210 The Period of Constitution Making ~
ure in a certain class of cases. It had become established
that cases involving capital punishment could only be
tried by a jury, but there was still a very useful sphere of
activity for a court not bound by established rules of
procedure and which could not be bribed or intimidated.
The Council became such a court, acting on its own origi-
nal judicial authority and on several statutes of the Lan-
castrian period which specially empowered it to deal with
certain cases.1 It exercised a sort of supplementary
criminal jurisdiction, and punished severely by fine or
imprisonment. Rioting, conspiracy, and bribery furn-
ished it much work; and of special importance was its
activity in bringing perjured jurors to justice. Here was
a method of preventing the complete degeneration of the
criminal jury; when the juror accepted a bribe or yielded
to fear, he knew that he might be severely dealt with for
it. The way of the fifteenth-century juror was hard, the
local terror on one side and fine or imprisonment at the
hands of the Council on the other. The procedure of
the Council was summary, and, in other respects, in
sharp contrast to that of the common-law courts. It
has been described as doing justice in an ''administrative
way." It utilised many of the methods of the canon law.
It took short cuts to justice, and exercised what may be
termed a criminal equity.2 It is evident that the Council
in this capacity might easily be a blessing or a menace to
the nation; much depended upon the character of its
1" It is impossible to draw any precise line between those offences which
the Council punished, acting as a government, and those which it noticed
in the character of a law court; and such a distinction, could it be made,
would only mislead, for it would hide what is the characteristic feature of
the period under review, the inseparable combination in the Council of
political and judicial authority."—Dicey, The Privy Council, p. 106.
3 "It sends for the accused; it compels him to answer upon oath written
interrogatories. ^ Affidavits, as we should call them, are sworn upon both
sides. With written depositions before them the lords of the council, with-
out any jury, acquit or convict. The extraction of confessions by torture
is no unheard-of thing."—Maitland and Montague, Sketch of English Legal
History, p. 118. The Council's use of torture began in Edward IV.'s reign.
For the new forms of writs of summons, especially the sub pasna, and the
significance of their issue under privy seal, see J, F. Baldwin, King's Court
and Chancery, American Historical Review, xv., 753, 754.