the Conqueror;
_not, perhaps, appointed with much regularity, but despatched upon
peculiar occasions and emergencies_."--_1 Palgrave's Rise and
Progress_, &c., p. 289 to 293.

The following statute, passed in 1354, (139 years after Magna Carta,)
shows that even after this usurpation of appointing "justices" of his
own, to try criminal cases, had probably become somewhat established in
practice, in defiance of Magna Carta, the king was in the habit of
granting special commissions to still other persons, (especially to
sheriffs,--_his_ sheriffs, no doubt,) to try particular cases:

"Because that the people of the realm have suffered many evils and
mischiefs, for that sheriffs of divers counties, by virtue of
commissions and general writs granted to them at their own suit, for
their singular profit to gain of the people, have made and taken
divers inquests to cause to indict the people at their will, and have
taken fine and ransom of them to their own use, and have delivered
them; whereas such persons indicted were not brought before the
king's justices to have their deliverance, it is accorded and
established, for to eschew all such evils and mischiefs, that such
commissions and writs before this time made shall be utterly
repealed, and that from henceforth no such commissions shall be
granted."--_St. 28 Edward III._, ch. 9, (1354.)

How silly to suppose that the illegality of these commissions to try
criminal cases, could have been avoided by simply granting them to
persons under the title of "_justices_," instead of granting them to
"_sheriffs_." The statute was evidently a cheat, or at least designed as
such, inasmuch as it virtually asserts the right of the king to appoint
his tools, under the name of "justices," to try criminal cases, while it
_disavows_ his right to appoint them under the name of "sheriffs."

Millar says: "When the king's bench came to have its usual residence
at Westminster, the sovereign was induced to _grant special
commissions, for trying particular crimes_, in such parts of the
country as were found most convenient; and this practice was
_gradually_ modelled into a regular appointment of certain
commissioners, empowered, at stated seasons, to perform circuits over
the kingdom, and to hold courts in particular towns, for the trial of
all sorts of crimes. These judges of the circuit, however, _never
obtained an ordinary j