261.

"From the moment when the crown became accustomed to the 'Inquest,' a
restraint was imposed upon every branch of the prerogative. _The king
could never be informed of his rights, but through the medium of the
people._ Every 'extent' by which he claimed the profits and
advantages resulting from the casualties of tenure, every process by
which he repressed the usurpations of the baronage, depended upon the
'good men and true' who were impanelled to 'pass' between the subject
and the sovereign; and the thunder of the Exchequer at Westminster
might be silenced by the honesty, the firmness, or the obstinacy, of
one sturdy knight or yeoman in the distant shire.

Taxation was controlled in the same manner by the voice of those who
were most liable to oppression. * * A jury was impanelled to adjudge
the proportion due to the sovereign; and this course was not
essentially varied, even after the right of granting aids to the
crown was fully acknowledged to be vested in the parliament of the
realm. The people taxed themselves; and the collection of the grants
was checked and controlled, and, perhaps, in many instances evaded,
by these virtual representatives of the community.

The principle of the jury was, therefore, not confined to its mere
application as a mode of trying contested facts, whether in civil or
criminal cases; and, both in its form and in its consequences, it had
a very material influence upon the general constitution of the realm.
* * The main-spring of the machinery of remedial justice existed in
the franchise of the lower and lowest orders of the political
hierarchy. Without the suffrage of the yeoman, the burgess, and the
churl, the sovereign could not exercise the most important and most
essential function of royalty; from them he received the power of
life and death; he could not wield the sword of justice until the
humblest of his subjects placed the weapon in his hand."--_1
Palgrave's Rise and Progress of the English Constitution_, 274-7.

Coke says, "The court of the county is no court of record,[52] _and the
suitors are the judges thereof_."--_4 Inst._, 266.

Also, "The court of the Hundred is no court of record, _and the suitors
be thereof judges_."--_4 Inst._, 267.

Also, "The court-baron is a court incident to every manor, and is not of
record, _and the suitors be thereof judges_."--_4 Inst._, 268.

A