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of them now, by the increase of inhabitants, are divided into several parishes and tithings; and, sometimes, where there is but one parish there are two or more vills or tithings.

As ten families of freeholders made up a town or tithing, so ten tithings composed a superior division, called a hundred, as consisting of ten times ten families. The hundred is governed by an high constable or bailiff, and formerly there was regularly held in it the hundred court for the trial of causes, though now fallen into disuse. In some of the more northern counties these hundreds are called wapentakes'.

THE subdivision of hundreds into tithings seems to be most peculiarly the invention of Alfred: the institution of hundreds themselves he rather introduced than invented. For they seem to have obtained in Denmark m. and we find that in France a regulation of this sort was made about two hundred years before; set on foot by Clotharius and Childebert, with a view of obliging each district to answer for the robberies committed in its own division. These divisions were, in that country, as well military as civil; and each contained a hundred freemen, who were subject to an officer called the centenarius; a number of which centenarii were themselves subject to a superior officer called the count or [117] comes". And indeed something like this institution of hundreds may be traced back as far as the antient Germans, from whom were derived both the Franks who became masters of Gaul, and the Saxons who settled in England: for both the thing and the name, as a territorial assemblage of persons, from which afterwards the territory itself might probably receive it's denomination, were well known to that warlike people. Centeni ex singulis pagis sunt idque ipsum inter suos “vocantur; et quod primo numerus fuit, jam nomen et honor "est "

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An indefinite number of these hundreds make up a county or shire. Shire is a Saxon word signifying a division; but a county, comitatus, is plainly derived from comes, the count of the Franks; that is, the earl, or alderman (as the Saxons

'Seld. in Fortesc. c. 24.

m Seld. tit. of honour, 2. 5. 3.

n

Montesq. Sp. L. 30. 17.

Tacit. de morib. German. 6.

called him) of the shire, to whom the government of it was intrusted. This he usually exercised by his deputy, still called in Latin vice-comes, and in English, the sheriff, shrieve, or shire-reeve, signifying the officer of the shire; upon whom, by process of time, the civil administration of it is now totally devolved. In some counties there is an intermediate division, between the shire and the hundreds, as lathes in Kent, and rapes in Sussex, each of them containing about three or four hundreds apiece. These had formerly their lathe-reeves and rape-reeves, acting in subordination to the shire-reeve. Where a county is divided into three of these intermediate jurisdictions, they are called trithings, which were antiently governed by a trithing-reeve. These trithings still subsist in the large county of York, where by an easy corruption they are denominated ridings; the north, the east, and the westriding. The number of counties in England and Wales have been different at different times: at present they are forty in England, and twelve in Wales.

THREE of these counties, Chester, Durham, and Lancaster, are called counties palatine. The two former are such by prescription, or immemorial custom; or at least, as old as the Norman conquest: the latter was created by king Edward III. in favour of Henry Plantagenet, first earl and then duke of Lancaster'; whose heiress being married to John of Gant the king's son, the franchise was greatly enlarged and confirmed in parliament, to honour John of Gant himself, whom, on the death of his father-in-law, the king had also created duke of Lancaster t. Counties palatine are so called a palatio; because the owners thereof (the earl of Chester, the bishop of Durham, and the duke of Lancaster,) had in those counties jura regalia, as fully as the king hath in his palace; regalem potestatem in omnibus, as Bracton expresses it". They might pardon treasons, murders, and felonies they appointed all judges and justices of the peace; all writs and indictments ran in their names, as in other counties in the king's and all offences were said to be done against their

P LL. Edw. c. 34.

9 Seld. tit. hon. 2. 5. 8.

Pat. 25 Edw. III. p. 1. m. 18. Seld. ibid. Sandford's gen. hist. 112.

s Cart. 36 Edw. III. n. 9.

t Pat. 51 Edw. III. m. 33.

Plowd.

215. 7 Rym. 138.
1.3. c. 8. § 4.

:

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4 Inst. 204.

peace, and not, as in other places, contra pacem domini regis' And indeed by the antient law, in all peculiar jurisdictions, offences were said to be done against his peace in whose court they were tried: in a court-leet, contra pacem domini; in the court of a corporation, contra pacem ballivorum; in the sheriff's court or tourn, contra pacem vice-comitis*. These palatine privileges (so similar to the regal independent jurisdictions usurped by the great barons on the continent, during the weak and infant state of the first feodal kingdoms in Europe3) were in all probability originally granted to the counties of Chester and Durham, because they bordered upon inimical countries, Wales and Scotland; in order that the inhabitants, having justice administered at home, might not be obliged to go out of the country, and leave it open to the enemy's incursions; and that the owners, being encouraged by so large an authority, might be the more watchful in it's defence. And upon this account also there were formerly two other counties palatine, Pembrokeshire and Hexhamshire; the latter now united with Northumberland; but these were abolished by parliament, the former in 27 Hen. VIII., the latter in 14 Eliz. And in 27 Hen. VIII., likewise, the powers before mentioned of owners of counties palatine were abridged; the reason for [119] their continuance in a manner ceasing; though still all writs are witnessed in their names, and all forfeitures for treason by the common law accrue to them ".

son.

Of these three, the county of Durham in now the only one remaining in the hands of a subject. For the earldom of Chester, as Camden testifies, was united to the crown by Henry III., and has ever since given title to the king's eldest And the county palatine, or duchy, of Lancaster, was the property of Henry Bolingbroke, the son of John of Gant, at the time when he wrested the crown from king Richard II., and assumed the title of king Henry IV. But he was too prudent to suffer this to be united to the crown; lest, if he lost one, he should lose the other also. For, as Plowden a and sir Edward Coke observe," he knew he had the duchy "of Lancaster by sure and indefeasible title, but that his title

w 4 Inst. 204.

b

* Seld. in Heng, magn. c. 2.
Robertson, Ch. V. i. 60.

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"to the crown was not so assured: for that after the decease ❝ of Richard II., the right of the crown was in the heir of "Lionel duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III.; John " of Gant, father to this Henry IV., being but the fourth "son." And therefore he procured an act of parliament, in the first year of his reign, ordaining that the duchy of Lancaster, and all other his hereditary estates, with all their royalties, and franchises, should remain to him and his heirs for ever; and should remain, descend, be administered, and governed, in like manner as if he never had attained the regal dignity; and thus they descended to his son and grandson, Henry V. and Henry VI., many new territories and privileges being annexed to the duchy by the former. Henry VI. being attainted in 1 Edw. IV., this duchy was declared in parliament to have become forfeited to the crown, and at the same time an act was made to incorporate the duchy of Lancaster, to continue the county palatine (which might otherwise have determined by the attainder e) and to make the same parcel of the duchy; and, farther, to vest the whole in king Edward IV. and his heirs, kings of England, for ever; but under a separate guiding and governance from the other in- [120] heritances of the crown. And in 1 Hen. VII. another act was made, to resume such part of the duchy lands as had been dismembered from it in the reign of Edward IV., and to vest the inheritance of the whole in the king and his heirs for ever, as amply and largely, and in like manner, form, and condition, separate from the crown of England and possession of the same, as the three Henries and Edward IV., or any of them, had and held the same.

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were well founded, it might have be
come a very curious question at the time
of the revolution in 1688, in whom the
right of the duchy remained after king
James's abdication, and previous to the
attainder of the pretended prince of
Wales. But it is observable, that in the
same act the duchy of Cornwall is also
vested in king Henry VII. and his heirs;
which could never be intended in any
event to be separated from the inherit-
ance of the crown. And indeed it
seems to have been understood very early

THE isle of Ely is not a county palatine, though sometimes erroneously called so, but only a royal franchise: the bishop having by grant of king Henry the first, jura regalia within the isle of Ely; whereby he exercises a jurisdiction over all causes, as well criminal as civil".

THERE are also counties corporate; which are certain cities and towns, some with more, some with less territory annexed to them; to which out of special grace and favour the kings of England have granted the privilege to be counties of themselves, and not to be comprised in any other county; but to be governed by their own sheriffs and other magistrates, so that no officers of the county at large have any power to intermeddle therein. Such are London, York, Bristol, Norwich, Coventry, and many others. And thus much of the countries subject to the laws of England.

after the statute of Henry VII., that the duchy of Lancaster was by no means thereby made a separate inheritance from the rest of the royal patrimony; since it descended with the crown to the halfblood in the instances of queen Mary and queen Elizabeth: which it could not have done, as the estate of a mere duke of Lancaster, in the common course of legal descent. The better opinion there

fore seems to be that of those judges, who held (Plowd. 221.) that notwithstanding the statute of Hen. VII. (which was only an act of resumption) the duchy still remained as established by the act of Edward IV.; separate from the other possessions of the crown in order and government, but united in point of inheritance.

8 4 Inst. 220.

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