[638]. This is the inference to be drawn from the 14th of the Articles of the Barons.
[639]. This is the inference to be drawn from c. 24 of Magna Carta.
[640]. See Coke, Second Institute, 30, and authorities there cited.
[641]. For explanation of these terms, see supra, c. 18.
[642]. See Middle Ages, II. 482, n.
[643]. Cf. Stephen, History of Criminal Law, I. 83. The mistake made by Hallam and others may have been in part the result of their neglecting the important modification undergone by the phrase “pleas of the Crown” between 1215, when it was still confined to a few specific crimes of special gravity, and the present day, when it has become synonymous with the whole field of criminal law.
[644]. E.g. 13 Edward I. c. 13, and 1 Edward III., stat. 2, c. 17.
[645]. 1 Edward IV. c. 2.
[646]. Contrast Coke, Second Institute, 32, who seems to suggest that one effect of Magna Carta was to take from the sheriff a jurisdiction over thefts previously enjoyed by him.
[647]. Dr. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. 650, thinks that the proposals of the Articles and Charter indicated a tendency towards judicial absolutism, only curbed by the growth of trial by jury. Yet the barons in providing against the sheriff’s irregularities had certainly no intention to enhance the royal power. The attitude of the insurgents in 1215 suggests rather that the sheriffs had now become instruments of royal absolutism to a greater extent than the king’s justices themselves. The problem of local government had thus assumed a new form (cf. supra, p. 20). Edward I., indeed, deftly turned this chapter to his own advantage, arguing that it cancelled all private jurisdiction over criminal pleas previously claimed by boroughs or individuals. See Coke, Second Institute, 31, and cases there cited.