however, lay a long-standing and vitally significant constitutional doctrine. We have already observed that it was usual to insert in the colonial charters the limitation that laws should not be enacted contrary or repugnant to the laws of England. The commissions to royal governors contained a similar clause, intended to serve at once as check upon the executive and upon the local legislature. This limitation was more than a mere expression of royal pleasure, for it was a basic rule of English law hammered out in the courts and implemented by statute and had a history which ran back to the time of the Plantagenets. The judicial doctrine that local law must conform to the common law was developed by the courts with reference to so-called local customs as well as by-laws 3 and represents a phase of their effort to reduce the law of the realm to uniformity. During the reign of Henry VI a statute taking notice of the enactment of unlawful and unreasonable ordinances required that ordinances of gilds, fraternities or other incorporated bodies be submitted for approval by justices of the peace or chief governors of the cities or boroughs where such bodies were situate. 4 Subsequently, in 1503, the manner of review was altered, the power being committed to "the Chancellor, Treasurer of England or Chief Justices of either Benches or three of them," or to the Justice of Assizes. 5 This necessity for approval did not exclude the courts in the exercise of the power to declare null and void ab initio by-laws repugnant to the laws of England. Indeed, in the celebrated Case of the Tailors of Ipswich it was laid down by Lord Coke that allowance as stipulated by 19 Henry VII, c. 7, "doth not corroborate" the ordinances, but left them to be affirmed as lawful or disaffirmed as unlawful by the law. 6 The applicability of these conceptions to the plantations was facilitated by the circumstance that the corporate form had been employed in the case of early settlements, 7 and the appositeness of the learning on by-laws is obvious from Randolph's charges against Massachusetts Bay in 1683. 8 Since the patents to proprietors in various particulars, including the limitation upon legislation, were substantially identical, the extension of these precedents was no great tour de force, especially since 3 2 Holdsworth, HEL, 400. * 15 Henry VI, c. 6. 5 19 Henry VII, c. 7. Cf. S. Kramer, The English Craft Gilds and the Government (1905), 61 « seq. 6 11 Co\e Rep. 53a. In The Stationers in the City of London v. Salisbury (Comb. 221) counsel contended that a questioned by-law had been signed by the Lord Chancellor. To this the Justices of King's Bench declared that the courts had executed with regard "tis never the better for that, for that is done of course. So we use to do in the circuits; but if the orders be not good, let the parties look to that at their peril." See also Davenant v. Hurdis (Moore [K. 8.1 576); Norris v. Staps {Hobart 210). 7 On this see Goebel and Naughton, Law Enforcement in Colonial New Yor\, c. i, note 10. 8 3 Edward Randolph, 229, 233.