Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/464

450 separate establishment of these two courts very much reduced the business and impaired the dignity of the Court of Exchequer. The Lord Chancellor used to sit as one of the judges of the Exchequer after the separation of the two courts of Common Pleas and King's Bench; but the Court of Chancery was of much slower growth.

About the same time that these useful changes took place, justices of assize and nisi prius were appointed to go into every shire two or three times a year, for the more prompt administration of justice; and these judges were made justices of gaol-delivery at all places in their circuits.

All these improvements, however, not keeping down the host of thieves, murderers, and incendiaries, Edward I. appointed what he called justices of traile-baston, who proceeded to all parts, and exercised severe jurisdiction over such felons; and, still further to extend order and protection, he appointed justices of peace—officials of such indispensable and daily use, that we wonder how society was carried on before this era. At the same time Edward abolished the office of high justiciary, as conferring too much power on any subject. He, moreover, kept a sharp eye on the judges and justices, and punished them severely for neglect or violation of their duties. On his return from France, in 1290, so many were the complaints of the rapacity and extortion of the judges, that he summoned a Parliament expressly to call them to account, where all the judges, except two, were found guilty, and heavily fined. Sir Thomas Wayland, the chief justice, was banished, and his estates confiscated.

We have already stated, in speaking of Edward I.'s reign, that he was the fist who regularly summoned the Commons to Parliament. Though this had been done in Henry III.'s reign by the Earl of Leicester—commonly called Leicester's Parliament—yet it had fallen again into disuse, and it was only restored by Edward I. on the just ground that what concerned all ought to be approved by all. Yet it does not appear that the Commons at this period possessed any separate house, though they occasionally retired and consulted on their own affairs. These were, chiefly, granting money and presenting petitions of grievances.

The clergy still formed an integral part of Parliament; the prelates, abbots, and priors corresponding to the lords; the deans and archdeacons to the knights of shires, who were summoned by the bishop as the knights were by the sheriff; and the representatives of the ordinary clergy corresponded to the representatives of boroughs, and were called the spiritual Commons. The clergy granted their money separate from the laity; and from this reign date the two houses of Convocation. The judges, also, still sat in Parliament.

Parliament assembled for the Deposition of Richard II. From the Harleian MSS. 1319.

The laws which Edward I. passed have drawn the highest praise from our greatest legal authorities. Coke calls him the English Justinian; and Sir Matthew Hale asserts that he made the scheme, mould, and model of the common law substantially what it still remains; that before his time it was very rude; and that since, the great fundamental principles of common law, as it relates to justice between man and man, are very much what he made and left them. By his wise statutes he enforced the administration of justice, set bounds to the power of the Pope by the famous statute of provisors; to that of the clergy and the spiritual courts, being the first to pass a statute of mortmain; restrained the crown from imposing taxes without consent of Parliament; regulated and strengthened the internal police of the country; and greatly fostered trade by protecting and encouraging both foreign and English merchants. In his reign the famous mercantile society called the "Merchant Adventurers" was