high judicature. And, upon looking attentively at the words above printed in italics, it will be evident that the spiritual lords holding by barony are the only persons designated; whatever may have been meant by the singular phrase, as applied to them, clerus utriusque provinciæ. Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 348. [344] Atterbury. p. 346. [345] 21 R. II. c. 12 Burnet's Hist. of Reformation (vol. ii. p. 47) led me to this act, which I had overlooked. [346] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 582. Atterbury, p. 61. [347] The ensuing sketch of the jurisdiction exercised by the king's council has been chiefly derived from Sir Matthew Hale's Treatise of the Jurisdiction of the Lords' House in Parliament, published by Mr. Hargrave. [348] The words "privy council" are said not to be used till after the reign of Henry VI.; the former style was "ordinary" or "continual council." But a distinction had always been made, according to the nature of the business: the great officers of state, or, as we might now say, the ministers, had no occasion for the presence of judges or any lawyers in the secret councils of the crown. They become, therefore, a council of government, though always members of the _consilium ordinarium_; and, in the former capacity, began to keep formal records of their proceedings. The acts of this council though, as I have just said, it bore as yet no distinguishing name, are extant from the year 1386, and for seventy years afterwards are known through the valuable publication of Sir Harris Nicolas. [349] Rot. Parl. vol. iii. p. 84. [350] Ibid. p. 266. [351] 25 E. III. stat. 5, c. 4. Probably this fifth statute of the 25th of Edward III. is the most extensively beneficial act in the whole body of our laws. It established certainty in treasons, regulated purveyance, prohibited arbitrary imprisonment and the determination of pleas of freehold before the council, took away the compulsory finding of men-at-arms and other troops, confirmed the reasonable aid of the king's tenants fixed by 3 E. I., and provided that the king's protection should not hinder civil process or execution. [352] 28 E. III. c. 3. [353] 42 E. III. c. 3, and Rot. Parl. vol. ii. p. 295. It is not surprising that the king's council should have persisted in these transgressions of their lawful authority, when we find a similar jurisdiction usurped by the officers of inferior persons. Complaint is made in the 18th of Richard II. that men were compelled to answer before _the council of divers lords and ladies_, for their freeholds and other matters cognizable at common law, and a remedy for this abuse is given by petition in chancery, stat. 15 R. II. c. 12. This act is confirmed with a penalty on its contraveners the next year, 16 R. II. c. 2. The private gaols which some lords were permitted by law to possess, and for which there was always a provision in their castles, enabled them to render this oppressive jurisdiction effectual.