that the title of Prince of Wales should cease at Llewelyn's
death. A heavy fine which he had incurred by his refusal to do homage was
remitted; and Eleanor, a daughter of Earl Simon of Montfort whom he had
sought as his wife but who had been arrested on her way to him, was wedded
to the Prince at Edward's court.

[Sidenote: Judicial Reforms]

For four years all was quiet across the Welsh Marches, and Edward was able
again to turn his attention to the work of internal reconstruction. It is
probably to this time, certainly to the earlier years of his reign, that we
may attribute his modification of our judicial system. The King's Court was
divided into three distinct tribunals, the Court of Exchequer which took
cognizance of all causes in which the royal revenue was concerned; the
Court of Common Pleas for suits between private persons; and the King's
Bench, which had jurisdiction in all matters that affected the sovereign as
well as in "pleas of the crown" or criminal causes expressly reserved for
his decision. Each court was now provided with a distinct staff of judges.

Of yet greater importance than this change, which was in effect but the
completion of a process of severance that had long been going on, was the
establishment of an equitable jurisdiction side by side with that of the
common law. In his reform of 1178 Henry the Second broke up the older
King's Court, which had till then served as the final Court of Appeal, by
the severance of the purely legal judges who had been gradually added to it
from the general body of his councillors. The judges thus severed from the
Council retained the name and the ordinary jurisdiction of "the King's
Court," but the mere fact of their severance changed in an essential way
the character of the justice they dispensed. The King in Council wielded a
power which was not only judicial but executive; his decisions though based
upon custom were not fettered by it, they wore the expressions of his will,
and it was as his will that they were carried out by officers of the Crown.
But the separate bench of judges had no longer this unlimited power at
their command. They had not the king's right as representative of the
community to make the law for the redress of a wrong. They professed simply
to declare what the existing law was, even if it was insufficient for the
full purpose of redress. The authority of their decision rested mainly on
their adhesion to ancient custom or as it was