Y Cymmrodor. v. XIV. 1901.

20 Enolish Law in Wales and the Marches.
&
cester, Hereford, Salop, and Worcester, who was also
escheator of the Marches, who held an inauisitio post
mortem locally as to the tenure and value of the lordship.
We do not fìnd any enquiry, as in England, as to the dues
to the Crown ; the object usually was to ascertain whether
the King ìnight take the lordship. That the King had no
rig-ht of wardship in the Marches, ubi brevia Regis non
currunt, was recognised in the Statute Prerogata Regis
(17 Edward II, Stat. 1). The King's court also tried any
question as to the title of the lordship itself, which was
for this purpose supposed to be within the English county
next adjoining (much as in a fanious case Minorca was
presumed to be in the ward of Cheap), also "for want of a
superior" it tried any dispute between two Lords Marcher
and sometimes enquired by auo warranto as to the claims
of the Marchers. In ecclesiastical matters, as the court of
the Lord could not make process to the bishop, the King's
Bench issued a writ to send the record up, and the matter
was then dealt with.
The Welsh bishops, so far as their dioceses lay in the
Marches, were also Lords Marcher,
as were also other
ecclesiastical personages, especially the Knights Hospital-
lers, who held much property in Wales. These spiritual
Marchers did not obtain their rights by conquest but from
the necessity of the case, "for otherwise their tenants and
people must have lived lawless and without government";
but they were in many cases confirmed by grants from the
Crown, and the invaders respected the lands of spiritual
men, even if they were Welshmen. The bishops of St.
David's led their " subjects" to war with the shrine and
relics of the patron Saint at their head; they had the
power of life and death; their stewards, constables, and
recorders, were noblemen and men of high position ; they
had garrisons in their city and castle ; and as their statutes