218 The Period of Constitution Making
most important, part of his work. Moreover, suits to
which the king was a party, suits which, before this, the
king had apportioned quite evenly between the common-
law courts and the Council, he now preferred to have tried
before the Chancellor. Nevertheless, Chancery emerged
as a court separate from the Council gradually, almost
imperceptibly. For a long time, civil cases, like criminal,
were brought to the "king in Council/' and were heard
directly by him and his Council or were turned over
to the Council's chief official as the royal convenience or
the nature of the case dictated.1 As time passed, an
increasing number actually went to the Chancellor.2
But in either case, the work was done in the Council, and
no one was conscious that anything new was being made.
Finally it was an accomplished fact; in Richard II.'s
reign, it could no longer escape notice that out of the
Council a new court had grown, and men began to speak of
it as such. But even at that time, it was hardly a sepa-
rate jurisdiction; it was rather a permanent and recognised
judicial committee of the Council, constantly drawing its
authority from that body.
While Chancery grew, it used new principles and de-
veloped a new procedure. Indeed, its growth depended
upon its ability to do this. As, at an earlier time, the
king's court and its first offspring, the common-law courts,
were plastic, and developed a law and procedure vastly
different from the antique formalism of the Anglo-Saxon
court system,3 so now Chancery was measurably in the
same relation to these common-law courts, now them-
selves growing old and formal. But history was not to
1 At first there was little distinction between the petitions presented to
Parliament and those to the Council, At each session of Parliament com-
mittees of hearers and triers of petitions were appointed. The Council
dealt with those left over and those presented when Parliament was not
in session.
2 In Edward Ill's reign, the form of petition was often to Chancellor
and Council. This was transitional, and soon the address was to the Chan-
cellor only. In the same reign the Chancellor began to administer jus-
tice on his own authority without a preliminary writ.
3 See above, p. 143 and note 2.