surd and foolish pleading. Towards the latter end of this reign, too, is found one of the earliest writs for summoning the Commons to Parliament; whilst the Magna Charta of King John contains the first traces of a separation between the orders of Barons in the Great Council of the kingdom.

The Charters of liberties appear to have lain neglected until 1297, when Edward I. was about to make war on Philip King of France; but before his departure, the nobles and commons of the realm addressed him with a remonstrance on existing national grievances, and several violations of Magna Charta. He promised redress on his return, and published a proclamation commanding the great Charter to be observed; but in October 1298, Prince Edward, who was Regent in his father's absence, issued, in full Parliament, a confirmation Charter on his behalf, which the King sealed at Ghent. He was required again to renew this act on his return to England; and, after deferring it until the conclusion of his expeditions against France and Scotland, he once more confirmed the Charters in a Parliament at London, March 8th 1299, and issued writs to the English Sheriffs commanding their observance. He also sent out other letters to the Sheriffs, written both in the Latin and Norman-French, to be published in all cities, boroughs, and market-towns; which stated, that he considered himself too hardly pressed by the complaints of his subjects, his delay being occasioned by many difficult affairs which would soon be brought to a close, after which the forests should be surveyed. The Perambulators or Commissioners appointed to inquire into their boundaries, and reduce them to their ancient extent, assembled at

Michaelmas 1299, executed their survey in the following summer, and their returns were finally confirmed by a Parliament which met at Lincoln, January 29th 1301, upon the attestations of the King's Justices, a Jury, and the principal forestofficers. The King gave his sanction to these proceedings on the 14th of February, and they indisputably fixed the future limits of the forests. At the same time, too, was issued the last confirmation of the Charters; which, Sir Edward Coke ob serves, have been established by thirty-two sepa rate Statutes of Parliament.

CHAPTER III.

LAW AND GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND, FROM THE REIGN OF EDWARD 1. TO THE END OF THE INTERREGNUM.

SIR MATTHEW HALE, esteemed King Edward I. to be the Justinian of England, in the first thirteen years of whose reign, namely, from 1272 to about 1285, " more was done to settle and establish the distributive justice of the kingdom than in all the ages since that time put together." Greater even as a legislator than as a conqueror, beside his effectual confirmation of the charters of liberties, he restrained the usurpations of the Pope and his clergy, by limiting and establishing ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and obliging the Ordinary, to whom, all the goods of persons dying without a will, anciently belonged, to discharge the debts of the deceased, before part of them were appropriated to the Church. He established Justices of the Peace, and perfected the arrangement of several temporal Courts of the highest jurisdiction, as the King's Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas; and probably completed the institution of Judges of Assize, and their circuits. He settled the boundaries of inferior courts in counties, hundreds, and manors; confining them to causes of less amount,

according to their original institution. He abolished all arbitrary taxes, &c. levied without the consent of the Great National Council; and resigned the unlawful prerogative, of sending mandates to the Judges, to interfere in private causes; though he has been censured as claiming too much for Royal privilege, and for his ministers having affirmed, that the Sovereign was above the law. He settled the form, solemnities, and effect of those instruments called Fines, used in conveying estates, and known before the Norman invasion. He first established a repository for the public records of the realm, few of which are older than the time of Henry III., and those were by him collected. He improved upon the laws of King Alfred, by his order for watch and ward in all towns, from sunset to sunrise, established by the statute of Winchester. He settled and reformed many evils incident to tenures, and removed some restraints on the disposal of landed property by the statute called "Quia Emptores," which made the original tenure follow the land, however it might be disposed of. He instituted a more speedy way of recovering debts, by granting execution upon lands as well as goods. He effectually proceeded against the landed property of the kingdom being wholly absorbed by religious societies and ecclesiastics, or other bodies which rendered no service for it, contrary to the ordinance of Magna Charta; and even his wars in Wales and Scotland seem to have originated in a desire of improving the government of England by uniting Great Britain into one kingdom.

The best proof of the excellence of King Edward's constitutions, is, that the scheme which he

settled for the administration of justice between two parties, has remained to the present period with those alterations only which the difference of times has required. The forms of writs for commencing of actions, which were perfected in this reign, became models for posterity; the treatises of Britton, Fleta, &c. were held as law until the feudal tenures were abolished; and the forms of legal proceedings remained almost entirely unaltered through two centuries and ten reigns, down to the time of Henry VIII.

The ancient Gothic privilege of electing the principal subordinate magistrates, the sheriffs and conservators of the peace, was taken from the people under Edward II. and III.; Justices of the Peace being instituted for the latter. It is common, too, to assign the present construction of Parliament, as to a distinction of Lords and Commons, to the reign of Edward III.; but on this point historians are not unanimous; some finding traces of it as early as about 1283, and others observing it between 1314 and 1327.* Whereever this separation took place, the Bishops, Abbots, and Priors, were ranked and summoned with the Earls and Barons, whilst the Archdeacons and Deans answered to the Knights of shires, being

* It may be temarked in this place, that of all the Peerage titles that of an Earl is the oldest, after which the Barons included the whole of the nobility and the great council thereof. The first Duke since the Norman invasion, was Edward the Black Prince, made Duke of Cornwall by Charter, March 17th 1377; the first Marquess was Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, created Marquess of DubJin in 1384; and the first Viscount who sat in Parliament by that title, was John Beaumont, made Viscount Beaumont in 1439.