KING'S BENCH, a court in which the king was formerly accustomed to sit in person, and on that account was moved with the king's household. This was originally the only court in Westminster-hall, and from this it is thought that the courts of common pleas and exchequer were derived. As the king in person is still presumed in law to sit in this court, though only represented by his judges, it is said to have supreme
authority; and the proceedings in it are supposed to be coram nobis, that is, before the king. This court consists of a lord chief justice and three other justices or judges, who are invested with a sovereign jurisdiction over all matters, whether of a criminal or public nature. All crimes against the public good, though they do not injure any particular person, are under the cognizance of this court; and no private subject can suffer any unlawful violence or injury against his person, liberty, or possessions, but a proper remedy is afforded him here; not only for satisfaction of damages sustained, but for the punishment of the offender: and wherever this court meets with an offence contrary to the first principles of justice, it may punish it. It frequently proceeds on indictments found before other courts, and removed by certiorari into this. Persons illegally committed to prison, though by the king and counsel, or either of the houses of parliament, may be bailed in it; and in some cases, even upon legal commitments. Writs of mandamus are issued by this court, for the restoring of officers in corporations, &c. unjustly turned out, and freemen wrongfully disfranchised.
The court of king's bench is now divided into a crown-side and plea-side, the one determining criminal, and the other civil causes: in the first it determines criminal matters of all kinds, where the king is plaintiff; such as treasons, felonies, murders, rapes, robberies, riots, breaches of the peace, and all other causes that are prosecuted by indictment, information, &c. On the plea-side, it determines all personal actions commenced by bill or writ; as actions of debt, upon the case, detinue, trover, ejectment, trespass, waste, &c. against any person in the custody of the marshal of the court, as every person sued here is supposed to be by law.
The officers of this court on the crown-side are the clerk and secretary of the crown; and on the side of the pleas there are two chief clerks or prothonotaries, and their secretary and deputy, the custos brevium, two clerks of the papers, the clerk of the declarations, the signor and sealer of bills, the clerk of the rules, clerk of the errors, and clerk of the bails; to which may be added the filazers, the marshal of the court, and the crier.