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POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



&quot;This precedent was soon after copied by King Philip the Fair in 

 France, who about the year 1302, fixed the parliament of Paris to abide 

 constantly in that metropolis ; which before used to follow the person 

 of the king wherever he went . . . And thus also, in 1495, the Emperor 

 Maximilian I. fixed the imperial chamber, which before always travelled 

 with the court and household, to be constantly at Worms.&quot; 



As a sequence of these changes it of course happens that 

 suits of a certain kind come habitually to be decided with 

 out the king s presence : there results a permanent transfer of 

 part of his judicial power. Again, press of business or 



love of ease prompts the king himself to hand over such 

 legal matters as are of little interest to him. Thus in 

 France, while we read that Charles V., when regent, eat in 

 his council to administer justice twice a week, and Charles VI. 

 once, we also read that in 1370 the king declared he would 

 no longer try the smaller causes personally. Once initiated 

 and growing into a usage, this judging by commission, be 

 coming more frequent as affairs multiply, is presently other 

 wise furthered : there arises the doctrine that the king ought 

 not, at any rate in certain cases, to join in judgment. Thus 

 &quot; at the trial of the duke of Brittany in 1378, the peers of 

 France protested against the presence of the king.&quot; Again 

 &quot; at the trial of the Marquis of Saluces, under Francis L, 

 that monarch was made to see that he could not sit.&quot; When 

 Lewis XIII. wished to be judge in the case of the Duke de 

 la Valette, he was resisted by the judges, who said that it 

 was without precedent. And in our own country there came 

 a time when &quot;James I. was informed by the judges that he 

 had the- right to preside in the court, but not to express his 

 opinion :&quot; a step towards that exclusion finally reached. 



While the judicial business of the political head thus lapses 

 into the hands of appointed agencies, these agencies them 

 selves, severally parting with certain of their functions one to 

 another, become specialized. Among ourselves, even before 

 there took place the above-named separation of the per 

 manently-localized court of common pleas, from the king s 

 court which moved about with him, there had arisen within 



