QUEEN'S BENCH, or KING'S BENOIT, one division of the high court of justice, other four divisions being chancery, common pleas, exchequer, and probate. The king's bench was so called from the origin of the court, inasmuch as the king used to sit there in per son. In Cromwell's time it was called the upper bench. The court consists of five judges, a president (who is called the chief-justice of England, and is the highest of all the judges next to the lord chancellor), and four puisne judges called justices. In 1874 the old courts were reconstituted, and all were merged in the high court of justice, which consists of four divisions, each of which, however, retains nearly the same jurisdiction as before such change, and the only appeal from to the high court of appeal, which exercises the functions formerly vested in, and from remote antiquity exercised j by, the house of lords. The ancient jurisdiction of the court and the history of its Modifications are too technical to he stated in this place, but the outline of the leading points of jurisdiction may ue shortly stated. The queen's bench is the highest court which has a criminal jurisdiction, and such jurisdiction is unlimited. But practically this juris diction is seldom exercised oriminally, for it is only when an indictment is removed from an inferior court into the queen's bench that a criminal trial takes place there, and this is only the case when there is some peculiar difficulty or importance attending the trial, which renders it expedient to remove it from the sessions or assizes. But though criminal trials in the queen's bench are exceptional, there are certain criminal matters which are part of its ordinary administration. A criminal information, for example, when filed
by the attorney-general, or the master of the crown-office, charging a person with a criminal offense, is tried in the queen's bench as a matter of course, and can be tried in no other court. The queen's bench exercises a superintending control over all inferior tribunals, and also over public bodies, by commanding them to do a specific duty, the writ being called a writ of mandamus; or by prohibiting them from going on with some matter over which they have no jurisdiction, by a writ called a writ of prohibition. The queen's bench also entertains appeals from justices of the peace on a vast variety of matters. Besides the criminal jurisdiction, and the prerogative writs of mandamus, prohibition, and quo warranto, there is a civil jurisdiction belonging to the queen's bench of the most extensive kind; indeed, any civil action to recover debts and damages may be brought there. The civil jurisdiction is mostly shared in common with the other two common-law divisions. The judges of the queen's bench are often called the queen's coroners, having a universal jurisdiction of that kind throughout England, though.seldom acting in that capacity. The chief-justiee has latterly been usually made a peer, or has the option of becoming one if be pleases. The officers of the court are the master of the crown-office, who attends to the criminal department of the business, and several masters of the court, who attend to the civil department. The puisne judges of the court of queen's bench rank before of the other two common-law divisions.