There would evidently have been no sense in these complaints,
that he deprived men of their property "without legal judgment of
their peers," if his laws had been binding upon the peers;
because he could then have made the same spoliations as well with
the judgment of the peers as without it. Taking the judgment of
the peers in the matter, would have been only a ridiculous and
useless formality, if they were to exercise no discretion or
conscience of their own, independently of the laws of the king.
It may here be mentioned, in passing, that the same would be true
in criminal mature, if the king's Laws were obligatory upon
juries.
As an illustration of what tyranny the kings would sometimes
practise, Hume says:
"It appears from the Great Charter itself, that not only John, a
tyrannical prince, and Richard, a violent one, but their father
Henry, under whose reign the prevalence of gross abuses is the
least to be suspected, were accustomed, from their sole
authority, without process of law, to imprison, banish, and
attaint the freemen of their kingdom.
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