We now come to the concluding passages of this highly interesting suit:
"_Berewyke_ [the Judge]: 'For that he could not purchase his own heritage so that it could be styled his own purchase; and he devised the tenements; and the custom of the town does not permit a man to devise his heritage; Therefore this Court adjudges that Sybil (_sic_) do recover her seisin of the tenements which were not devisable. Now what say you as to the remainder?'
"The Assise said that the remainder of the tenements were of his own purchase from several persons in the town, and that in his last illness he devised them to Martin for the term of his life, and that the testament was proved at the Guildhall according to the custom of the town; and that the executors were commanded to deliver seisin to Martin, and that according to the custom he had the seisin, &c.
"_Berewyke_: 'Since it is found that he entered on the tenements according to the custom, &c.--although you were seised for four weeks, yet that ought not to give you a title--this Court adjudges that you do take nothing by the writ, &c. After Martin's death be well advised.'"
Communal law, however, was not allowed to _override_ the law of England.[12] This principle was asserted in 1293, when Thomas le Chamberleyn brought a writ before the Common Bench against a certain W., who, he complained, had taken his horse in the highway in the town of Bernewell. The writ ran--"took in the highway and still keeps impounded." There was the usual wrangle between counsel, and an attempt was made to oust or invalidate the writ by asserting that six years and a half before it (the writ) was purchased the animal had been surrendered. After this preliminary fencing counsel for the defence produced his real case, which was that by the King's charter the burgesses of Cambridge had a franchise to this extent, that when clerks or other persons were in debt they might seize their horses or other property within the liberty; and as Thomas was bound in so many shillings, his horse was seized according to the custom of the town, and in no other way. The trespass being admitted, the Judge (Gislingham) proceeded to give judgment on the plea of justification. He said: