49 tions had broken down. One of the factors contributing to the breakdown was a curious competitive process. Since the judges were partially recompensed by the case, it benefitted themto have a large caseload. This led to the imaginative invention over the centuries of legal fictions to overcome previously accepted jurisdictional dividing lines between the courts. By mid-eighteenth century, the Court of King’s Bench had achieved preeminence among the common law courts. Each of the three courts, at that time, was made up of a chief justice and three junior justices.These twelve common law judges operated on a loosely horizontal level. Formally, there was no “chief justice of England”, although, de facto, this role had come to be played by the chief justice of the Court of King’s Bench. Yet there was a higher appeal. Cases could be taken from by writ of error to an intermediate appellate body, the Court of Exchequer Chamber, and thence (or independently) to the House of Lords. The House of Lords was, therefore, both a legislative body and a court of last resort.” As noted earlier, the twelve common law judges acted both as trial judges, and, sitting en banc, as judges to hear appellate-type business. For the City of Westminster and County of Middlesex, trials were conducted in Westminster Hall. For the City of London, trials were conducted in the Guildhall, located in the financial district. And on the criminal side, felonies were tried at the Old Bailey for the entire metropolitan area. The regular routines of the twelve common lawjudges were extensive. I have already referred to their sittings at Westminster Hall during termtime, and the conduct of trials, both in London and on assize. Matters heard by the Courts of King’s Bench, Common Pleas and Exchequer during regular Terms were varied. Motions for new trials or in arrest of judgment were routine, as were arguments on “cases stated” (questions of law reserved for argument). Hard cases were often set for reargument, and important or difficult trials might be tried at bar by all the judges of a particular court. In the King’s Bench, the criminal docket presented additional demands — petitions for habeas corpus, writs of certiorari, bail hearings, sentencing hearings and the like.'^ There was, as well, the necessity to hear cases brought over to the King’s Bench by writ of error from Common Pleas or Exchequer. As mentioned elsewhere, twice a year the royal court judges went on assize, and throughout the year, they rotated through the sittings at the Old Bailey. For a better understanding of these processes, it is useful to consider operaBy tradition, the judges on the Court of Exchequer were referred to as “barons.” " In the late nineteenth century, the courts of England were reorganized into a High Court with several divisions, overseen by a single chief )ustice. See generally Webb, R.K., Modern England, 1968, Appendix 4 (The English Courts). The Court of King’s Bench was the only one of the four royal courts empowered to hear criminal cases. King’s Bench heard misdemeanor cases, defined generally as all crimes not punishable by death. 5
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