the Lordships Marchers. These Acts paved the way to a more thorough organization. "Over and above the unwillingness of juries to convict, the chief source of disorder lay in the regalities of the Lord Marchers. Here were a number of little kingdoms to which criminals could resort without fear of punishment or extradition, where, if fines were levied, they were levied for private profit, and not in open court, and where magnates like Lord Worcester or Lord Ferrers derived a revenue out of "the manifold selling of thieves." In the lordship of Magor there were living in those times five malefactors guilty of wilful murder, eighteen guilty of homicide, and twenty thieves and outlaws. Such a situation was clearly intolerable, and Henry's government determined to put an end to it by converting the lordships into shire ground."[1]
A.D. 1535.—An Act of 1535 (27 Henry 8, c. 5) provided for the appointment, under the Great Seal, of Justices of the peace. Justices of the quorum, and Justices of gaol delivery for certain counties in Wales. These Justices were to have and exercise the same powers as similar Justices had and exercised in England; and they were to administer the criminal laws observed in the English counties, in order to put an end to the offences committed in the Welsh counties. The various Sheriffs and other peace officers of the King were obliged to attend upon the said Justices for the purpose of executing their precepts and processes, as was done in the English shires. The Justices of the peace and the Clerks of the peace were to be entitled to the same fees and allowance as in England. The receipts of the several counties and the Sheriffs' accounts were to be made at the King's Exchequers at Carnarvon, Caermarthen, Pembroke, and Cardiff, as was done by English officials at the King's Exchequer in Westminster. Another statute of the same year (27 Henry 8, c. 7) abolished certain unlawful and unreasonable customs then existing "contrary both to the
- ↑ "Pol. Hist. of England," vol. v. p. 377.
