Volume 1

Microcosm of London / [Anon].

Date:
[1808-1811]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Microcosm of London / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    177/248 page 165
    imposing taxes was also assumed, and the most extensive judicial authority personally exercised by this monarch. He established a court of dernier resort in civil and criminal cases, called Aula Regis*, which being composed of the great officers of his court, removable at pleasure, and having the king himself for president, may be truly styled a most formidable tribunal. But liberty seems to be like that herb which flourishes more vigorously the more it is trod upon. The excessive power of the monarch, and the arbitrary, tyrannical manner in which it was exercised, sunk deep into the minds of the people, and nourished that general disposition to resist, and that union among all ranks, which ultimately made resistance effectual. From this state of oppression the nation imagined they were about to be re- lieved under Henry I. who having usurped the throne of his elder brother, endeavoured to maintain his power by removing many of the grievances which existed during the reigns of the Conqueror and his son Rufus; he abolished those laws which bore heaviest on the people, particularly the curfew, and softened the severities of the feudal system in favour both of the barons and the vassals. But a circumstance happened in this reign which had nearly proved fatal to the portion of common law which survived the rigours of the Norman conquest, and which was still fondly cherished by some of the barons. This was the discovery of a copy of the Pandects of Justinian, about the year 1130, at * Out of which court of Aula Regis the four courts of Westminster, the Chancery, King’s Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, were afterwards derived.
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