"It appears from the Great Charter itself, that not only John, a tyrannical prince, and Richard, a violent one, but their father Henry, under whose reign the prevalence of gross abuses is the least to be suspected, were accustomed, from their sole authority, without process of law, to imprison, banish, and attaint the freemen of their kingdom."--_Hume, Appendix_ 2. The provision, also, in the 64th chapter of Magna Carta, that "all unjust and illegal fines, and all amercements, _imposed unjustly, and contrary to the Law of the Land, shall be entirely forgiven_," &c.; and the provision, in chapter 61, that the king "will cause full justice to be administered" in regard to "all those things, of which any person has, without legal judgment of his peers, been dispossessed or deprived, either by King Henry, our father, or our brother, King Richard," indicate the tyrannical practices that prevailed. We are told also that John himself "had dispossessed several great men without any judgment of their peers, condemned others to cruel deaths, * * insomuch that his tyrannical will stood instead of a law."--_Echard's History of England_, 106. Now all these things were very unnecessary and foolish, if his laws were binding upon juries; because, in that case, he could have procured the conviction of these men in a legal manner, and thus have saved the necessity of such usurpation. In short, if the laws of the king had been binding upon juries, there is no robbery, vengeance, or oppression, which he could not have accomplished through the judgments of juries. This consideration is sufficient, of itself, to prove that the laws of the king were of no authority over a jury, in either civil or criminal cases, unless the juries regarded the laws as just in themselves.] [Footnote 70: By the Magna Carta of Henry III. this is changed to once a year.] [Footnote 71: From the provision of Magna Carta, cited in the text, it must be inferred that there can be no legal trial by jury, in civil cases, if only the king's justices preside; that, to make the trial legal, there must be other persons, chosen by the people, to sit with them; the object being to prevent the jury's being deceived by the justices. I think we must also infer that the king's justices could sit only in the three actions specially mentioned. We cannot go beyond the letter of Magna Carta, in making innovations upon the common law, which required all presiding officers in jury trials to be elected by the people.] [Footnote 72: "The earls, sheriffs, and head-boroughs were annually elected in the full folcmote, (people's meeting)."--_Introduction to Gilbert's History of the Common Pleas_, p. 2, _note_. "It was the especial province of the earldomen or earl to attend the shyre-meeting, (the county court,) twice a year, and there officiate as the county judge in expounding the secular laws, as appears by the fifth of Edgar's laws."--_Same_, p. 2, _note_.