Robert Aske's rebels demanded the repeal of the law that stopped landowners leaving land by will; Aske was hanged in chains, and Henry VIII gave way in 1540

English landowners used "uses": others held legal title to land for their benefit. Uses let them avoid the feudal dues owed to the Crown when land passed to an heir, and let them direct who would have the land after death. Under pressure from Henry VIII, Parliament passed the Statute of Uses in 1536. It gave legal title to the beneficiary, which brought back the Crown's dues and the rule that land went to the eldest son. In late 1536 the north rose. Robert Aske, a lawyer with a London practice, led the Yorkshire rising of about 30,000 men. The rebels' 24 articles, drawn up at Pontefract in December 1536, included article 20: repeal of the statute "That no man shall not will his lands". On 5 December Aske knelt before the Duke of Norfolk at Doncaster and asked for the king's pardon, and Henry promised one. After a new rising in East Yorkshire in January 1537 the king broke his word. Aske was taken to the Tower, sentenced, and hanged in chains outside Clifford's Tower in York on 12 July 1537. In 1540 Parliament passed the Statute of Wills. It let owners leave all land held in socage and two-thirds of land held by knight service by written will. The Statute of Uses stayed in force, and Chancery lawyers built the modern trust around it. From 1660 almost all heritable land could be left by will, and the Law of Property Act 1925 repealed the Statute of Uses.