300 THE JURISDICTION OF THE MARCHES. 



Scripture, or author whatsoever, is of greatest credit : for 

 to come now, above sixty years after, by subtilty of wit to 

 expound a statute otherwise than the ages immediately suc 

 ceeding did conceive it, is expositio contentiosa, and not 

 naturaiis. And whereas they extenuate the opinion of the 

 attorney and solicitor, it is not so easy to do ; for first they 

 were famous men, and one of them had his patrimony in 

 the shires; secondly, it was of such weight, as a decree of 

 the council was grounded upon it ; and, thirdly, it was not 

 unlike, but that they had conferred with the judges, as the 

 attorney and solicitor do often use in like cases. 



Lastly, for the exemption of Cheshire he gave this an 

 swer. First, that the certificate in the whole body of it, till 

 within three or four of the last lines, doth rely wholly upon 

 that reason, because it was a county palatine: and to 

 speak truth, it stood not with any great sense or propor 

 tion, that that place which was privileged and exempted 

 from the jurisdiction of the courts of Westminster, should 

 be meant by the parliament to be subjected to the jurisdic 

 tion of that council. 



Secondly, he said that those reasons, which we do much 

 insist upon for the four shires, hold not for Cheshire, for 

 \ve say it is fit the subject of Wales be not forced to sue at 

 Westminster, but have his justice near hand; so may he 

 have in Cheshire, because there is both a justice for com 

 mon law and a chancery ; we say it is convenient for the 

 prince, if it please the king to send him down, to have some 

 jurisdiction civil as well as for the peace ; so may he have 

 in Cheshire, as earl of Chester. And therefore those grave 

 men had great reason to conceive that the parliament did 

 not intend to include Cheshire. 



And whereas they pinch upon the last words in the cer 

 tificate, namely, that Cheshire was no part of the dominion, 

 nor of the marches, they must supply it with this sense, not 

 within the meaning of the statute ; for otherwise the judges 

 could not have discerned of it ; for they were not to try the 

 fact, but to expound the statute ; and that they did upon 

 those reasons, which were special to Cheshire, and have no 

 affinity with the four shires. 



And, therefore, if it be well weighed, that certificate makes 

 against them ; for as exceptio Jit-mat legem in casibus non 

 exceptis, so the excepting of that shire by itself doth fortify, 

 that the rest of the shires were included in the very point 

 of difference. 



After this he showed a statute in 18 Eliz. by which pro 

 vision is made for the repair of a bridge called Chepstow- 



