"To govern the people of this kingdom of England, and the dominions thereto belonging, _according to the statutes in Parliament agreed on, and the laws and customs of the same_."--_St. 1 William and Mary_, ch. 6. (1688.) The effect and legality of this oath will hereafter be considered. For the present it is sufficient to show, as has been already sufficiently done, that from the Saxon times until at least as lately as 1616, the coronation oath has been, in substance, _to maintain the law of the land, or the common law_, meaning thereby the ancient Saxon customs, as embodied in the laws of Alfred, of Edward the Confessor, and finally in Magna Carta. It may here be repeated that this oath plainly proves that the statutes of the king were of no authority over juries, if inconsistent with their ideas of right; because it was one part of the common law that juries should try all causes according to their own consciences, any legislation of the king to the contrary notwithstanding.[64] [Footnote 34: Hale says: "The trial by jury of twelve men was the usual trial among the Normans, in most suits; especially in assizes, et juris utrum."--_1 Hale's History of the Common Law_, 219. This was in Normandy, before the conquest of England by the Normans. _See Ditto_, p. 218. Crabbe says: "It cannot be denied that the practice of submitting causes to the decision of twelve men was universal among all the northern tribes (of Europe) from the very remotest antiquity."--_Crabbe's History of the English Law_, p. 32.] [Footnote 35: "The people, who in every general council or assembly could oppose and dethrone their sovereigns, were in little dread of their encroachments on their liberties; and kings, who found sufficient employment in keeping possession of their crowns, would not likely attack the more important privileges of their subjects."] [Footnote 36: This office was afterwards committed to sheriffs. But even while the court was held by the lord, "_the Lord was not judge, but the Pares (peers) only_."--_Gilbert on the Court of Exchequer_, 61-2.] [Footnote 37: The opinion expressed in the text, that the Witan had no legislative authority, is corroborated by the following authorities: "From the fact that the new laws passed by the king and the Witan were laid before the shire-mote, (county court,) we should be almost justified in the inference that a second sanction was necessary before they could have the effect of law in that particular county."--_Dunham's Middle Ages, Sec._ 2, _B._ 2, _Ch._ 1. _57 Lardner's Cab. Cyc._, 53.