It facilitated the creation of entailed estates by providing
that the rights of an heir of an estate, granted upon conditions, were
not to be barred on account of the alienation of such an estate by its
previous tenant. Thus arose those estates for life, which in later ages
became a special feature of the English land system, and which, by
restricting the control of the actual possessor of a property over his
land, did much to perpetuate the worst features of medieval
land-holding. It is a modern error to regard the legitimation of
estates in tail as a triumph of reactionary feudalism over the will of
Edward. Apart from the fact that there is not a tittle of contemporary
evidence to justify such a view, it is manifest that the interest of
the king was in this case exactly the same as that of each individual
lord of a manor. The greater prospect of reversion to the donor, and
the other features of the system of entails, which commended them to
the petty baron, were still more attractive to the king, the greatest
proprietor as well as the ultimate landlord of all the realm.
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