Family Law:A Case for Children

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Wardship began as a feudal duty to protect an heir, and it became a business. With the robe on, we walk through the Court of Wards and Liveries rule by rule: the inquest, the sale of a child’s guardianship, the “value of the marriage,” and the cost of getting your own inheritance back. We test it against the life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and look at how society helped the law along.

The law never asked what a child needed. It asked what the child was worth.

Were the Tudors reasonable, responsible adults?

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For roughly a century, the English Crown could sell a child's marriage to the highest bidder. This wasn't a scandal. It was the system, run by the Court of Wards and Liveries.

This episode asks two questions. First: how many children were actually married under wardship?

Second, a more personal one: after immersing myself in this subject for so long, have I inflated the Court's importance? Most people in Tudor England were never touched by it. Wardship fell on the landed classes, and the surviving records come largely from families who were hit hardest and complained loudest.

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It is easy to start a topic without full comprehension of the reasons necessary for the discussion. So today I pause to give the reasons why The Court of Wards and Liveries warrants mentioning  and the subsequent discussion. 

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This is a brief look at the monarchs who reigned during  the exercise of the royal prerogative rights, which lead to the eventual development of the Court. 

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This is an introduction to the next few episodes we will be looking into. As we are called to do, I would like you to think on the children.

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The Elizabethan's epitomises the classic phrase "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer". The situation was dire, like Lady Justice they were blind.

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The Poor Law of 1601 consolidated the previous statutes in a bid  to create uniformity and to prevent riots, overall it was successful  for those who needed it to be. But were the Poor Laws necessary given that, the Tudors, especially the Elizabethans were a wealthy bunch? The question of who is my neighbour failed to crossed their minds.

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A brief  look a the reasons for the  large scale poverty in the Tudor era and the  laws the enacted to try to tackle the crisis.

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Today we  look at illegitimacy, infanticide, physical and sexual abuse in the Tudor era and what steps were taken if any to protect the vulnerable children.

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Today we continue our journey with the Tudors, the poor and vulnerable in society.