After this conversation, the aged judge of seventy-five and the young prince of fifteen devoted some hours of each day to a study of the English Constitution. These lectures, in the form of dialogues, were afterwards embodied by Fortescue in a treatise entitled 'De Laudibus legum Angliæ,' which was first printed in 1537. Edward began by asking his instructor to satisfy him that the laws of England were better adapted for the government of that kingdom than the civil law of the Holy Roman Empire. Fortescue proceeded to establish this point, specially dwelling on the fact that the English statutes were not made by the will of the Kings, but were enacted by the concurrent consent of the whole people, by their representatives in Parliament. He then explained the territorial division of England into counties, the duties of sheriffs, the method of empannelling juries, the procedure in civil and criminal causes. The boy approved highly of the system of trial by jury, the jurors being men chosen from among neighbours who knew the country and people. 'I know of myself,' he remarked, 'more certainly what is doing at this time in the Barrois where I reside, than what is doing in England.' {64} On another day the Chief Justice illustrated the good results of the English Constitution by comparing the condition of England with that of France ruled by a despotism. 'In the land of England,' he said, 'there are no wolves nor bears. The grazing lands are enclosed with hedgerows and ditches and planted with trees which fence the herds and flocks from bleak winds and sultry heat. There are many franklins and yeomen, of estates sufficient to make substantial juries, not a few spending 100_l._ a year and more. Other countries are not in such a happy situation, and not so well stored with inhabitants.' The prince then remarked that he could understand how the wealth and populousness of England had been caused by the superior excellence of her laws. But a doubt about the number of jurors had occurred to his youthful mind. He said, 'Although this method of sifting out the truth highly pleases me, yet there rests this doubt with me. Our blessed Saviour says: "It is written in your law that the testimony of two men is true" (John viii. 17), and again in Matthew xviii. 16.' Fortescue answered that our jury law did not contradict this, for if the testimony of two be true, _a fortiori_ that of twelve ought to be presumed to be so. 'The more always contains in it that which is less.' Besides in England some cases may be proved before two only, such as facts occurring on the high seas, and proceedings before the Lord Constable and Earl Marshal.