in Wales: beſides many other regulations of the police of this principality. And the ſtatute 34 & 35 Hen. VIII. c. 26. confirms the ſame, adds farther regulations, divides it into twelve ſhires, and, in ſhort, reduces it into the ſame order in which it ſtands at this day; differing from the kingdom of England in only a few particulars, and thoſe too of the nature of privileges, (ſuch as having courts within itſelf, independent of the proceſs of Weſtminſter hall) and ſome other immaterial peculiarities, hardly more than are to be found in many counties of England itſelf.
The kingdom of Scotland, notwithſtanding the union of the crowns on the acceſſon of their king James VI to that of England, continued an entirely ſeparate and diſtinct kingdom for above a century, though an union had been long projected; which was judged to be the more eaſy to be done, as both kingdoms were antiently under the ſame government, and ſtill retained a very great reſemblance, though far from an identity, in their laws. By an act of parliament 1 Jac. I. c. 1. it is declared, that, theſe two, mighty, famous, and antient kingdoms were formerly one. And ſir Edward Coke obſerves[1], how marvellous a conformity there was, not only in the religion and language of the two nations, but alſo in their antient laws, the deſcent of the crown, their parliaments, their titles of nobility, their officers of ſtate and of juſtice, their writs, their cuſtoms, and even the language of their laws. Upon which account he ſuppoſes the common law of each to have been originally the ſame, eſpecially as their moſt antient and authentic book, called regiam majeſtatem and containing the rules of their antient common law, is extremely ſimilar to that of Glanvil, which contains the principles of ours, as it ſtood in the reign of Henry II. And the many diverſities, ſubſiſting between the two laws at preſent, may be well enough accounted for, from a diverſity of practice in two large and uncommunicating juriſdictions, and from the acts of two diſtinct and independent parliaments, which have in many points altered and abrogated the old common law of both kingdoms.
- ↑ 4 Inſt. 345.
