the Council's judicial authority, except for some medieval survivals of original 
jurisdiction, was confined to appeals. 
In 1640 Jersey and Guernsey were the only dominions of the crown that had 
attained judicial maturity and that could lay claim to immediate judicial control 
by the crown sufficiently ancient and well established to be considered 
"ordinary" even in the critical eyes of the Long Parliament. There is, regrettably, 
no sign that this body, intent upon the maladies of the realm itself, 
pondered the desirability of perpetuating this fragment of royal authority. The 
effect of 16 Charles I, c. 10, therefore, can be settled only as a problem of interpretation 
of statutory language; and this was precisely how lawyers came 
to deal with it when the basis for conciliar power in developing a colonial 
empire made unavoidable a careful weighing of this act. Regarded in terms 
of constitutional law, the problem presented was the explanation of the Council's 
status under the act with reference to what had been done in the past and 
what it had continued to do. We ourselves have no doubts concerning the 
force of the Channel Islands precedents. Some writers agree with this view, 6 
but others have denied that these islands constituted jurisdictional precedents 
for the later establishment of appeals from the other dominions to the King 
in Council. 7 Legal opinion of the Restoration entertained no misgivings, for 
in 1681 Attorney General Sawyer relied solely upon Jersey and Guernsey 
precedents in deciding whether or not conciliar appeals lay from the Massachusetts 
Bay colony. 8 But the best and most convincing proof of the creative 
force of the Channel Islands jurisdiction is, as we shall presently see, the imprint 
left by these appeals upon the general structure of conciliar appellate 
procedure. 
THE MEDIEVAL STATUS OF THE CHANNEL ISLANDS 
To understand the historical basis for the justification as "ordinary" of the 
appellate jurisdiction exercised by the King in Council over Channel Islands 
6 T. Pownall, The Administration of the Colonies 
(2d ed., 1765), 82-83; 1 Burge, Commentaries 
on Colonial and Foreign Laws 
(1838), xlvi-xlvii; Pike, Constitutional History 
of the House of Lords (1894), 308; Bentwich, 
op. cit., 91; G. A. Washburne, Imperial Control 
of the Administration of fustice in the 
Thirteen American Colonies, 1684—1776 
(1923), 54-56; cf. 1 Holdsworth, History of 
English Law (1927), 520; W. F. Finlason, 
The History, Constitution, and Character of 
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council 
(1878), 15; Maitland, Constitutional History of 
England (1926), 337. 
7 Macqueen, op. cit., 682-86; H. D. Hazeltine, 
Appeals from Colonial Courts to the King in 
Council, with Special Reference to Rhode Island, 
Annual Rep. Am. Hist. Asso. (1894), 
304-6; A. B. Keith, Constitutional History of 
the First British Empire (1930), 305. Compare 
the view that "the King, as the fountain 
o£ justice, has a general residuary jurisdiction" 
(Phillips, Principles of English Law and the 
Constitution [1939], 462). 
8 3'Edward Randolph (Prince Soc. Pub., 1899; 
ed. R. N. Toppan), 100-101.