Briefly stated. these rules wore as follows: (1) Inheritances shall lineally descend to the issue of the person who last died aettially seized there of. in in/int/nut, but shall never lineally ascend. A father or mother cannot inherit directly from a son or daughter, (2) The male issue shall be admitted before the female, to the total ex clusion of the latter. (3) NVIlere there are two or more males in equal degree of consanguinity to the ancestor. the eldest only shall inherit ; but there being no male of equal degree, the females inherit all together. (4) The lineal de seendant• in in/init um of any person deceased, who, if he had survived, would have liven the heir, shall represent their ancestor; that is, shall stand in the same place in the line of as have oecitpied, if living. Thus. the issue, whether male or female, of the eldest son will be preferred to the younger son or the daughter of the de ceased :investor. (51 On failure of lineal de scendants, or issue, of the person last actually seized Of the lands, the inheritance shall pass to his collateral relations of the blood of the first purchaser (i,e. of the first ill the line of ancestors to transmit it by descent, having acquired it himself ill SO1110 other tray), on the same terms as to preference of males, primogeniture, etc.. as it would have passed to issue. if there had been any. Thus an elder brother, or his issue, will take the inheritance to the exclusion of sisters and younger brothers. The collateral heir of the person last seized must he his next collateral kinsman of the 10101e blood. The 11:11f blond is wholly exellided from the line of descent. (7 I lit •.ollateral inheritkowes the male stocks shall be preferred to the female; that is. kindred derived from the blood of the male however remote, shall be admitted before those front the blood of t he female, however near, fin less. indeed, the lands have descended from a ft male ancestor, in which ease the rule is re. and the female stock preferred to the male.
These common-la• rules of descent have been changed in some important respects by the C.3 and I \\ ill. IV., e. 101)1. The fatuous rule of primogeniture, in the second eanon and the first part of the third. me n anis itnelkanged, notwithstanding its complete rejection by the t•ilited and the self governing colonies of Creat Britain, :is well as by the nations of Coat Mental l'airope. The second half of the second (-anon and the seventh also re main unaltered. Th., first has been ehanged by deriving the descent from the last purchaser instead of the person last actually seized, and by admitting lineal ancestors in default of lineal descendants and in preference to collateral heirs. The sixth canon has also been altered by ad mitting collateral relations of the half blood in default of relations of the whole blood in the same degree.
So far as they are applicable, these common law rules of descent govern all common law, as distinguished from customary inheritances. in cluding the descent of fee-tail estates. These are the result of legislation of the end of the thir teenth century, and, as they are expressly limited to heirs of the body, that is to lineal descendants only, the rules relating to collateral inheritance have no application to them. Even the canons governing lineal inheritances, however, may be varied by the form of the fee tail, as a fee tail special. which confines the inheritance to the issue of a certain wife, a fee tail male (which may be general or special) which limits descent to the male issue, etc.
So, too, while the common-law rules have to a great extent come to be applied to copyhold es tates. whose qualities are largely determined by local custom, they have no application whatever to certain other classes of customary estates. Thus lands held by the custom of gavelkind (q.v.). which is the prevailing tenure in Kent, and which occurs elsewhere, are still governed by the old rule of soeage tenure. and pass to the sons of the decedent equally, while in the of lands held by the ancient tenure of borough English (q.v.) the common-law rule of primo geniture is reversed, and the inheritance passes to the youngest son. And it may be said, in general, that, in many manors and boroughs in England, the course of descent of certain lands may -till be governed by local customs of great antiquity. which have successfully resisted the eneroachments of the feudalized common-law doc trine.
In the United States there- is much diversity in the law of inheritance. The course of descent is everywhere regulated by legislative enact ment, and the statutes of the several States must be consulted by any one who desires to master its details. Tiut there is a general and essential uniformity in the outlines of the law governing the matter throughout the nation.
In the first plaee, the law of the descent of real property has generally been kept distinct from that of the distribution of personal prop erty. and the heir from the personal representa tive. In the seeond place, the descent of real property is still confined to those who are of the blood of the decedent. excepting in a few States in which the wife and the husband have been placed in the line of inheritance. In the third place. the principle of priority according to the degree of consanguinity has been preserved. the relatives of one degree not being entitled to share in 00 inheritance if there is any repre sentative of a higher degree living. In the fourth place, the rules in accordance with which the de gree of eonsamminity of eollaterais is computed have remained the same as at common law. the count in every ease being from the common an cc-tor to the claimant of the inheritance.
On the other hand, as has been said before. the rule of primogeniture has been universally re j( pled in the United States, and, with it, the feudal preference of the male over the female heir. All the children of the decedent, and all the relatives of equal degree, share alike, usually as tenants in COIIIII1011, A611101.1t distinction of age or sex. Generally, also. the disability of the half blood has been wholly or partially removed, and half brothers and sisters permitted to share equally with those of full blood, or, as 110W ill England, admitted immediately after the lat ter. In all States the father and mother, and in some States all lineal (in•ystors are admitted to the inheritance, usually immediately after lineal descendants and before the collaterals. The prin ciple of representation has also been retained, but in general the descent is traced, not from the person last actually seized, as at common law, nor from the last. purchaser, as under the present English statute. but from the person last en titled. The canons of descent, as given above from Blackstone, do not in teens exclude illegiti mate children. but no principle of the common law is better established than the rule which denies the right of inheritance to a bastard; only persons horn in lawful wedlock are within the legal limits of consanguinity. and no others are capable of lineal or collateral inheritance. This principle has been maintained in all its rigor in England. and has been generally observed in the inheritance laws of the United States, but with the following exceptions and modifications. In most of the States illegitimate children inherit from the mother equally with legitimate chil dren. in one State (New York) only in case the mother has no legitimate issue, and in one (Kan sas) from the father also, if his recognition of them is notorious. In many of the States the milder rule of the civil and canon laws, that the subsequent marriage of the parents legitimates previously born children, has been adopted.
It remains to lie said that the law of descent of a given jurisdiction is immutable and not to lie varied by any form of grant or conveyance. An estate may, indeed, be taken out of its opera tion by previous conveyance or by last will and testament. hut if real property be left 'indisposed of it passes according to an iron law of inherit ance and not otherwise. No limitation of an estate to a different class of heirs, no provision excluding an individual or a class of individuals, has any validity. To attempt to create a differ ent line of descent from that established by law, as by granting lands to A and his male heirs only, or to B and Ids paternal line only, is to undertake the creation of a novel kind of estate, unknown to the law. and therefore not to be tolerated. Such a conveyance, if it creates an estate of inheritance at all, is at once subjected to the established rules of descent and the par ticular restrictions imposed by the donor dis regarded. The only exception to this principle is the case of the fee-tail estate. referred to above, and that is only an apparent and not a real exeept ion, the qualities of the various kinds of fees tail being as clearly defined as are those of the ordinary estate in fee simple. Consult: Blackstone, Commentaric.c ore thr Larose of Eng bind: Williams, PrincipleN of the Lair of 1,',.nt (17th (International) ed., London and Boston. 1S9-1; lath ed.. 1900) ; Jenks. ,ro I.nntl Law (Oxford. 1s9)) ; Digby. .1 Intro darlion to the' Ilistory of the Luir of Root Prom rt (5111 ed., Oxford. 1q99) Pollock and :Nlailland. History of English btu- (2(1 ed., Lon don and Boston. sy.11 ; 1Vashburn, Laic of Neal p(up( ,(;(11 1902). See