38 UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 



well as treasons committed in France, Rome, or 

 elsewhere. 



For courts of justice, trials, processes, and other 

 administration of laws, to make any alteration in 

 either nation, it will be a thing so new and unwonted 

 to either people, that it may be doubted it will make 

 the adminstration of justice, which of all other things 

 ought to be known and certain as a beaten way, to 

 become intricate and uncertain. And besides, I do 

 not see that the several ty of administration of justice 

 though it be by court sovereign of last resort, I mean 

 without appeal or error, is any impediment at all to 

 the union of a kingdom : as we see by experience in 

 the several courts of parliament in the kingdom 

 of France. And I have been always of opinion, that 

 the subjects of England do already fetch justice 

 somewhat far off, more than in any nation that I 

 know, the largeness of the kingdom considered, 

 though it be holpen in some part by the circuits of 

 the judges ; and the two councils at York, and in 

 the marches of Wales established. 



But it may be a good question, whether, as 

 &quot; commune vinculum&quot; of the justice of both nations, 

 your majesty should not erect some court about your 

 person, in the nature of the grand council of France : 

 to which court you might, by way of evocation, 

 draw causes from the ordinary judges of both na 

 tions ; for so doth the French king from all the 

 courts of parliament in France ; many of which are 

 more remote from Paris than any part of Scotland is 

 from London. 



