25.  All counties, hundreds, wapentakes, and trethings, shall stand at the old rents, without any increase, except in our demesne manors.

26.  If any one holding of us a lay fee die, and the sheriff, or our bailiffs, show our letters patent of summons for debt which the dead man did owe to us, it shall be lawful for the sheriff or our bailiff to attach and register the chattels of the dead, found upon his lay fee, to the amount of the debt, by the view of lawful men, so as nothing be removed until our whole clear debt be paid; and the rest shall be left to the executors to fulfil the testament of the dead; and if there be nothing due from him to us, all the chattels shall go to the use of the dead, saving to his wife and children their reasonable shares.[33]

[Footnote 33:  A person’s goods were divided into three parts, of which one went to his wife, another to his heirs, and a third he was at liberty to dispose of.  If he had no child, his widow had half; and if he had children, but no wife, half was divided amongst them.  These several sums were called “reasonable shares.”  Through the testamentary jurisdiction they gradually acquired, the clergy often contrived to get into their own hands all the residue of the estate without paying the debts of the estate.]

27.  If any freeman shall die intestate, his chattels shall be distributed by the hands of his nearest relations and friends, by view of the Church, saving to every one his debts which the deceased owed to him.

28.  No constable or bailiff of ours shall take corn or other chattels of any man unless he presently give him money for it, or hath respite of payment by the goodwill of the seller.

29.  No constable shall distrain any knight to give money for castle-guard, if he himself will do it in his person, or by another able man, in case he cannot do it through any reasonable cause.  And if we have carried or sent him into the army, he shall be free from such guard for the time he shall be in the army by our command.

30.  No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other, shall take horses or carts of any freeman for carriage, without the assent of the said freeman.

31.  Neither shall we nor our bailiffs take any man’s timber for our castles or other uses, unless by the consent of the owner of the timber.

32.  We will retain the lands of those convicted of felony only one year and a day, and then they shall be delivered to the lord of the fee.[34]

[Footnote 34:  All forfeiture for felony has been abolished by the 33 and 34 Vic., c. 23.  It seems to have originated in the destruction of the felon’s property being part of the sentence, and this “waste” being commuted for temporary possession by the Crown.]

33.  All kydells[35] (wears) for the time to come shall be put down in the rivers of Thames and Medway, and throughout all England, except upon the sea-coast.

[Footnote 35:  The purport of this was to prevent inclosures of common property, or committing a “Purpresture.”  These wears are now called “kettles” or “kettle-nets” in Kent and Cornwall.]