ABSTRACT
In England, the law first recognised a distinction between mental illness and mental defect in the fourteenth century, during the reign of Edward II. At that time the Statute de Praerogativa Regis drew a distinction between a ‘lunatic’ or ‘person of unsound mind’ (non compos mentis in the Statute) on the one hand, and an ‘idiot’ or ‘natural fool’ on the other. It asserted that the wardship of lunatics and idiots was to be a prerogative of the Crown and that the property of a lunatic must be preserved intact and returned to him on recovery, subject only to his maintenance and that of his family meanwhile out of his estate, whereas the profits of the property of an idiot, beyond what was spent on his maintenance, might be appropriated for the enjoyment of the Crown or of the person entrusted with the custody of the idiot.
