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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 hundred 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 west-riding. The number of counties in England and Wales have been different at different times: at present there 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 [117] the Norman conquest; the latter was created by king Edward III. in favour of Henry Plantagenet, first earl and then duke of Lancaster; r 5 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 king5 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 p LL. Edw. c. 34.

q Seld. tit. hon. 2. 5. 8.

8

r Pat. 25 Edw. III. p. 1. m. 18; Seld. ibid, Sandford's gen. hist. 112; 4 Inst. 204.

S Cart. 36 Edw. III. n. 9.

t Pat. 51 Edw. III. m. 33; Plowd. 215; 7 Rym. 138.

5 In the previous ones transposed without change of meaning. Cited and approved, 27 Ark. 206; 3 Johns. 267; 5 Binn. 629; Kirby,

240. County held a municipal corporation, 6 Rich. 421.

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 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 Europe) were in all probability originally granted to the counties of Chester and Durham, because they bordered upon enemies' countries, Wales and Scotland: 9in order that the owners, being encouraged by so large an authority, might be the more watchful in its defense; and that the inhabitants having justice administered at home, might not be obliged to go out of the county, and leave it open to the enemies' incursions. And upon this account also there were formerly two other counties palatine, [118] 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;

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9 These two clauses are transposed without other change in the ninth edition.

the reason for 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.z

now the only

Of these three, the county of Durham is 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 son. And the county palatine, or duchy, of Lancaster was the property of Henry of Bolingbroke, the son of John of Gant, at the time when he wrested the crown from king Richard II., and assumed the title of 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 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, 5 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 forever; 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.5c Henry VI. being attainted in 1 Edw. IV., this duchy was declared in parliament, [119] to

z 4 Inst. 205.

a 215.

b 4 Inst. 205.

c Parl. 2 Hen. V. n. 30; 3 Hen. V. n. 15.

have become forfeited to the crown,d 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 attaindere) 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, forever; but under a separate guiding and governance from the other inheritances of the crown. And in 1 Hen. VII. another act was made, 5 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 forever, 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.15

d 1 Vent. 155.

e 1 Vent. 157.

f Some have entertained an opinion (Plow. 220, 1, 2; Lamb. Archeion. 233; 4 Inst. 206) that by this act the right of the duchy vested only in the natural, and not in the political person of king Henry VII., as formerly in that of Henry IV.; and was descendible to his natural heirs, independent of the succession to the crown. And, if this notion were well founded, it might have become a very curious question at the time of the revolution in 1688, in whom the right of the duchy remained after king James' 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 inheritance of the crown. And indeed it seems to have been understood very early 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 half-blood 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 therefore seems to be that of those judges, who held (Plow. 221) that notwithstanding the statute of Henry VII. (which was only an act of resumption) the duchy still remained as established by the acts of Edward IV.; separate from the other possessions of the crown in order and government, but united in point of inheritance.

5 In previous ones, "to keep it distinct and separate from the crown, and so it."

5 The previous ones read, "to vest the inheritance thereof in Henry VII. and his heirs: and in this state, say sir Edward Coke and Lambard, viz., in the natural heirs or posterity of Henry VII. did the right of the duchy remain to their day; a separate and distinct inheritance from that of the crown of England." Note f also reads differently in the first four editions.

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.g

[120] 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 9the privilege to be counties of themselves, and not to be comprized 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.

NOTES OF THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

(36) And therefore, the common law of England, as such, has no allowance or authority there (in the American colonies), page 108.

No part of the changes made by Blackstone in the text of his successive editions interests Americans more than those which treat of the power of parliament over the colonies. They will not complain because these changes were not intended to strengthen the position of the rebellious subjects, so far as they express the author's views of the common law and few of the contemporary statutes which he was so careful to add to each successive edition, now have the meaning and historical value of those which mark the stages of that struggle for independence. (See note 2, p. 162, for an account of these changes.)

In the first edition (printed in 1765, and no doubt written some years earlier, and before the subject had g 4 Inst. 220. 4 Previously "and thereby."

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