The Court of the President and Council in Wales and the Marches was for the first time formally established by the 4th section of this Statute. The history of this Court demands attention, for it played a most important part in the constitutional history of Wales.
The "Court of the Council in the Dominion and Principality of Wales and the Marches of the same" was one of the extraordinary Courts of the Tudor and Stuart periods. It was not altogether a new body created by this Statute, but a development of an institution, the "Prince's Council," which had existed ever since the time of the first English Prince of Wales for the purpose of administering his estates The Long Parliament partially abolished it; the Restoration revived it; and the Revolution of 1688 finally abolished it. By its organization an important step was taken towards the union of England and Wales, for the Principality and the Marches were for the first time united under one rule.
This Court was created for the purpose of establishing and maintaining order in the borderland which had been the scene of so much disturbance and misrule for years. The most turbulent districts within its jurisdiction were those which subsequently formed the counties of Radnor, Montgomery, and Denbigh. The following lordships are repeatedly mentioned as the haunts of criminals, viz.: Elvael, Arwystli, Kerry, Caedewen, and Cyfeiliog; and, according to Bishop Lee, Presteign was the place "where the thieves were thickest." The lordships of Chepstow and Gower in South Wales, the lordships of Oswestry and Powys, the shires of Merioneth and Cardigan were noted for their disorder, but the Marcher Lordships of Northern and Central Wales appear to have been the worst.
Up to the middle of the sixteenth century the main work of the Council consisted in punishing this lawlessness with which the Common Law Courts were powerless to deal. During the succeeding half century it acted both as a judicial and also as an administrative body—the instrument
