Each justice of the high courts may employ one chaplain.
The bishops, nobility, and Justices of the Peace were commanded to imprison clergy who taught papal authority. Justices of the Peace and sheriffs were to watch over the bishops. The Justices of Assize were to assess the effectiveness of the Justices of the Peace as well as enforce the treason statute on circuit.
The criminal court went outside the common law to prosecute political enemies, e.g. by dispensing with a jury.
The leet court and sheriff's turn court have much less jurisdiction. They may dispose of presentments of trespasses and nuisances, but not felony or question of freehold. Such presentments are made by a set of at least twelve men, and the presented person is amerced there and then.
The humanist intellectual revival caused the church courts to try to eliminate contradictions with state law, for instance in debt, restitution, illegitimacy, and the age of legal majority.
An example of a case in the King's Bench is this: "A French priest was indicted in Kent for bringing false ducats into the realm in order to make payment, knowing them to be false. He was thereupon arraigned and found guilty, and the judgment was respited and the record sent into the King's Bench. And there he was discharged; for the statute of 25 Edw. 3 is for bringing (in) false money counterfeiting coin of the realm, and the ducats are not coin of the realm"
In the case of R. v. Thorpe "A man robbed a church in Essex and was indicted for it in Essex; and he went to Ipswich in Suffolk and a goldsmith received him; and they were both indicted in Suffolk, one as principal and the other as accessory, because the principal had brought part of the stolen goods to Ipswich. And the justices in Essex sent a writ for the principal, whereby he was there arraigned and found guilty and hanged. Then the other indictment in Suffolk was removed into the King's Bench, and upon process the sheriff returned the principal dead; so the accessory came by process and pleaded the death of the principal, and the attorney for the king confessed it, and therefore he was discharged."
In the case of R. v. More, "And then on Thursday, the first day of July, Sir Thomas more, knight (who had earlier been Chancellor of England and was afterwards discharged from the same office) was arraigned before the said SIR THOMAS AUDLEY, Chancellor and the other commissioners, for treason, in that he was an aider, counsellor and abettor to the said Fisher, and also that he falsely, maliciously, and traitorously desiring, willing, and scheming, contrived, practised and attempted to deprive the king of his dignity, name and title of Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England. (He was) found guilty, and the said Chancellor gave judgment. And the said More stood firmly upon the statute of 26 Hen 8, for he said that the Parliament could not make the king Supreme Head, etc. He was beheaded at Tower Hill,"
Chapter 13
The Times: 1558-1601