We are disposed to regard the handling of the Welsh problem to have been 
in execution of Edward's professions that he was obligated to extirpate bad 
customs. 142 Taken in connection with the Channel Islands precedent 143 and 
the practice shortly thereafter introduced with respect to the Isle of Man, 144 
it would appear that, far from seeking to impose a common law upon his 
dominions, Edward I was within limits willing to make liberal concessions to 
the principle that men might live by the law into which they had been born. 
The limits were fixed in reference to what may be described as his jurisdictionmindedness. 
It was enough that his commission would run in a dominion and 
that his ultimate supervisory authority was thus put beyond dispute. 145 
If the appellate machinery of the latter thirteenth century was such that the 
capacity of the reviewing authority was secured from attack by process of 
law, there remained, nevertheless, an area of political resistance. The outstanding 
example here was the Gascon jurisdiction, where the King of England, 
ironically enough, played the role of remonstrant. 
The difficulties over Gascon appeals were the outcome of the treaty of 1259 
and the performance of homage by Henry 111 to the French King for his Aquitanian 
dominions. Louis IX and after him Philip 111 did not hesitate to 
exercise their powers as suzerain to entertain appeals. The disaffected Gascon 
subtenants were afforded a means of vexing their superior, the duke, under 
color of the law, and the King of France was thus enabled to muscle into the 
affairs of the duchy. 148 As a result, Edward I was compelled to maintain 
proctors at the French court, for in spite of the rule that in the hotel du roi 
appeals of false judgment were no longer to be accusations against the judge, 
but a continuation of the controversy inter partes, 1 * 1 the normal course of 
appeals within the duchy was not observed by appellants, and responsibility 
of the duke for the maintenance of this was no less than if a defect of justice 
had been the matter of complaint. Within the duchy counter measures oppres- 
142 Cf. the parallel in the program for Scotland 
(1305) which proposes the extirpation of unreasonable 
customs (1 Rot. Pari., 268 a). 
143 Cf. the commission to the warden (1229) 
requiring treatment according to the law and 
custom of the islands {Patent Rolls 1225-32, 
340); the commission to take assizes (Calendar 
of Patent Rolls 1232-47, 18); the commission 
of 1309 to the justices (Rolls of the Assizes held 
in the Channel Islands [Pub. Soc. Jersiaise], 1). 
144 Cf. the commission of oyer and terminer of 
1292 for Man, where justice is to be secundum 
legem et consuetudinem partium illarum 
(Coke, Fourth Institute, 285). 
145 Here again the practice in the realm may 
have influenced imperial policy, viz., the conditional 
toleration of local usage by the common 
law courts. The willingness to admit at the 
trial stage the law and usage o£ dominions is 
indicated by a succession of exhibits from 1 
Calendar of Chancery Warrants, 1244-1326. In 
1305 the order is made that trespasses in Ireland 
must be tried by Irish writ not English {ibid., 
2 53); then follow orders for trial by the law 
and customs of the place, Ireland (1308) {ibid., 
271); Gascony (1309) {ibid., 282, 292, 297); 
Guernsey (1311) {ibid., 380). 
140 Discussed in Gavrilovitch, itude sur le 
Traite de Paris de i2sg (1899), 84 et seq. 
14T Li Livres de jostice et de plet (Rapetti ed., 
1850), XVI, § 1.