to raze the Inn to the ground in the interest of a new street, made according to modern requirements. In a few years more all the ancient land marks will have been destroyed and only the written page of history will keep alive the memory of that great past, when from bar
barism there emerged a mighty civilization, which swept away all old things and created a new and better order. Yet while we rejoice at the march of civilization we cannot help regretting the removal of these relics of the past.
THE BARONS OF THE EXCHEQUER. TO realize the origin of that old Court of Exchequer, which sat at Westmin ster, we must picture to ourselves the king as Chief Lord of the Realm, surrounded by his barons and great officers of state. The baronage attending on his royal per son made, as Madox tells us, a considerable part of the court. They were his homagers. They held their baronies of him, and were his " men " as to life, limb, and earthly honor. Three times every year, on the great festivals of the church, the king assumed a special state. He sat upon his throne at Easter, at Winchester; at Whitsun, at West minster; at Christmas at Gloucester; wear ing his crown and " girt with many a baron bold," conspicuous among them his seven great officers of state, the justiciar, the con stable, the marshal, the high steward, the chamberlain, the chancellor, and the treas urer. This august assemblage — the flower of the realm and the prototype of our mod ern Privy Council — was known as the king's council, and with them the king consulted of war and peace, of the administration of justice, of finance, of all the many matters of statecraft and government, and from this royal court or council sprang, by that pro cess of differentiation of functions and di vision of labor in which the philosophy of Mr. Herbert Spencer finds the law of social progress, all or most of the machinery of government — legislative, judicial, executive
— as we have it to-day; the High Court of Parliament, the Cabinet, and the Courts of Law and Equity. Naturally one of the most pressing topics on which the king held coun sel with his barons was that of replenishing the royal treasury, but by degrees this prob lem of revenue was delegated — as needs must be with such a complicated subject — to what we should call a finance committee of the Royal Council presided over by the king in person, ultimately by the lord treas urer, the chancellor of the exchequer, and three other barons. It is in this body that we discover the origin of the time-honored Court of Exchequer — nay, more, it is to the activity of this finance committee in the king's interest that we really owe the institu tion of the itinerant justices which form such a special feature of our legal system, and which has done so much to give to that system solidity and uniformity. The king's revenues were derived chiefly from the royal demesnes, from the Danegelt or land tax, from the fines of local courts, and the feudal aids from baronial estates; and the itiner ant justice's chief business at first was to collect these revenues, to make assizes, to fix amercements, and generally enforce and uphold the fiscal rights of the Crown. These fiscal visitations led to the judicial visitations — the judges' circuits. Twice every year this group of financial experts, under the name of Barons of the Exchequer, sat round
