urisdiction, but continued, on every occasion,
to derive their authority from two special commissions_: that of
_oyer and terminer_, by which they were appointed to hear and
determine all treasons, felonies and misdemeanors, within certain
districts; and that of _gaol delivery_, by which they were directed
to try every prisoner confined in the gaols of the several towns
falling under their inspection."--_Millar's Hist. View of Eng. Gov._,
vol. 2, ch. 7, p. 282.

The following extract from Gilbert shows to what lengths of usurpation
the kings would sometimes go, in their attempts to get the judicial
power out of the hands of the people, and entrust it to instruments of
their own choosing:

"From the time of the _Saxons_," (that is, from the commencement of
the reign of William the Conqueror,) "till the reign of Edward the
first, (1272 to 1307,) the several county courts and sheriffs courts
did decline in their interest and authority. The methods by which
they were broken were two-fold. _First, by granting commissions to
the sheriffs by writ of_ JUSTICIES, _whereby the sheriff had a
particular jurisdiction granted him to be judge of a particular
cause, independent of the suitors of the county court_," (that is,
without a jury;) "_and these commissions were after the Norman form,
by which (according to which) all power of judicature was immediately
derived from the king_."--_Gilbert on the Court of Chancery_, p. 1.

The several authorities now given show that it was the custom of the
_Norman_ kings, not only to appoint persons to sit as judges in jury
trials, in criminal cases, but that they also commissioned individuals
to sit in singular and particular cases, as occasion required; and that
they therefore readily _could_, and naturally _would_, and therefore
undoubtedly _did_, commission individuals with a special view to their
adaptation or capacity to procure such judgments as the kings desired.

The extract from Gilbert suggests also the usurpation of the _Norman_
kings, in their assumption that _they_, (and _not the people_, as by the
_common law_,) were the fountains of justice. It was only by virtue of
this illegal assumption that they could claim to appoint their tools to
hold courts.

All these things show how perfectly lawless and arbitrary the kings were
both before and after Magna Carta, and how necessary to liberty was the
principle of Magna Carta and