ABSTRACT
Has not legislation provided otherwise, all judgements given by the courts and all proceedings begun between the outbreak of the Civil War and the Restoration would have become null and void upon Charles’s return. The prerogative courts, which had been abolished by statute in 1641, could not be revived without the consent of Parliament. The Privy Council had then been deprived of the greater part of its jurisdiction, and now did little judicial work apart from the hearing of appeals from the Channel Islands and Colonies. The Palatinate of Durham, which had been abolished in 1646, was revived, but not the Council of the North. In 1674 they debated a bill, which failed to become law, providing that judges should hold their places during good behaviour. The law with regard to political offences was modified in several ways during the reign of Charles II.
