Kings Peace and English P cacc-Magistracy . 43 



ing intolerable.^ And the embarrassment was increased by 

 the form of the commission. The latter had been "stuffed " 

 with the substance of all the particular statutes just referred 

 to, many of which were already obsolete. It thus became 

 unnecessarily long ; and besides, " it was otherwise full of 

 defects, from recitals, repetitions, and the heaping together 

 of various incongruous matters ; great part of which was ren- 

 dered unintelligible by repeated errors in the penning of it."^ 



To remedy this evil, in 1 590, Sir Christopher Wray, chief 

 justice of the king's bench, devised a new form of commis- 

 sion, which was accepted by the chancellor, and remains 

 essentially unaltered to the present hour.^ 



The two-fold capacity in which justices of the peace offici- 

 ate is distinctly recognized in the commission. The first 

 general clause conveys the powers of conservators of the 

 peace according to both common and statute law ; and, it is 

 important to observe, that it was in this last particular — the 

 authority to execute all statutes relating to the peace admin- 

 istration — that the new commission remedied the principal 

 defect of the old. This authority was conferred upon the 

 justices in general terms,* so that henceforth it was no longer 

 necessary to particularize in the commission the various acts 

 relating to their jurisdiction. 



1 "For," says Lambard, "if Hussey (the chiefe Justice I. H. 7. 3.) did thinke 

 that it was enough to loade all the Justices of the Peace of those daies, with the 

 execution, onely of the Statutes of Winchester and Westminster, for Robberies, 

 and Felonies: the Statute of forcible entries: the Statute of Labourers, Vaga- 

 bonds, Liueries, Maintenance, Embracerie, and Sherifes : Then, how many 

 Justices (thinke you) may now suffice (without brealiing their backes) to beare 

 so many, not Loads, but Stacks of Statutes, that haue since that time beene laide 

 upon them?" Eirenarcha, 34. See also for a summary of the more important 

 acts, Gneist, II, 44; Reeves, Hist, of Eng. Law, III, 404-5 (Rich. II), 456-7 

 (Henry V), 489-90 (Henry VI). 



2 Reeves, Hist, of Eng. Lmv, V, 467; Gneist, II, 45. 



3 The Latin te.\t of the commission is given in Gneist, II, 172-3; and Lambard, 

 Eirenarcha, 35-39; Dalton, The Country Justice, 16-22 (Latin and English). 



* The words are ac ad ontiia Ordinationes et Statuta pro bono Pads nostrae. 

 These were intended to comprehend old statutes, such as those of Westminster, as 

 well as those which might be enacted in future : Lambard, Eirenarcha, 45 ; 

 Reeves, Hist, of Eiig. Law, V, 467. 



277 



