PALATINE COUNTIES. Two of the English counties, Chester and Lan caster, are counties palatine. The county of Pembroke, in Wales, was also a county palatine; but its palatine juris diction was taken away by 27 Henry VIII., c. 26. The archbishop of York, previously to the reign of Elizabeth, claimed to be a count palatine within his possessions of Hexham and Hexhamshire, in Northumberland, and is so termed in some ancient statutes ; but by the stat. 14 Elia., c. 13, it was declared that this distri it had no palatine jurisdiction or privileges.
Counts palatine were of feudal origin ; and a reference to their history will clearly explain the meaning of the title, and also many of the incidents of these territorial dignities in England. Selden says " the name was received here doubt less out of the use of the empire of France, and in the like notions as it had in that use " (Titles (.1 honour, Dart 2).
In the court of the ancient kings of France, before the time of Charlemagne, there was a high judicial officer, called Comes Palatii, a kind of master of the household, whose functions nearly re sembled those of the Prmfectus Prwtorio in the Roman empire. This officer had supreme judicial authority in all causes that came to the king's immediate audi ence. (Selden's Titles of Honour, part ii., chap 33.) When the seat of empire was transferred to France, this title and office still continued, but the nominal dignity as well as a degree of jurisdiction and power analogous to those of the ancient functionary were also given to a different class of persons. When the king chose to confer a peculiar mark of distinction upon the holder of a certain fief or pro vince, he expressly granted to him the right to exercise the same rank, power, -and jurisdiction within his fief or pro vince as the comes palatii exercised in the palace. Hence he also obtained the name of Comes Palatii or Palatines, and by virtue of this grant he enjoyed within his territory a supreme jurisdiction, by which he was distinguished from the ordinary comes, who had only an inferior and dependent authority within his dis trict or county. This was the origin of the distinction between the Pfalzgraf and the Graf in Germany, and between the count palatine and the ordinary count or earl in England. Selden says that he had not observed the word " palatine " thus used in England until about the reign of Henry II.
The counts palatine in England had jura regalia within their counties, subject only to the king's general superiority as suzerain ; or, as Bracton expresses it (lib.
cap. 8), " regalem habent potestatem in omnibus, salvo dominio Domino Regi sicut priucipi." They had each a Chan cery and Court of Common Pleas ; they appointed their judges and magistrates and law officers ; they pardoned treasons, murders, and felonies ; all writs and judicial proceedings issued and were carried on in their names ; and the king s writs were of no force within the counties palatine. Many of these powers, such as the appointment of judges and magistrates, and the privilege of pardon ing, were abolished by `.' Henry VIII.,
cap. 24, which also piJvided that all writs and process in counties palatine should from that time bear the king's name. The statute however expressly stipulates that writs shall be always wit nessed in the name of the count palatine.
The county of Chester is a county palatine by prescription, being commonly supposed to have been first given with regal jurisdiction by William I. to Hugh d'Avranches. (Selde•s Titles of Honour, part ii.) It was annexed to the crown, by letters patent, in the reign of Henry and since that time it has always given the title of Earl of Chester to the king's eldest son, and is preserved in the crown as a county palatine when there is no Prince of Wales.
The county of Lancaster appears to have been first made a county palatine by FAward Ill., who in the twenty-fifth year of his reign, in his patent of creation of Henry the first duke, granted him the dignity of a count palatine, and after wards, in the fiftieth year of his reign, granted the same dignity by letters patent to his son John, Duke of Lancaster. Henry IV. was Duke of Lancaster by inheritance from his father John of Gaunt, at the time of his usurpation, but be avoided the union of the duchy with the crown by procuring an act of parlia ment, which declared that the duchy of Lancaster should remain with him and his heirs for ever, in the same manner as if he had never been king of England. Upon the attainder of his grandson Henry VI., soon after the accession of Edward IV., the duchy became forfeited to the crown, and an act of parliament passed to incorporate the county palatine with the duchy of Lancaster, and to vest the whole in Edward IV. and his heirs, for ever. Another act of parliament passed in the reign of Henry VII., con firming the duchy to the king and his heirs for ever ; and from that time it has continually been united to the crown.
Durham is a county palatine by pre scription; but it is probable that the palatine jurisdiction did not exist long, if at all, before the Norman Conquest. (Surtees's History of Durham, Introd., p. 15.) "There is colour to think," says Selden (Titles of Honour, part ii., c. " that the palatine jurisdiction began then in Bishop Watcher, whom King William I. made both episcopus and dux provincire, that he might frrenare rebel lionem gentis gladio, et reformare mores eloquio, as William of Malmesbury says." Durham continued as a county palatine in the hands of a subject till the year 1836, the bishop having been prince palatine, and possessing jura regalia till that time. By the stat 6 & 7 Will. IV., c. 19, the palatine jurisdiction was sepa rated from the bishopric and transferred to William IV., and vested in him and his successors as a franchise separate from the crown, together with all for feitures, mines, and jura regalia. The jurisdiction of the courts was expressly excepted from the operation of the act.