. (1376-1377) a statute was passed against persons who "borrowing divers Goods in Money or in Merchandize of divers People of this Realm, do give their Tenements and Chattels to their Friends, by Collusion thereof to have the Profits at their Will, and after do flee to the Franchise of Westminster, or of St Martin le Grand … and there do live a great Time with an high
