KING'S-BENCH. This court (the nature of which was partly explained before) is divided into a crown side and a plea side. See KING'S-BENCH. And on the crown side, or crown office, it takes cognizance of all criminal causes, from high treason down to the most trivial misdemeanor or breach of the peace. Into this court also indictments from all inferior courts may be removed by writ of certiorari, and tried either at bar, Kingdom, or at nisi prius, by a jury of the county out of which the indictment is brought. The judges of this court are the supreme coroners of the kingdom. And the court itself is the principal court of criminal jurisdiction known to the laws of England. For which reason, by the coming of the court of King's bench into any county, (as it was removed to Oxford on account of the sickness in 1665), all former commissions of oyer and terminer, and general gaol-delivery, are at once absorbed and determined ipso facto: in the same manner as, by the old Gothic and Saxon constitutions, Jura vetusto obtinuit, quicquid omnia inferiora judicia, dicente jus rege. Into this court of King's bench hath reverted all that was good and salutary of the star-chamber. See STAR-CHAMBER.