* Gross.

in verb.

Justicium Dei.

The author of the Miroir des Justices complains that ordinances are only made by the king and his clerks, and by aliens and others, who dare not contradict the king, but study to please him.

Whence, he concludes, laws are oftener dictated by will than founded on right.] It appears from the Great Charter itself, that not only John, a tyrannical prince, and Richard, a violent one, but their father, Henry, under whose reign the prevalence of gross abuses is the least to be suspected, were accustomed, from their sole authority, without process of law, to imprison, banish, and attaint the freemen of their kingdom.
A great baron, in ancient times, considered himself as a kind of sovereign within his territory; and was attended by courtiers and dependants more zealously attached to him than the ministers of state and the great officers were commonly o their sovereign.