The King's Justices

The elaborate instructions issued in 1194 to the justices, whom Archbishop Hubert Walter was despatching through the counties, contain provisions intended to keep the pretensions of sheriffs within bounds:

An interval had always to elapse between the commission of grave crimes and the formal trial of the accused, for the coming of the itinerant justices took place only at intervals of about seven years.

Thus sheriff Ralph Musard was one of seven justices of eyre who went on circuit in 1221, but he was prohibited from sharing the labours of his colleagues when they sat in Gloucestershire, where he was still sheriff.

But previous to Magna Carta, the kings had adopted the practice of sending officers of their own appointment, called justices, into the counties, to hold jury trials in some cases;

It is entirely incredible that Magna Carta, which makes such careful provision in regard to the king’s justices sitting in civil actions, should make no provision whatever as to their sitting in criminal trials, if they were to be allowed to sit in them at all.

The foregoing interpretation of the chapter of Magna Carta now under discussion, is corroborated by another chapter of [166] Magna Carta, which specially provides that the king’s justices shall “go through every county” to “take the assizes” (hold jury trials) in three kinds of civil actions, to wit, “novel disseisin, mort de ancestor, and darrein presentment;