Edward IV. has tbe reputation of having been zealous and impartial in the administration of justice; but with tho exception of some statntes abridging the ancient jurisdiction of sheriffs, and transferring part of the powers of those officers to the quarter-sessions, no important ianovatious were made in the law during this reign. It is from this period however that the rise of what is called indirect pleading is dated. In this reign also tbe practice of suffering common recoveries by a tenant in tail, as a means of barring his estate tail, and also all the estatss in remainder and reversion, was fully established by judicial decision (in the twelfth year of this king), after it had been interrupted for some time by the statute of Westminster 2, 13 Ed. L, c. 32. The reduction of the law and its practice to a scientific form is considered to have made great progress in the latter part of the reign of Henry VI. and in that of Edward 1V. To the latter belong the treatise De Laudibus Legum Anglian' of Sir John Fortescue, the celebrated treatise on ' Tenures ' of Sir Thomas Littleton, and the work called Statharn's ' Abridgment of the Law.' The Year Books also began now to be much more copious than in former reigns.
Many laws relating to trade and commerce passed in the reign of Edward IV. attest the growing consequence of those interests, but are not in other respects important, and do not show that more enlightened views began to bs entertained than had heretofore prevailed. The manufacture of articles of silk, though only by the hand, was now introduced into this country; and we find the parliament endeavouring to protect it by the usual method of prohibiting the importation of similar articles made abroad. This reign is illustrious as being that in which the art of printing was introduced into England. [Ca:cross.) The testimony of historians concurs with the probabilities of the case in assuring us that the country must have been snbjected to much devastation and many miseries during the bloody and destructive wars of York and Lancaster ; but this contest was undoubtedly useful in shaking the iron-bound system of feudalism, and clearing away much that obstructed the establishment of a better order of things. The country seems to have very soon recovered from the immediate destruction of capital and property occasioned by these wars.