_L._ There be an extraordinary great number of courts in England. First, there be the King’s courts, both for law and equity, in matters temporal; which are the Chancery, the King’s Bench, the Court of Common Pleas; and, for the King’s revenue, the Court of the Exchequer: and there be subjects' courts by privilege, as the Courts in London and other privileged places. And there be other courts of subjects, as the Court of Landlords, called the Court of Barons, and the Courts of Sheriffs. Also the Spiritual Courts are the King’s courts at this day, though heretofore they were the Pope’s courts. And in the King’s courts, some have their judicature by office, and some by commission; and some authority to hear and determine, and some only to inquire, and to certify into other courts. Now for the distribution of what pleas every court may hold, it is commonly held, that all the pleas of the Crown, and of all offences contrary to the peace, are to be holden in the King’s Bench, or by commissioners. For Bracton saith: _Sciendum est, quod si actiones sunt criminales, in Curia Domini Regis debent determinari; cum sit ibi pœna corporalis infligenda, et hoc coram ipso rege, si tangat personam suam, sicut crimen læsæ majestatis, vel coram justitiariis ad hoc specialiter assignatis_: that is to say, that if the plea be criminal, it ought to be determined in the Court of our Lord the King, because there they have power to inflict corporal punishment; and if the crime be against his person, as the crime of treason, it ought to be determined before the King himself; or if it be against a private person, it ought to be determined by justices assigned, that is to say, before commissioners. It seems by this, that heretofore Kings did hear and determine pleas of treason against themselves, by their own persons; but it has been otherwise a long time, and is now; for it is now the office of the Lord Steward of England, in the trial of a peer, to hold that plea by a commission especially for the same. In causes concerning _meum_ and _tuum_, the King may sue, either in the King’s Bench, or in the Court of Common Pleas; as it appears by Fitzherbert in his <cite lang="la">Natura Brevium_, at the writ of escheat. _P._ A king perhaps will not sit to determine of causes of treason against his person, lest he should seem to make himself judge in his own cause; but that it shall be judged by judges of his own making can never be avoided, which is all one as if he were judge himself.