Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/111

§. 4. in Wales: beides many other regulations of the police of this principality. And the tatute 34 & 35 Hen. VIII. c. 26. confirms the ame, adds farther regulations, divides it into twelve hires, and, in hort, reduces it into the ame order in which it tands at this day; differing from the kingdom of England in only a few particulars, and thoe too of the nature of privileges, (uch as having courts within itelf, independent of the proces of Wetminter hall) and ome other immaterial peculiarities, hardly more than are to be found in many counties of England itelf.

kingdom of Scotland, notwithtanding the union of the crowns on the acceon of their king James VI to that of England, continued an entirely eparate and ditinct kingdom for above a century, though an union had been long projected; which was judged to be the more eay to be done, as both kingdoms were antiently under the ame government, and till retained a very great reemblance, though far from an identity, in their laws. By an act of parliament 1 Jac. I. c. 1. it is declared, that, thee two, mighty, famous, and antient kingdoms were formerly one. And ir Edward Coke oberves, how marvellous a conformity there was, not only in the religion and language of the two nations, but alo in their antient laws, the decent of the crown, their parliaments, their titles of nobility, their officers of tate and of jutice, their writs, their cutoms, and even the language of their laws. Upon which account he uppoes the common law of each to have been originally the ame, epecially as their mot antient and authentic book, called  and containing the rules of their antient common law, is extremely imilar to that of Glanvil, which contains the principles of ours, as it tood in the reign of Henry II. And the many diverities, ubiting between the two laws at preent, may be well enough accounted for, from a diverity of practice in two large and uncommunicating juridictions, and from the acts of two ditinct and independent parliaments, which have in many points altered and abrogated the old common law of both kingdoms. -