married his deceased wife's sister and had by her a son. This marriage was not declared void during the lifetime of those who had contracted it, and could not, owing to the peculiarity of the jurisdiction of our Ecclesiastical Court, to which I have referred, be declared void afterwards, so that a child could not, in England, be afterwards proved to be illegitimate. It was therefore contended that the marriage was a valid marriage, and that the child could inherit land in Scotland; but Lords Brougham, Cranworth, Wensleydale, and Chelmsford, were unanimously of opinion that the marriage was illegal and invalid by English law from the first, and that the child could not inherit the property. Lord Brougham thus clearly states the law:—
"It (viz. the marriage) was clearly illegal by the law of England. That law treated it as incestuous by the Rules of the Ecclesiastical Court, which alone has cognizance of this objection to a marriage. It could not be questioned except during the lives of husband and wife; but it was illegal, and if questioned while both parties were alive, it must have been declared void ab initio. And why? Because it was contrary to law. The circumstance of one party to it having died before the dispute arose, and before it was questioned, did not make the marriage legal, though it precluded the possibility of setting it aside. And the son was issue not of a lawful marriage, but of a marriage which could not be questioned with efiect, according to
