[43] The story (with which we are familiar in England) of the evolution of various councils and courts from an ancient _Curia Regis_ seems to have a close parallel in French history: so close that imitation on one side or the other may at times be suspected. After the _parlement_ with its various chambers (which answer to our courts of common law) has been established, the royal council interferes with judicial matters in divers ways, and sections of the council become tribunals which compete with the _parlement_. (See, _e.g._ Esmein, _Histoire du droit français_, ed. 2, pp. 469 ff., and the pedigree of courts and councils in Lavisse et Rambaud, _Histoire générale_, vol. IV., p. 143; also the pedigree in N. Valois, _Le conseil du roi_ (1888), p. 11; and Brissaud, _Histoire du droit français_, pp. 816 ff.) In Germany the doctors of civil law made their way first into councils and then into courts. ‘Die fremdrechtlich geschulten Juristen wurden in Deutschland anfänglich nur in Verwaltungssachen verwendet. Zur Rechtsprechung gelangten sie dadurch, dass die Verwaltung diese an sich zog, und zwar zuerst am Hofe des Königs’ (Brunner, _Grundzüge der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte_, 1901, p. 227). In the England of Henry VIII’s day there seems no little danger that _die fremdrechtlich geschulten Juristen_, of whom there are a good many in the king’s service, will gain the upper hand in the new courts that have emerged from the council, and will proceed from _Verwaltung_ to _Rechtsprechung_. There came a time when Dr Tunstall (who got his law at Padua) was presiding over the Council of the North and Dr Roland Lee over the Council of the Marches. In 1538 Dr Lee, who was endeavouring to bring Wales to order, said in a letter to Cromwell, ‘If we should do nothing but as the common law will, these things so far out of order will never be redressed’ (_Dict. Nat. Biog._, vol. XXXII., p. 375). In 1534 there was a project for the erection of yet another new court. See _Letters and Papers, Henry VIII._, vol. VII., p. 603: ‘Draft act of parliament for the more rigid enforcement of previous statutes, appointing a new court, to consist of six discreet men, of whom three at least shall be outer barristers in the Inns of Court, who shall be called justices or conservators of the common weal and sit together in the White Hall at Westminster or elsewhere, with power to discuss all matters relating to the common weal and to call before them all persons who have violated any act of parliament made since the beginning of Henry VIII.’s reign.’ If only three of these judges need be barristers, what are the rest to be? [44] _Acts of the Parliament of Scotland_, vol. II., p. 335. [Sidenote: _Reform of the Inns of Court. The king’s College of Law._]