perversion of their original design.

XVII. ANOTHER branch of the king's ordinary revenue arises from
escheats of lands, which happen upon the defect of heirs to succeed to
the inheritance; whereupon they in general revert to and vest in the
king, who is esteemed, in the eye of the law, the original proprietor
of all the lands in the kingdom. But the discussion of this topic more
properly belongs to the second book of these commentaries, wherein we
shall particularly consider the manner in which lands may be acquired
or lost by escheat.

XVIII. I PROCEED therefore to the eighteenth and last branch of the
king's ordinary revenue; which consists in the custody of idiots, from
whence we shall be naturally led to consider also the custody of
lunatics.

AN idiot, or natural fool, is one that hath had no understanding from
his nativity; and therefore is by law presumed never likely to attain
any. For which reason the custody of him and of his lands was formerly
vested in the lord of the fee[h]; (and therefore still, by special
custom, in some manors the lord shall have the ordering of idiot and
lunatic copyholders[i]) but, by reason of the manifold abuses of this
power by subjects, it was at last provided by common consent, that it
should be given to the king, as the general conservator of his people,
in order to prevent the idiot from wasting his estate, and reducing
himself and his heirs to poverty and distress[k]: This fiscal
prerogative of the king is declared in parliament by statute 17 Edw.
II. c. 9. which directs (in affirmance of the common law[l],) that the
king shall have ward of the lands of natural fools, taking the profits
without waste or destruction, and shall find them necessaries; and
after the death of such idiots he shall render the estate to the
heirs; in order to prevent such idiots from aliening their lands, and
their heirs from being disherited.

[Footnote h: Flet. _l._ 1. _c._ 11. Sec. 10.]

[Footnote i: Dyer. 302. Hutt. 17. Noy 27.]

[Footnote k: F.N.B. 232.]

[Footnote l: 4 Rep. 126.]

BY the old common law there is a writ _de idiota inquirendo_, to
enquire whether a man be an idiot or not[m]: which must be tried by a
jury of twelve men; and if they find him _purus idiota_, the profits
of his lands, and the custody of his person may be granted by the king
to some subject, who has interest enough to obtain them[n]. This
branch of the revenue hath been long considered as a hardship upon
priv