Court of the President and Council in the Marches of Wales, received the royal assent.
The civil work of the Court of the Marches did not however cease; it continued until the outbreak of the rebellion, and was resumed at the Restoration in 1660. It was finally abolished by 1 William and Mary, c. 27 (1688). The grounds of suppression in that year were summarized as follows:—
(1) That the Court had been found by experience an intolerable burthen to the subject, contrary to the Great Charter, the known laws of the land and the birthright of the subject, and the means of introducing an arbitrary power and government.
(2) That matters determinable there may be redressed in the ordinary course of justice within the shires of the Principality.
The Courts of Great Sessions occupied the place of the Court of the Marches in civil and criminal matters arising in Wales until their abolition in the nineteenth century.
Between the Court of the Council of the Marches and the Common Law Courts at Westminster there was always a deep-seated jealousy, derived from professional dislike and an objection by lawyers to special jurisdictions. The arbitrary and extortionate fines of the Court of the Council of the Marches; its encroachment on the Common Law Courts; its failure to adhere to the duties imposed upon it; and its punishment of offences which had been already dealt with by the Ecclesiastical Courts, hastened its end. Before the close of the seventeenth century it had become also the willing servant of the royal will and prerogative, and, when confronted with the growing political strength of the people, its fall was inevitable.
In George Owen's Dialogue we find, however, that like many another institution which has degenerated, it contained some good features. It was, he says, "the very place of refuge for the poore oppressed of this country of Wales
