“And now, Mr. Barbican, we come to speak of a new matter connected with London Bridge, and a singularly curious one it is, inasmuch as it shews the great antiquity and power of the Bridge Master; but for the better illustration of it, have patience with me, I pray you, for a few moments, whilst I recall to your memory a point of legal history to which it is collaterally related. In the times of our Saxon ancestors, you may recollect one superior Court of Judicature, called the _Wittenagemote_, or General Council of Wise Men, was sufficient for the whole Kingdom. When William I., however, came to be Sovereign, he contrived to separate from it the Ecclesiastical and Judicial authority, by establishing a new and permanent Court in his own Palace, called in history by the various names of _Curia Regis_, the King’s Court, and _Aula Regia_, or _Aula Regis_, the King’s Hall. This was divided into several different departments, the principal of which were composed of the King’s great Officers of State, who were resident in his Palace. Thus, the Lord Marshal generally presided in affairs relating to honour and arms, and the military and national laws; the Lord Chancellor kept the King’s Seal, and had cognizance of all instruments to which it was attached; the Lord Treasurer was the chief authority in all matters concerning the Revenue; and certain persons well acquainted with the Laws, called the King’s Justices, assisted by the Greater Barons of Parliament, formed a Court of Appeal in difficult cases, over which presided the Chief Justiciary of all England. For a considerable time this universal Court was bound to follow the King’s household in all its progresses and expeditions, to the great delay of equity, and the extreme trouble of the people; so that in the articles of petition, which preceded the ‘_Magna Charta_’ of King John, Section 8, it was solicited that Common Pleas, or causes, should no longer follow the King’s Court, but be held in some certain and permanent place. This article was one to which John consented more readily than to any other in his Great Charter, as the power of the Chief Justiciary being already very considerable, he readily confirmed it by Chapter xvii. of his grant. This officer’s place, however, was even then but little altered, as he remained in Westminster Hall, where the _Curia Regis_ had originally sat; and in the same building a Court of Common Pleas was established, for the determination of all causes concerning land, and injuries between subject and subject. The other departments of the _Aula Regia_, naturally beginning to decline, soon after this separation, King Edward I. then new modelled the whole judicial polity of England, by dividing it into other Courts.