Section IV. OF THE COUNTRIES SUBJECT TO THE LAWS OF ENGLAND. 93-120. The Kingdom of England, over which our municipal laws have jurisdiction, includes not, by the common law, either Wales, Scotland, or Ireland, or any other part of the king's dominions, except the territory of England only. And yet the civil laws and local customs of this territory do now obtain, in part or in all, with more or less restrictions, in these and many other adjacent countries; of which it will be proper first to take a review, before we consider the kingdom of England itself, the original and proper subject of these laws. This section is mainly historical. As to Wales. The country remained practically independent until the reign of Edward the First. Their laws, however, for some time remained distinct and peculiar, and not until 27 Henry VIII. were the Welsh admitted to a thorough communication of laws with the subjects of England. As to Scotland.—The union of crowns took place on the accession of King James VI. Still for over a century she remained a separate and distinct kingdom. As both kingdoms were anciently under the same government there was considerable resemblance in their laws. The union was completed in 1707, when twenty-five articles of union were agreed to by both nations. By these articles the laws of trade, customs and excise were made the same. All other laws of Scotland remained in force, though alterable by the parliament of Great Britain. As to Ireland.—England and Ireland are (in time of B.) distinct kingdoms, although the latter is subordinate to the former. In general they agree in their laws. At the time of Ireland's conquest in the reign of Henry II. they were governed by what was called the Brehon law. King John afterwards carried the English law into Ireland and is said to have ordained and established that Ireland should be governed by the laws of England. By 6 Geo. I. c. 5, it is declared that the king's majesty with the consent of the lords and commons of Great Britain in parliament, hath power to make laws to bind the people of Ireland. Several pages are devoted to the relation of the laws of England to certain islands of the sea and the colonies. As to Colonies, with respect to their interior polity, there are three sorts: 1. Provincial establishments, depending on commissions issued by the crown to the governors, with a power defined by the commission to make local ordinances not repugnant to the laws of England. 2. Proprietary government, granted to individuals, in the nature of feudatory principalities. 3. Charter governments, in the nature of civil corporations, with the power of making by-laws for their own interior regulations, not contrary to the laws of England. We come now to consider the kingdom of England in particular, the direct and immediate subject of these laws, concerning which we are to treat in the ensuing commentaries. And this comprehends not only Wales and Berwick, but also part of the sea. The main or high seas are part of the realm of England, for thereon our courts of admiralty have jurisdiction as will be shown hereafter; but they are not subject to the common law. This main sea begins at the low-water mark. But between the high-water mark and the low-water mark, where the sea ebbs and flows, the common law and admiralty have divisum imperium, an alternate jurisdiction; one upon the water, when it is full sea; the other upon the land, when it is an ebb. The Ecclesiastical and Civil Divisions. The territory of England is liable to two divisions; the one ecclesiastical, the other civil. 1. The ecclesiastical division is primarily into two provinces, those of Canterbury and York. A province is the circuit of an archbishop's jurisdiction. Each province contains divers dioceses, or sees of suffragan bishops. Every diocese is divided into archdeaconries, each archdeaconry into rural deaneries, which are the circuit of the archdeacon's and rural dean's jurisdiction, of whom hereafter; and every deanery is divided into parishes. A parish is that circuit of ground which is committed to the charge of one parson or vicar, or other minister having cure of souls therein. These districts are computed to be near ten thousand in number. 2. The civil division of the territory of England is into counties, of those counties into hundreds, of those hundreds into tithings or towns. Which division as it now stands, seems to owe its original to King Alfred, who, to prevent the rapines and disorders which formerly prevailed in the realm, instituted tithings, so called from the Saxon, because ten freeholders with their families composed one. These all dwelt together, and were sureties or free. pledges to the king for the good behavior of each other; and, if any offense was committed in their district, they were bound to have the offender forthcoming. And therefore anciently no man was suffered to abide in England above forty days, unless he was enrolled in some tithing or decennary. One of the principal inhabitants of the tithing is annually appointed to preside over the rest, being called the tithing man, the headborough (words which speak their own etymology, and in some counties the borsholder or borough's-ealder), being supposed the discreetest man in the borough, town or tithing. 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 a 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. 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 called him), of the shire, to whom the government of it was entrusted. This he usually exercised by his deputy, still called in Latin vice-comes, and in English the sheriff, shrieve, or shirereeve, signifying the officer of the shire, upon whom, by process of time, the civil administration of it is now totally devolved. [END OF INTRODUCTION.] |