The trustees, who are certain dig nitaries of the church, and other official personages for the time being, are incor porated by the name of " the governors of the Bounty of Queen Anne, for the aug mentation of the maintenance of the poor clergy," and have authority to make rules for the distribution of the fund, which rules are to be approved of by the king under his sign manual. Every person having any estate or interest in posses sion, reversion, or contingency, in lands or personalty, is empowered to settle such estate or interest, either by deed enrolled or will, upon the corporation, without licence of mortmain ; and the corpora tion are empowered to admit benefactors to the fund into their body. (For the principal rules established by the cor poration, with respect to augmentations and the operation of these rules, see Burn's Eccles. Law, tit. " First-Fruits and Tenths.") The 1 Geo. I. seas. 2, c. 10, renders valid agreements made with benefactors to Queen Anne's Bounty, concerning the right of patronage of augmented churches in favour of such benefactors, where the agreements are made by persons or bodies corporate having such an interest in the patronage of such churches as the act renders necessary ; but an agreement by a parson or vicar must be made with con sent of his patron and ordinary. The governors are also empowered by the same statute to make agreements with patrons of donatives or perpetual cures for an augmented stipend to the ministers of such benefices when augmented, to aug ment vacant benefices, and, with the con currence of the proper parties, to ex change lands settled for augmentation.
It should be observed that a modern statute of mortmain, the Statute of Cha ritable Uses, 9 Geo. II. c. 36, imposed certain forms, a strict compliance with which was necessary in all gifts to Queen Anne's Bounty. But these restrictions have been removed by statute 43 Geo. III. c. 107, as far as respects gifts of real pro perty for augmentation of the bounty ; and a provision for the augmentation of be. nefices not exceeding 150/. per annum was made by 46 Geo. III. c. 133, which dis charged all such benefices from the land tax, without any consideration being given for the discharge, with a proviso that the whole annual amount thus remitted should not exceed 60001.
The Ecclesiastical Commissioners for England have, since October, 1842, been pursuing a scheme for the augmentation of small livings, by which an annual net income as nearly as may be of 150/. will be secured to the incumbent of every bene fice or church with cure of souls, being either a parish church or chapel, with a district legally assigned thereto, and hav ing a population of 2000, and not being in the patronage of lay proprietors. The funds for augmentation accrue from the suspension of cathedral endowments. The number of livings which had been aug mented to May 1, 1844, was 562, and the total sum applied is 29,8091. The fol lowing table will show more distinctly what has been done in the case of 496 livings :— The alienation of the temporalities of benefices, even in perpetuity, was not for bidden by the common law, provided it were made with the concurrence of the principal parties interested, viz. the par
son, patron, and ordinary. Thus, at the commoa law, lands might have become exempt from the payment of tithe by virtue of an agreement entered into be tween the tithe-payer and the parson or vicar, with the necessary consent, for the substitution of land in lieu of tithe. But the statute 13 Eliz. c. 10, prohibits, among other bodies corporate, parsons and vicars from making any alienation of their tem poralities beyond the life of the incum bent, except by way of lease for twenty one years, or three lives, " whereupon the aceustomed yearly rent or more shall be reserved and payable yearly during the said term." Further restrictions are im posed by the stat 18 Eliz. c. 11, which requires that where any former lease for years is in being, it must be expired, sur rendered, or ended within three years next after the making of the new lease, and all bonds and covenants for renewing or making leases contrary to this and the last-mentioned statute are made void. The stat. 14 Eliz. c. 11, as to houses in towns, extends the term specified in the 13 Eliz. c. 10, to forty years, but pro hib is leases of such houses in reversion, and allows of absolute alienation by way of e change. But the consent of patrol_ and ordinary is still necessary in order to make the leases of parsons and vicars binding upon their successors. It is said that about the time when these statutes were passed, it was a practice for patrons to present unworthy clergymen to their vacant benefices, on condition of having leases of those benefices made to them selves at a very low rate. The con sequences of this were not unlike what ensued from the appropriation of benefices by monastic corporations : the incumbents did not reside, and the churches were in differently served by stipendiary curates. To remedy this evil, it was provided by stat. 13 Eliz. c. 20 (made perpetual by 3 Car. I. c. 4), that no lease of a benefice with cure should endure longer than while the lessor should be ordinarily re sident and serving the cure, without absence for more than eighty days in any one year, but should immediately, upon non-residence, become void ; and that the incumbent should forfeit one year's profits of the benefice, to be distributed among the poor : but the statute contains an exception of the case where a parson, allowed by law to have two benefices, demises the one upon which he is not most ordinarily resident to his curate. The 18 Eliz. c. 11, provides that process of sequestration shall be granted by the ordinary to obtain the profits so forfeited. By stat. 14 Elia. c. 11, bonds and co venants, and by stat. 43 Eliz. c. 9, judg ments entered into or suffered in fraud of the stat. 13 Eliz. c. 20, are made void.