The place of the praetor was occupied in English jurisprudence by the lord high chancellor. The real beginning of English equity is to be found in the custom of handing over to that officer, for adjudication, the complaints which were addressed to the king, praying for remedies beyond the reach of the common law. Over and above the authority delegated to the ordinary councils or courts, a reserve of judicial power was believed to reside in the king, which was invoked as of grace by the suitors who could not obtain relief from any inferior tribunal. To the chancellor, as already the head of the judicial system, these petitions were referred, although he was not at first the only officer through whom the prerogative of grace was administered. In the reign of Edward III. the equitable jurisdiction of the court appears to have been established. Its constitutional origin was analogous to that of the star chamber and the court of requests. The latter, in fact, was a minor court of equity attached to the lord privy seal as the court of chancery was to the chancellor. The successful assumption of extraordinary or equitable jurisdiction by the chancellor caused similar pretensions to be made by other officers and courts. "Not only the court of exchequer, whose functions were in a peculiar manner connected with royal authority, but the counties palatine of Chester, Lancaster and Durham, the court of great session in Wales, the universities, the city of London, the Cinque Ports and other places silently assumed extraordinary jurisdiction similar to that exercised in the court of chancery." Even private persons, lords and ladies, affected to establish in their honours courts of equity. English equity has one marked historical peculiarity, viz. that it established itself in a set of independent tribunals which remained in standing contrast to the ordinary courts for many hundred years. In Roman law the judge gave the preference to the equitable rule; in English law the equitable rule was enforced by a distinct set of judges. One cause of this separation was the rigid adherence to precedent on the part of the common law courts. Another was the jealousy prevailing in England against the principles of the Roman law on which English equity to a large extent was founded.