Wilhs: Anglo-American Law 
107 
mere, saturated with common law notions, began — whether for 
better or worse — to reduce the chancery rules of procedure to 
a system as technical as that of the common law, and in mat- 
ters of substance to follow precedent as common law judges 
did. This practice was continued under Lord Nottingham 
and completed by Lord Eldon in the nineteenth century, when 
equity became as rigid and technical as the common law. 
Meanwhile equity continued the work it had begun under the 
Tudors, and Lord Ellesmere was largely responsible for its 
triumph. Ellesmere granted an injunction ordering a plain- 
tiff in Coke’s court, who had obtained a judgment by the 
trick of enticing defendant’s witnesses into a beer-house while 
the action was being tried, not to proceed with his judgment. 
Coke advised plaintiff’s attorney to prosecute defendant and 
his counsel under a statute forbidding the impeachment of 
the judgments of the King’s Court in another court; and 
Coke also tried to persuade a grand jury to indict them. The 
grand jury refused to expose themselves to the indignation of 
Ellesmere. Then Coke announced that he would refuse to 
hear any counsel who had presented such a bill in equity. 
Ellesmere appealed to the king. The king consulted with 
Bacon, a life-long enemy of Coke, and other lawyers. They 
favored Ellesmere because they said the statute Coke invoked 
.referred to foreign courts and because of a practice of sixty 
years in favor of such injunctions, and the king adopted their 
opinion. Henceforth there was no question of the suprem- 
acy of equity over the common law, and before the end of 
this period the chancellors above referred to introduced many 
new principles into Anglo-American law. 
Criminal Law. Some reform of criminal procedure in cases 
of treason was brought to pass, but little change in the sub- 
stantive law of treason occurred. The judges twisted the 
Statute of Treason (Edward III) so that those were found 
guilty of imagining the king’s death who agitated in favor 
of a new Parliament and who pulled down a number of dis- 
senting meeting-houses. As a result of the latter decision the 
Riot Act was passed in 1714 making the assemblage of twelve 
persons riotously in a public place an unlawful assemblage, 
and if they refused to disperse within one hour after the read- 
ing to them ‘‘of the Riot Act” they were guilty of felony with- 
out benefit of clergy. 
Seditious libel came into prominence in the time of James 
