Note t — Chapter VIII · (continued 3)

The apprehension of this compliant spirit in the ministers of justice led to an excellent act in 2 E. III. c. 8, that the judges shall not omit to do right for any command under the great or privy seal. And the conduct of Richard II., who sought absolute power by corrupting or intimidating them, produced another statute in the eleventh year of his reign (c. 10), providing that neither letters of the king's signet nor of the privy seal should from thenceforth be sent in disturbance of the law. An ordinance of Charles V., king of France, in 1369, directs the parliament of Paris to pay no regard to any letters under his seal suspending the course of legal procedure, but to consider them as surreptitiously obtained. Villaret, t. x. p. 175. This ordinance, which was sedulously observed, tended very much to confirm the independence and integrity of that tribunal.