" St. 1 William and Mary, ch. 6. (1688.)
The effect and legality of this oath will hereafter be
considered. For the present it is sufficient to show, as has
been already sufficiently done, that from the Saxon times
until at least as lately as 1616, the coronation oath has
been, in substance, to maintain the law of the land, or
the common law, meaning thereby the ancient Saxon
customs, as embodied in the laws of Alfred, of Edward
the Confessor, and finally in Magna Carta.
It may here be repeated that this oath plainly proves that
the statutes of the king were of no authority over juries, if
inconsistent with their ideas of right; because it was one
part of the common law that juries should try all causes
according to their own consciences, any legislation of the
king to the contrary notwithstanding.[33]
[1] Hale says:"The trial by jury of twelve men was the usual
trial among the Normans, in most suits; especially in assizes, et
juris utrum." 1 Hale's History of the Common Law, 219
This was in Normandy, before the conquest of England by the
Normans.
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