ct need not be more
than arrival in the territory of the new domicile if there be the
necessary intention, while any number of years' continuance there will
not found a domicile if the necessary intention is absent. As the result
of the most recent English and Scottish cases it may be laid down that
the necessary intention is incompatible with the contemplation by the
person in question of any event on the occurrence of which his residence
in the territory in question would cease, and that if he has not formed
a fixed and settled purpose of settling in that territory, at least his
conduct and declarations must lead to the belief that he would have
declared such a purpose if the necessity of making an election between
that territory and his former one had arisen. The word territory,
meaning a country having a certain legal system, is used advisedly, for
neither the intention nor the fact need refer to a locality. It is
possible that a Scotsman or a foreigner may have clearly established a
domicile of choice in England, although it may be impossible to say
whether London, Brighton or a house in the country is his true or
principal residence. What is here laid down has been gradually attained.
In the older English cases an intention to return to the former domicile
was not excluded, if the event on which the return depended was highly
uncertain and regarded by the person in question as remote. Afterwards a
tendency towards the opposite extreme was manifested by requiring for a
domicile of choice the intention to associate oneself with the ideas and
habits of the new territory--_Quatenus in illo exuere patriam_, not in
the political sense, which it was never attempted to connect with change
of domicile, but in the social and legal sense. At present it is agreed
that the only intention to be considered is that of residence, but that,
if the intention to reside in the territory be proved to amount to what
has been above stated, a domicile will be acquired from which the legal
consequences will follow, even defeating intentions about them so
clearly expressed as, for instance, by making a will which by reason of
the change of domicile is invalid. The two most important cases are
_Douglas_ v. _Douglas_, 1871, L. R. 12 Equity 617, before
Vice-chancellor Wickens, and _Winans_ v. _Att. Gen._, 1904, Appeal Cases
287, before the House of Lords.

When the circumstances of a person's life point to two territories as
domiciles, the sel