d of each session; allowing only 
or the few days which they might 
be obliged to employ in journeying 
to London and returning home.* 
The convocations were regularly 
summoned with the lay-parliaments 
and as regularly met. The prelates 
were still directed to attend and 
‘consult with the nobles.’ They 
were also directed to order their 
dean and archdeacons to attend in 
person, each chapter ta send one 
proctor, and the clergy of each di- 
acese to send two proctors, ¢ to con- 
gent to those things which should 
be ordained by the common council 
of the kingdom.’ As therefore they 
were only to ‘ consent,’ not ‘ to 
consult,’ the proctors could scarcely 
e reckoned a part of the commons. 
They however received wages and 
partook of the privileges of parlia- 
ment. ‘The ecclesiastics still con- 
tinued to.lay taxes on themselves ; 
but the consent of the other bran- 
ches of legislature was necessary to 
give force to their decree.t 
Parliaments were often called and 
quickly dismissed. They had fre- 
quently only one session, and once 
(in 1399,) but a single day. 
No considerable alterations ap- 
peared in the English courts of law, 
‘The number of the judges in the 
courts at Westminster was by no 
means certain. Under’ Henry VI, 
there were at one time eight 
judges in the court of Common 
leas. Lach judge took a solemn 
oath that ‘ he would take no fee, 
pension, gift, reward, or bribe, from 
| any suitor, saving meat and drink, 
which should be of no great -va- 
lue.T 
The laws were ill-executed 
throughout the 15th century. Main- 
* Prynne, + Ibid. 
AW TALQU F TABS. 
(#111 
tenance (an union for sinister pur- 
poses) still prevailed ; the priests by 
their exemptions were set above the 
law ; sanctuaries abounded through- 
out the realm and protected the | 
vilest criminal and the most disho- 
nest debtor ; perjury throye and af= 
forded a living to many ; while the 
high constable, under colour of ex- 
ercising military law, was autho- 
rised to proceed in cases of treason, 
‘summarily and without noise or 
form of trial,? and if he wished to 
give an appearance of justice to his 
proceedings, he could call in the aid 
of torture by fire or on the rack. 
The account which the learned 
judge Hale gives of the lawyers 
who pleaded in the 15th century 
does them little honour. He con- 
demns the reports during the reigns 
of Henry 1V. and V. as inferior to 
those of the last twelve years of Ed. 
ward III; and he speaks but cooly 
of those which the reign of Henry 
VI. produces.§ 
Yet this deficiency of progressive 
improvement in the common law, 
arose not from a want of application 
to the science; since we read ina 
very respectable treatise that there 
were no fewer than 2,000 students 
attending on the inns of Chancery 
and of Court, in time of its wrie 
ter.4] 
The Court of Chancery seems to 
date its rise at the close of the 14th 
century. It was highly obnoxious 
to the professors of the common law, 
who, by their interest in the House 
of Commons, procured a petition 
against it from the Parliament to, 
Edward. IV. in 1474. The influe 
ence of the prelates (who were cer- 
tain of guiding that court) defeated 
this attempt, and its establishment 
t Fortescue de Laudibus Legum Anglia. 
5 Hist, of Common Law, apud Henry, 
@ Fortescue de Laudibus, &c. 
encountered, 
