COURT OF KING'S BENCH. In English Law. The supreme court of com mon law in the kingdom.
It is one of the successors of the aula regie, and received its name, it is said, because the king for merly sat in it in person, the style of the court be ing COMM rege ipso (before the king himself ). During the reign of a queen it is called the Queen's Bench, and during Cromwell's protectorate it was called the Upper Bench. Its jurisdiction was ori ginally confined to tho correction of crimes and misdemeanors which amounted to a breach of the peace, including those trespasses which ware com mitted with force (vi et armia), and in the commis sion of which there was, therefore, a breach of the peace. By aid of a fiction of the law, the number of actions which might be alleged to be so commit ted was gradually increased, until the jurisdiction extended to all actions of the case, of debt upon statutes or where fraud was, alleged, and, finally, included all personal actions whatever, and the ac tion of ejectment. See ASSUMPSIT ; ARREST; AT TACHMENT. It is, from its constitution, ambulatory and liable to follow the king's person, all process in this court being returnable "ubicunque fuerintua in Anglia" (wherever in England we the sove reign may be), but has for some eeuturies been held at Westminster.
2. It consists of a lord chief justice and four puisne or associate justices, who are, by vir tue of their office, conservators of the peace and supreme coroners of the land.
3. The civil jurisdiction of the court is either formal or plenary, including personal actions and the mixed action of ejectment ; summary, applying to annuities and mortgages, 15 & lb Vict. cc. 55, 76, 219, 220, arbitrations and
awards, cases under the Habeas Corpus Act, 31 Car. II. c. 2 ; 56 Geo. III. c. 100, cases under the Interpleader Act, 1 & 2 Will. IV. c. 58, officers of the court, warrants of attorney, cognovits, and judges' orders for judgment; auxiliary, including answering a special case, enforcing judgments of inferior courts of re cord, prerogative, mandamus to compel infe iior courts or officers to act, 17 & 18 Vict. c. 125, a 75-77, prohibition, quo warranto, try ing an issue in fact from a court of equity or a feigned issue ; or appellate, including ap peals from decisions of justices of the peace giving possession of deserted premises to landlords, 11 Geo. II. c. 19, a 16, 17, writs of false judgment from inferior courts not of re cord, but proceeding according to the course of the common law, appeals by way of a case from the summary jurisdiction of justices of the peace on questions of law, 20 & Vict. c. 43 ; Order of Court of Novr. 25, 1857. See WhartoU, Law Diet. 2d Land. ed.
4. Its criminal jurisdiction extends to all crimes and misdemeanors whatever of a pub lic nature, it being considered the custos morum of the realm. Its jurisdiction is so universal that an act of parliament appoint ing that all crimes of a certain denomination shall be tried before certain judges does not exclude the jurisdiction of this court, without negative words. It may also proceed on in dictments removed into that court out of the inferior courts by certiorari.