Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/42

 THE MODERN CONCEPTION OF ANIMUS Nevertheless the introduction of the jury far from lessening the advantages of the martial aristocracy, possibly increased them for, in the first place, the benefit of the clergy came in with the jury, and the bene fit of the clergy meant practical immunity for all persons of standing and opulence; and, in the second, apart from the benefit of the clergy, the jury itself was a singularly perfect instrument for the protection of the gentry. Not only were the sheriffs who selected the panel invariably considerable land holders, but the sheriffs always re turned landlords on important occasions as jurors. Moreover a great family had an in fluence in its own county which made the conviction of one of its members for any ordinary crime by a local jury impossible. Such men only incurred risk if they ma rauded far from home. I will illustrate by a case which arose as late as 1502, just as feudal society collapsed. The abduction of heiresses was a peculiarly aristocratic crime, and so popular that Par liament by statute, 3 Henry 7, c. 2, made abduction a capital felony, and allowed the ■wife to prosecute the husband. The Vernon family flourished greatly in the fifteenth century. William Vernon had been Knight Constable of England, and his son, Sir Henry, Lord of Haddon, was High Sheriff of Derbyshire, was intimate with the King, was made by Henry VII one of the trustees of his will, and was, beside, the Governor of the Prince of Wales, who lived much with him at Haddon. Apparently, it became convenient to Sir Henry to pro vide for a nephew, for about 1500 William and Roger Vernon seized Margaret Kebell, an heiress, carried her off with a troop of a hundred armed men, and afterward married her by force to Roger. Margaret was irreconcilable, and as soon as she recovered her liberty prosecuted Roger at the assizes at Derby in 1502. As the editor of the Star Chamber Cases of the Selden Society observes: "In Derby shire, as may be imagined, it was hopeless


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to expect a successful prosecution of a Vernon on a charge of this nature. The defendants were acquitted." Defeated here Margaret tried the Star Chamber. In the Star Chamber the defen dants could be interrogated and there was no jury. The Star Chamber had, however, no capital jurisdiction. Perhaps because Roger and William were worthless, Margaret seems not to have prosecuted them, but she pursued Sir Henry as an accessory, and it cost him dear. He was convicted and paid £900 for a pardon, a sum which, I suppose, may represent about $30,000 of our money. Kebell v. Vernon, Selden Soc. Select Cases in the Star Chamber 130. Contrasting these two prosecutions, the one at common law and the other before a prerogative court, the reason is plain enough why the landlords always clamored for what they called the "safe guards" of the common law. A century before the Vernon trials, in 141 5, Parliament formally protested to Henry V that their rights were violated because their pleas were decided in the Star Chamber upon the oath and examination of the parties, according to the form of the civil law and the law of the Holy Church, in subversion of the common law. Rotulus Parliamenti, 3 Hen. 5, v. 4, p. 84. And they certainly had some cause, for in matters of finance, as well as in criminal matters, the gentry seem to have fared hardly before the prerogative courts. A curious case reported by the Selden Society illustrates their grievance. See Lord Edward v. Prior of Gisburn, Jewish Exchequer 39, 40: Such was the operation of the common law while feudal society cohered. Those who made this law were a semi-predatory class, dwelling in fortified houses. In the sixteenth century, as the effect of the use of gunpowder, the discovery of the ocean passage to India and of the silver of Amer ica, this class fell. The last remnants of the feudal baronage were destroyed by Henry VIII, and the old military aristocracy was