Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/272

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TREVOUX—TRIAL
257

towards the end of 1668, just after he had helped to arrange an important treaty between England and France. He married Ruth, daughter of the great John Hampden, and died on the 28th of May 1672.

His second son, Thomas, Baron Trevor (1658–1730), was knighted in 1692 as solicitor-general and in 1695 became attorney-general. In 1701 he was appointed chief justice of the common pleas, and in 1712 he was created a peer as Baron Trevor of Bromham. On the accession of George I. in 1714 he was deprived of the justiceship, but from 1726 to 1730 he was lord privy seal. Three of his sons succeeded in turn to his barony, and a fourth son, Richard Trevor (1707–1771), was bishop of St Davids from 1744 to 1752, and then bishop of Durham. Robert, 4th Baron Trevor and 1st Viscount Hampden (1706–1783), represented his country at the Hague from 1739 to 1746, during which time he maintained a regular correspondence with Horace Walpole. He took the additional name of Hampden in 1754, on succeeding to the estates of that family, and in 1776, twelve years after he had become Baron Trevor, he was created Viscount Hampden. From 1759 to 1765 he was joint postmaster-general. He wrote some Latin poems which were published at Parma in 1792 as Poemata Hampdeniana. His second son, John Hampden-Trevor (1749–1824), British minister at Munich from 1780 to 1783 and at Turin from 1783 to 1798, died only three weeks after he had succeeded his brother Thomas as 3rd Viscount Hampden, the titles becoming extinct.

Another member of this family was Sir John Trevor (1637–1717), Speaker of the House of Commons (1685). A partisan of James II., he was deprived of his office on the accession of William III., but in 1690 he was again a member of parliament, becoming Speaker for the second time in 1690 and master of the rolls in 1693. In 1695 he was found guilty of accepting a bribe and was expelled from the House of Commons, but he retained his judicial position until his death on the 20th of May 1717. Through his daughter Anne Sir John was the ancestor of the Hills, marquesses of Downshire, and of the family of Hill-Trevor, Viscounts Dungannon from 1766 to 1862.


TRÉVOUX, a town of eastern France, chief town of an arrondissement in the department of Ain, 16 m. N. of Lyons on the Paris-Lyons railway. Pop. (1906), 1934. The town is situated on the slope of the left bank of the Saône, which is here crossed by a suspension bridge and is dominated by two towers, remains of a feudal castle of the 12th century. The fortifications date from the 14th century, and the church from the same period. The law-court is a building of the 17th century, and was once the seat of the parlement of Dombes. Trévoux has a sub-prefecture and a tribunal of first instance. Gold and silver wire-drawing, introduced into the town by Jews in the 14th century, and the manufacture of apparatus for wire-drawing, are its chief industries.

Trévoux (Trevos) was hardly known before the 11th century, after which it was included in the domain of the lords of Thoire-Villars, from whom it acquired its freedom. It was bought by the Bourbons in 1402, became the capital of the Dombes, and had its own mint. In 1603 a well-known printing works was established there, from which in the 18th century the Journal de Trévouse and a universal dictionary known as the Dictionnaire de Trévoux were issued by the Jesuits.


TRIAL, in English law, the hearing by a court of first instance of the issues of fact and law involved in a civil or criminal cause. The term is inappropriate to rehearing by an appellate court. Trial follows upon the completion of the steps necessary to bring the parties before the court and to adjust the issues upon which the court is to adjudicate, which may be summed up in the term pleading (q.v.). In England the trial is usually in open court, and it is rare to try cases in camera, or to attempt to exclude the public from the hearing. The essential part of the trial is that there should be full opportunity to both sides for evidence and argument on the questions in dispute. At present in England, as distinguished from the rest of Europe, the evidence is ordinarily taken viva voce in court, and affidavits and depositions are sparingly accepted, whereas under the XXVII. 9 continental system the bulk of the proofs in civil cases are reduced to writing before the hearing.

The modes of trial have altered with legal development in English as in Roman law (see Action). Many forms of trial, notably those by ordeal, by wager of battle or of law (see Ordeal and Wager), and by grand assize, have become obsolete, and new forms have been created by legislation in order to meet altered circumstances of society. Up to a very recent date the tendency of the Roman and English systems was in opposite directions. In the former and in systems founded on it, such as the Scottish and French, trial by the judge became the rule, in the latter trial by judge and jury. In England the method of trial of issues of fact arising under the common law was by jury and a bench of judges. In truth the trials were the sittings of commissioners sent to inquire and report with the aid of the neighbourhood on questions of crime and civil wrongs in a county; the practice is summed up in the old phrase ad quaestionem juris judices respondeant, ad quaestionem facti juratores. In courts which administered equity or derived their law or procedure from the civil or canon law no jury was used, and the judges determined both law and fact. The system of trial before a full bench of judges even with a jury is now used on the European continent, but has been superseded in England by trial before a single judge with a jury except in the rare cases of trial at bar. This latter mode of trial is a survival of the mode universal in the superior courts before the writ of nisi Arius, and is now only used in the king’s bench division, when claimed by the Crown as of right or in cases of unusual importance and difficulty. Recent instances are the trial in 1904 of Arthur Lynch for treason in South Africa, and in 1905 of questions raised on a petition of right in respect of a claim to make the Crown responsible on the conquest of the Transvaal for acts of the Transvaal government before or during the war.

The necessity for trial by jury has been removed in many cases by legislation and rules of court (see Jury; Summary Jurisdiction), and the present English practice is summarized in the following statement.

In the High Court of Justice in England and Ireland several modes of trial are now used:

1. Trial by judge with a jury used in the king’s bench division and in probate and matrimonial cases. There is a right to have a jury as a matter of course in actions of defamation, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, seduction and breach of promise of marriage. In other cases, subject to exceptions to be noted, a jury can be obtained on the application of either party.

2. Trial by a judge without a jury is invariable in the chancery division and now common in the other divisions. Cases in the chancery division are not tried with a jury unless a special order is made (Ord. 36, r. 3); and the High Court in cases in which trial without jury could be ordered without consent (1875) still retains the power of so trying them, and has also acquired power to direct trial without a jury of any issue requiring prolonged examination of documents or accounts or scientific or local investigation.

3. Trial with assessors, usual in admiralty cases (the assessors being nautical) but rare in other divisions.

4. Trial by an official referee in certain cases involving much detail (R.S.C.O. 36). In the county court the ordi:iary mode of trial is by the judge alone, but a jury of eight is allowed in certain cases on application, and in the admiralty jurisdiction marine assessors can be called in. In other local civil courts the trial is often by jury, as in the mayor’s court of London, sometimes without, as in the vice-chancellor’s court of the university of Oxford. In all civil cases the parties can by a proper submission have a trial before an arbitrator selected by or for them. As regards criminal cases the right to trial by due process of law before condemnation is given by art. 29 of Magna Carta; and the trial must be by jury unless a statute otherwise provides (see Court-Martial; Summary Jurisdiction). The parties may be represented by lawyers, solicitor or counsel or both, according to the court, in county courts by accredited lay agents, or may conduct their case in person. The trial is carried on by stating to the court the pleadings if any and by opening the plaintiff’s case. This is followed by the evidence of the witnesses, who are sworn and examined and cross-examined. On the completion of the plaintiff’s case and evidence, the defendant’s case is stated and evidence adduced in support of it. The plaintiff or his lawyer has as a rule the reply or last word, though in some courts, described as single speech courts, no reply is given. At the conclusion the judge sums up the law and facts of the case to the jury, if there is one, and their verdict is returned, or if there is no jury