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2. Concerning the trial, a threefold answer was thereunto made and resolved: 1. That the like objection might be made against Irishmen, Gascoins, Normans, men of the Isles of Man, Guernsey, and Jersey, of Berwick, &c. all which appear by the rule of our books to be natural born subjects; and yet no jury can come out of any of those countries and places, for trial of their births there. 2. If the demandant or plaintiff in any action concerning lands be born in Ireland, Guernsey, Jersey, &c. out of the realm of England, if the tenant or defendant plead, that he was born out of the ligeance of the King, &c. the demandant or plaintiff may reply, that he was born under the ligeance of the King at such place within England; and upon the evidence the place shall not be material, but only the issue shall be, whether the demandant or plaintiff were born under the ligeance of the King in any of his kingdoms or dominions whatsoever and in that case the jury, (if they will) may find the special matter, viz. the place where he was born, and leave it to the judgment of the Court: and that jurors may take knowledge of things done [27 a] out of the realm in this and like cases, vide 7 H. 7. 8 b. 20 Ed. 3. Averment 34. 5 Ric. 2. tit. Trial 54.  15 Ed. 4. 15. 32 H. 6. 25. Fitz. Nat. Brev. 196. Vide Dowdales case, in the Sixth Part of my Reports, fol. 47. and there divers other judgments be vouched.^{[N 1]} 3 Brown, in anno 32 H. 6. reporteth a judgment then lately given, that where the defendant pleaded that the plaintiff was a Scot, born at St. John's town in Scotland, out of the ligeance of the King; whereupon they were at issue, and that issue was tried where the writ was brought, and that appeareth also by 27 Ass. pl. 24. that the jury did find the prior to be born in Gascoin. (for so much is necessarily proved by the words trove fuit.) And 20 Ed. 3. tit. Averment 34. in a juris utrum, the death of one of the vouchees was alleged at such a castle in Britain, and this was inquired of by the jury; and it is holden in 5 Rich. 2. tit. Trial 54. that if a man be adhering to the enemies of the King in France, his land is forfeitable, and his adherency shall be tried where the land is, as oftentimes hath been done, as there it is said by Belknap: and Fitz. Nat. Br. 196 in a mortdanc., if the ancestor died in intinere peregrinationis sum vers. Terram sanctam the jury shall enquire of it: but in the case at Bar, seeing the defendant hath pleaded the truth of the case, and the plaintiff hath not denied it, but demurred upon the same, and thereby confessed all matters of fact, the Court now ought to judge upon the special matter, even as if a jury upon an issue joined in England, as it is aforesaid, had found the special matter, and left it to the Court.

3. To the third it was answered and resolved, that this judgment was rather a renovation of the judgments and censures of the reverend Judges and sages of the law in so many ages past, than any innovation, as appeareth by the book and book-cases before recited: neither have Judges power to judge according to that which they think to be fit, but that which out of the laws they know to be right and consonant to law. Judex bonus nihil ex arbitrio suo faciat, nec proposito domestiæ voluntatis, sed juxta leges et jura pronuntiat. And as for timores, fears grounded upon no just cause, qui non cadunt in constantem virum, vani timores estimandi sunt.

4. And as to the fourth, it is less than a dream of a shadow, or a shadow of a dream: for it hath been often said, natural legitimation respecteth actual obedience to the sovereign at the time of the birth; for as the antenati remain aliens as to the Crown of England, because they were born when there were several Kings of the several kingdoms, and the [27 b] uniting of the kingdoms by descent subsequent cannot make him a subject to that Crown to which he was alien at the time of his birth: so albeit the kingdoms (which Almighty God of his infinite goodness and mercy divert) should by descent be divided, and governed by several Kings; yet it was resolved, that all those that were born under one natural obedience while the realms were united under one sovereign, should remain natural born subjects, and no aliens, for that naturalization due and vested by birthright, cannot by any separation of the Crowns afterward be taken away: nor be that was by judgment of law a natural subject at the time of his birth, become an alien by such a matter ex post facto. And in that case, upon such an accident, our postnatus may be ad fidem utriusque Regis, as Bracton saith in the afore remembered place, fol. 427.

Sicut Anglicus non