brother's council. When she ascended the throne, her dissimulation was artfully displayed in a proclamation that she would not change the reformed religion; but as she listened to the proposals of Philip of Spain, while her heart was beating with the exulting hopes of increasing grandeur, she gloried in the prospect of thus gaining a powerful ally, and joining the interest of the court of Rome, by restoring to the ruined monasteries the riches which her father had gathered from them, and by bringing back her wandered flock to the foot of the sacred cross.

Elizabeth, besides the zeal which she always testified, during a long and successful and benevolent reign, for the reformed church, had still other views for regaining to the crown the affection of that part of her subjects whose exertions in the same good cause had been stifled during the cruel reign of her sister Mary; the most persecuting bigot that ever disgraced the annals of political history, or the delicacy of the female character. Elizabeth had a glorious ambition to see her country raised above the assumed and arrogant splendour of her enemies, whose chief power was open to her penetration, which readily exposed and chastised their vain glory. This laudable ambition was not a little augmented by the proposal of marriage from Philip of Spain, the husband of the late queen her sister, which she rejected: nor was it in any degree abated even by the more tender qualifications of unassuming modesty and a charitable piety, that regarded the future as well as the present benefits of her people. If she saw the ill effects of Mary's cruelty, and beheld the odium that spread through all ranks from so flagrant and deserved a cause, she is to be applauded for having taken example, and shunned the evil: when the source is clear, it is commendable to cleanse the channel. If policy be attributed to Eliza

beth,

crown.

beth, it must be allowed, that her amiable disposition contributed to set before her the enormities of Mary as unprincipled and indefensible. The spirit of the people roused by these crimes, and justly promising themselves better prospects, might have alarmed the queen; for the purposes of her reformation, even at that period, tended more to their good than to the benefit of the The treasures of religious houses had long ago been lavished away, all sinister advantages were then expired, and the great and lasting proofs of her benevolence, which followed the restoration of the new church, are at this day convincing proofs, that whatever motives actuated her predecessors, those of public good directed and prospered the measures of Elizabeth, whom a benign Providence, ever watchful over this country, chose to distinguish with exalted wisdom, in order to complete, under such a monarch, the glorious design of the safety of her people!

CHAP.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE

LAW

THE

OF CHARITABLE USES, FROM REFORMATION UNTIL THE 9 GEO. 11. A. D. 1736.

IN the early ages of this country, the people seem to have deemed it necessary for any public benevolent purposes, not only to associate themselves into a company,. but to sue to the crown for an act of incorporation; and thus we read of no plans for the benefit of the poor, but such as had opulence and endowment sufficient to erect houses, and form regular societies, vested by royal charter with all the powers and hopes of perpetuity. In modern times, we have seen the benevolence and assiduous exertions of a Howard,* a Hanway,ta Thornton,‡ and many others, affording new and lasting examples of energy in almost every good work, devoting their attention to their own favourite institutions, and uniting with liberal heart and unsparing hand in the most effectual means to drive oppression as well from the shores of Africa as from the loathsome dungeon; to provide for and reclaim the naked and the dissolute; to give industrious occupation to the blind; refuge to the

* Mr. Howard's pursuit was, that of relieving prisons in almost every state in Europe from abuses of needless oppression, filthiness, and pestilence, in which he hazarded his life.

† Mr. Hanway, with Mr. John Thornton, and Mr. Hicks of Hambro', were the founders of the Marine Society; a society which has been espoused from the mechanic in London, up to the crown, the parliament, the chiefs of India, &c.

Mr. Thornton's name and family are to be found in every list and contribution for private and public distress.

destitute;

1 Burn Eccl. Law, 419.

Stra. 912.

14 Ves. Jr. 246.

:

destitute; safety to the lunatic; and protection or recovery from the malignant ravages of loathsome and fatal disease the restraints of mortmain were no bar to their designs, which they saw could be effected within the limits of mutual agreement and beneficent principles, that need no other aid than that of voluntary contribution to preserve. A few only of these have been since incorporated.

The early practice of obtaining charters must appear, from what has been related on the subject of mortmain, to have been pursued as an effectual means of preserving the influence of the Roman faith, by increase of opulence, the possession of lands, and a perpetuity of members of the same persuasion. But such were ecclesiastical corporations, being composed of spiritual members. Lay corporations are civil and eleemosynary; the former for a variety of temporal purposes incident to the government; the latter for the distribution of alms and benevolence. To the latter we shall at present confine our inquiries.

As the former, or civil corporation, is for public government, it is therefore subject to the common law; but as the latter, or eleemosynary corporation, is the creature of its founder, so it is internally governed by its private laws not that the members of it are exempted from the common law by thus uniting, but the body in general is so; except when they do any act repugnant to the law of the land: the breach of their private laws, or orders, is not a crime cognizable by the common law, unless any such act be extendible into a public wrong. If a general court, for instance, depose an officer, they exert only the power vested in them by their private rules; but if they depose him wrongfully the common law will relieve him, because they have then extended the private powers of the institution too far. Although the king himself be a founder, yet the breach of such

statutes

statutes are not crimes against the crown;

his power

of

pardoning is vested in him, as having the executive authority; the crimes he pardons are such as are against the public laws and statutes of the realm; whereas these are in the nature of domestic rules, for the better ordering of private families.

Formerly there were some hospitals that were corpora- 1 Inst. 342. tions aggregate, as of master, wardens, and their brethren, as the companies of London are at this day; others, where the master or warden had only the estate of inheritance in him, and the brethren or sisters had merely a power to consent to his acts, having college or common seal. (Some of these latter had no seal.) Some of these institutions were eligible, or elective; some donative, and some presentable.

After the reformation, when seminaries for education and hospitals began to be founded, queen Elizabeth, in the act she procured for restitution of first-fruits to the crown, by a special proviso, shews her regard to religion and humanity; whereby it is declared that "nothing " in the act shall extend to charge any hospital, founded " and used, and the possessions thereof employed to the 1 Eliz. c. 4. 5. ❝ relief of poor people, or any school, or the possessions A. D. 1558. "thereof, with the payment of any tenths or first-fruits."

40.

In the emergency which frequently brings even the best of men to a serious but hasty recollection, as to a proper disposition of their effects; it is often that they are not readily furnished with the correct title of the hospital, or institution, to whose charitable designs they would wish to contribute, out of the surplus of their fortunes; it may be feared that au apprehension might then arise, lest, by an error of so simple a kind, the testator's intentions might be defeated; wherefore, to obviate such a difficulty, we find an act which appears evidently made 14 Eliz. c. 14. for the benefit of Christ's Hospital, St. Thomas's, and 2 Burn, 201.

A. D. 1571.