The Green Bag.
VOL. IX.
No. 12.
BOSTON.
DECEMBER, 1897.
SIR THOMAS LITTLETON. IT is perhaps one of the most curious co incidences in the history of law, if coin cidence it were, that Littleton should have set himself to write a treatise dealing with the incidents of feudalism at the very mo ment when feudalism in England was wag ing that internecine struggle, the Wars . of the Roses, which ended in its practical ex tinction. If Littleton had not compiled his invaluable work, the history, the law and the methods of feudalism would not have had for MS that realism and vigor which they have come to possess under the hands of writers whose work in a great measure has been ancillary to the labors of the great lawyer who accomplished his magnum opus in the short interval between the epoch of modern Europe and the period of the mid dle ages. One of the earliest productions of the printing press in England was the "Tenures " of Littleton, and there could be given no better instance of the irony of fate than that the agent that has, perhaps, more than any other, contributed to the character of modern civilization should have perpetu ated as its earliest work the records of the society that it helped to destroy. Thomas Littleton was born at Frankley House, Frankley, in Worcestershire, in the year 1402, and was the eldest son of Thomas Wcstcote, of Westcote, near Barnstaple. With the exception of Thomas, the mem bers of the family bore their father's name of Westcote, despite the fact that their mother had contracted as a condition of her marriage that her inheritable issue should bear her name, de Littleton. "She," says Sir Edward Coke, " being fair, and of a noble spirit, and having large
possessions and inheritance from her ances tors, de Littleton, and from her mother, the daughter and heir of Richard dc Quartcrmeins, and other of her ancestors (ready means in time to work her own desire), re solved to continue the honor of her name . . . and therefore prudently, whilst it was in her own power, provided by Wcstcote's as sent before marriage that her issue inheri table should be called by the name of de Littleton." This hint of the pride of the true feudal days is not without its historical value. The wife under such circumstances brought to her husband not only her love and her wealth, but endowed him also with a local habitation and a name. They lived on her property at Erankley, and her eldest son took her patronymic. Despite these ap pearances to the contrary, her husband was also of gentle birth. The father of Elizabeth de Littleton was Thomas de Littleton, Lord of the Manor of Frankley, and succes sively esquire of the body to Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V. Elizabeth, who married Thomas Westcote, was the last of her race, and it was only natural that she should wish the name and ancient arms of her ancestors — argent a chevron between three escalop shells sable — to be borne by her eldest born. This bearer, through the female line, of an ancient feudal name was destined to write the epitaph and raise the monument of feudalism. The learned Camden thus writes of him : "Thomas Littleton, alias Westcote, the famous lawyer to Avhose treatise of Tenures the students of the com mon law are no less beholden than the civil ians to 'Justinian's Institutes.'" Of the early 5'3
