Palace Court: Habeas Corpus Books

Entry books of causes in the Palace Court removed to a superior court under the provisions of the Inferior Courts Act, 1623. Most removals were effected by the issue of a writ of habeas corpus.

Entries in the volumes are arranged under the weekly courts, with each entry signed by the defendant's attorney or his clerk; by the later eighteenth century, and sometimes earlier, his address is given. The amount of the debt involved is also noted. The later books also include entries for writs of error removing cases into the King's Bench, and of writs of procedendo ad judicium, which obliged the court to proceed to judgment.

The series has a number of gaps to 1782, after which it is apparently complete. The gaps are not pointed out in the list.

The superior court to which a particular case was removed can be ascertained by identifying the judge before whom it is said in the entry to have been brought; the court itself is not named. Those most frequently mentioned seem to be chief or puisne justices of King's Bench or Common Pleas.

Topics

Debt

The Inferior Courts Act, 1623 (21 Jas I, c 23) in seeking to prevent the removal of cases from lesser to higher courts by a defendant unless strict conditions were followed, provided that any case in which the stated damages were £5 or less in value could not be removed from an inferior court except by writ of error or attaint. In doing so it facilitated the removal of cases where the sum involved was more than £5.