been, and a Bill to exempt these four shires from the authority of the Lord President was brought into the House of Commons; hut this, after some discussion, was withdrawn, in consideration of a further promise from the King. The evil remained without adequate remedy during this and the following reign, and led to the appointment, by the House of Commons, of a Committee, including the knights and burgesses of the thirteen counties of the Principality of Wales, and of the four shires the Marches of Wales, to consider the jurisdiction of the Court of the Council of the Marches.[1] On the report of this Committee, a Bill to exempt the four shires was brought in, and passed both Houses of Parliament, but never received the Royal Assent, and seems to have been dropped during the political troubles of those times. No legislation on the subject took place during the period of the Commonwealth, and the subsequent re-action in favour of royal power prevented it from being mooted during the reigns of Charles II. and James II.; but no sooner was the Revolution accomplished, than an Act was passed for the total abolition of the Court itself.[2]
This Act was an important step towards unity of jurisdiction in matters of Equity throughout the Realm of England and Wales, but the local judicature of the twelve counties survived in full force to our own day.
An arbitrary limitation of territory, laid down for a special purpose, is inseparably connected with that purpose. They stand and fall together. Cessante ratione, cessat et ipsa lex. Wales, as the province of a separate judicature, was such a limitation. A series of Acts from the reign of Henry VIII. assimilated the procedure there to the English form, and at length the "Act for the more effectual Administration of Justice in England and Wales"[3] abolished the separate judicature, and completed the work commenced at the Union by extending the jurisdiction of the Law Courts at Westminster to the remaining twelve shires,—thus virtually terminating the existence of the judicial Wales.
The popular opinion, that Wales consists of twelve counties only, was true in a certain special sense up to the passing of this Act; since then it has not been and is not true in any sense whatever. It was founded on the words of the Act for certain Ordinances in Wales[4]: it was supported and strengthened by the exceptional position of the twelve counties as a distinct judicial district, a circumstance constantly present to men's eyes, and affecting their immediate business and interests, during three centuries. Its wide prevalence is scarcely surprising to those who have observed how vague and indistinct, for the most part, is the know-
