cclesiastics, leads us to conjecture, that it was
only by chance he passed the beneficial statute of mortmain, and that
his sole object was to maintain the number of knights' fees, and to
prevent the superiors from being defrauded of the profits of wardship,
marriage, livery, and other emoluments arising from the feudal tenures.
This is indeed, the reason assigned in the statute itself, and appears
to have been his real object in enacting it. The author of the Annals of
Waverley ascribes this act chiefly to the king's anxiety for maintaining
the military force of the kingdom but adds, that he was mistaken in his
purpose; for that the Amalekites were overcome more by the prayers of
Moses than by the sword of the Israelites.[*] The statute of mortmain
was often evaded afterwards by the invention of "uses."

Edward was active in restraining the usurpations of the church; and
excepting his ardor for crusades, which adhered to him during his
whole life, seems in other respects to have been little infected with
superstition, the vice chiefly of weak minds. But the passion for
crusades was really in that age the passion for glory. As the pope
now felt himself somewhat more restrained in his former practice of
pillaging the several churches in Europe by laying impositions upon
them, he permitted the generals of particular orders, who resided at
Rome, to levy taxes on the convents subjected to their jurisdiction; and
Edward was obliged to enact a law against this new abuse. It was
also become a practice of the court of Rome to provide successors to
benefices before they became vacant: Edward found it likewise necessary
to prevent by law this species of injustice.

The tribute of one thousand marks a year, to which King John, in doing
homage to the pope, had subjected the kingdom, had been pretty regularly
paid since his time, though the vassalage was constantly denied, and
indeed, for fear of giving offence, had been but little insisted on. The
payment was called by a new name of "census," not by that of tribute.
King Edward seems to have always paid this money with great reluctance;
and he suffered the arrears at one time to run on for six years,[**] at
another for eleven:[***] but as princes in that age stood continually in
need of the pope's good offices, for dispensations of marriage and
for other concessions, the court of Rome always found means, sooner or
later, to catch the money. The levying of first-fruits was also a ne