And yet Coke, in flat contradiction of this decision, which he quotes with such emphasis and approbation, and in flat contradiction also of the definition he repeatedly gives of the word _balivus_, showing that it embraced _all ministers of the king whatsoever_, whether high or low, judicial or executive, fabricates an entirely gratuitous interpretation of this chapter of Magna Carta, and pretends that after all it only required that _felonies_ should be tried before the king's _justices, on account of their superior learning_; and that it permitted all lesser offences to be tried before inferior officers, (meaning of course the _king's_ inferior officers.)--_2 Inst._, 30. And thus this chapter of Magna Carta, which, according to his own definition of the word _balivus_, applies to all officers of the king; and which, according to the common and true definition of the term "pleas of the crown," applies to all criminal cases without distinction, and which, therefore, forbids any officer or minister of the king to preside in a jury trial in any criminal case whatsoever, he coolly and gratuitously interprets into a mere senseless provision for simply restricting the discretion of the king in giving _names_ to his own officers who should preside at the trials of particular offences; as if the king, who made and unmade all his officers by a word, could not defeat the whole object of the prohibition, by appointing such individuals as he pleased, to try such causes as he pleased, and calling them by such names as he pleased, _if he were but permitted to appoint and name such officers at all_; and as if it were of the least importance what _name_ an officer bore, whom the king might appoint to a particular duty.[90] Coke evidently gives this interpretation solely because, as he was giving a general commentary on Magna Carta, he was bound to give some interpretation or other to every chapter of it; and for this chapter he could invent, or fabricate, (for it is a sheer fabrication,) no interpretation better suited to his purpose than this. It seems never to have entered his mind, (or if it did, he intended that it should never enter the mind of anybody else,) that the object of the chapter could be to deprive the king of the power of putting his creatures into criminal courts, to pack, cheat, and browbeat juries, and thus maintain his authority by procuring the conviction of those who should transgress his laws, or incur his displeasure. This example of Coke tends to show how utterly blind, or how utterly corrupt, English judges, (dependent upon the crown and the legislature), have been in regard to everything in Magna Carta, that went to secure the liberties of the people, or limit the power of the government.