As to the fourth measure, the Act did not touch the President and Council of Wales and the Marches, nor the Court of Equity before them. It superseded the civil and criminal courts of the Lordships Marchers, which fell under the jurisdiction of the shires in which they were severally comprised. Further, it extended the English judicature to the new Welch shire of Monmouth; but, considering that the four other new shires were far distant from London, and the inhabitants thereof were not of substance, power, and ability to travel out of their own countries to seek the administration of justice, it established local judicatures there; and, for similar reasons, retained those already existing in the eight ancient shires. Hence this measure was of necessity left incomplete, until, in the course of time, and from the progress of society, these reasons should cease to be applicable.
The continuance of these local judicatures subsequent to the union of England and Wales, is the root of the modern dispute as to the common limit of the two countries. As early as the time of Speed,[1] it seems to have been assumed by some, that the provinces of the English and Welch judicatures constituted respectively England and Wales. But neither reason nor authority supports this assumption. The history and antiquities, the language and literature, the established rights and laws of a country, constitute and characterize its nationality, and remain unaffected by a measure merely concerning the administration of justice. The Acts of Parliament concerning Wales passed in the years immediately following,[2] and the Itinerary of Leland, who visited it at this very period, are evidence that these provisions of the Act of Union were not so interpreted by contemporary authority. To blot out the national name of a country solely on the ground that it no longer retains a separate judicature, is an unreasonable and useless change; and, with reference to a part only of a country, such a change is not merely useless, but directly and widely injurious, as breaking the national unity, and so introducing confusion into the general history of the whole.
Eight years after the passing of the Act of Union, these local judicatures of Wales, being found inefficient and inconvenient, gave place to a new and uniform system, created by the "Act for certain ordinances in the King's Majesty's Dominion and Principality of Wales."[3]
The first section of this Act, that "Wales be from henceforth divided into twelve shires," is often adduced in support of the vulgar error respecting the
