or BANC, in Law. See BANC. Free-BENCH signifies that estate in copyhold-lands which the wife being espoused a virgin, has, after the decease of her husband, for her dower, according to the custom of the manor. As to this free-bench, several manors have several customs; as in the manors of East and West Enbourne, in the county of Berks, and other parts of England, there is a custom, that when a copyhold tenant dies, the widow shall have her free bench in all the deceased husband's lands, whilst she lives single and chaste; but if she commits incontinency, she shall forfeit her estate: nevertheless, upon her coming into the court of the manor, riding on a black ram, and having his tail in her hand, and at the same time repeating a form of words prescribed, the steward is obliged, by the custom of the manor, to re-admit her to her free-bench.
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. The chief justice has a salary of 550l. and the other judges 240l. each.
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 council, 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.
On the crown side, or crown office, it takes cognizance of all criminal causes, from high treason down to the most trivial misdemeanour 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, 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 sicknefs 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, Jure vetusto obtinuit, quievisse 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.
On the plea side, this court determines all personal actions commenced by bill or writ; as actions of debt, upon the cese, 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 on the crown side are the clerk and secondary of the crown; and on the side of the pleas there are two chief clerks or prothonotaries, and their secondary and deputy, the custos brevium, two clerks of the papers, the clerk of the declarations, the signer 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.
Amicable BENCH. See AMICABLE.