_Judicial powers of the lords historically traced._--The original constitution of England was highly aristocratical. The peers of this realm, when summoned to parliament (and on such occasions every peer was entitled to his writ), were the necessary counsellors and coadjutors of the king in all the functions that appertain to a government. In granting money for the public service, in changing by permanent statutes the course of the common law, they could only act in conjunction with the knights, citizens, and burgesses of the lower house of parliament. In redress of grievances, whether of so private a nature as to affect only single persons or extending to a county or hundred, whether proceeding from the injustice of public officers or of powerful individuals, whether demanding punishment as crimes against the state, or merely restitution and damages to the injured party, the Lords assembled in parliament were competent, as we find in our records, to exercise the same high powers, if they were not even more extensive and remedial, as the king's ordinary council, composed of his great officers, his judges, and perhaps some peers, was wont to do in the intervals of parliament. These two, the Lords and the privy council, seem to have formed, in the session, one body or great council, wherein the latter had originally right of suffrage along with the former. In this judicial and executive authority, the Commons had at no time any more pretence to interfere than the council, or the Lords by themselves, had to make ordinances, at least of a general and permanent nature, which should bind the subject to obedience. At the beginning of every parliament numerous petitions were presented to the Lords, or to the king and Lords (since he was frequently there in person, and always presumed to be so), complaining of civil injuries and abuse of power. These were generally indorsed by appointed receivers of petitions, and returned by them to the proper court whence relief was to be sought.[30] For an immediate inquiry and remedy seem to have been rarely granted, except in cases of an extraordinary nature, when the law was defective, or could not easily be enforced by the ordinary tribunals; the shortness of sessions, and multiplicity of affairs, preventing the upper house of parliament from entering so fully into these matters as the king's council had leisure to do.