The bishop of the diocese, an arrogant scion of the great nobility, claimed the girl's estate on the ground that she had married privately, and thus had cheated the Church out of one of its rights as lord of the seigniory--the one heretofore referred to as le droit du seigneur.

The penalty of refusal or avoidance was confiscation.

The girl's defense was, that the lordship of the seigniory was vested in the bishop, and the particular right here involved was not transferable, but must be exercised by the lord himself or stand vacated; and that an older law, of the Church itself, strictly barred the bishop from exercising it.

It was a very odd case, indeed.
It reminded me of something I had read in my youth about the ingenious way in which the aldermen of London raised the money that built the Mansion House.

A person who had not taken the Sacrament according to the Anglican rite could not stand as a candidate for sheriff of London.