Blackstone: Geography and Laws of the British Isles

Reading for this week: http://www.constitution.org/tb/tb-1104.htm

Monday

1. What does the kingdom of England, by the common law, include?

2. How is Wales governed; and in what particulars does it differ from
the kingdom of England?

3. How is Scotland governed; and what four observations are to be made
upon the articles and act of union between England and Scotland?

4. How is the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed governed; what
writs run there; and by whom may all local matters arising there be
tried?

Tuesday

5. How is Ireland governed? And see Mr. Justice Christian's note (14)
to this chapter.

6. How are the Isles of Wight, Portland, Thanet, &c. governed?

7. How is the Isle of Man governed?

8. How are the Isles of Jersey, Guernsey, Sark, Alderney, and their
appendages, governed?

9. How are our Plantations abroad governed?

10. Of what three sorts are our Colonies, with respect to their internal
polity; what is the form of government in most of them; and what is
declared, as to the laws of plantations, by statue 7 & 8 W. III.
c.22, and as to the subordination of the American Plantations, by statue
6 Geo. III. c. 12?

Wednesday

11. But what was the King empowered to do by statute 22 Geo. III. c. 46;
and what does he acknowledge by the first article of the definitive
treaty of peace and friendship between His Britannic Majesty
and the United States of America? To be answered from Mr. Justice
Christian's note (17) to this chapter.

12. How are any foreign dominions, which may belong to the King
by hereditary descent, by purchase, or other acquisition,
governed?

13. What part of the sea is subject to the common law, and what
part to the jurisdiction of our Courts of Admiralty?

Thursday

14. To what two divisions is the territory of England liable?

15. How is the first division subdivided?

16. What is a parish; how were the boundaries of parishes
originally ascertained: how is the intermixture of parishes one with
another to be accounted for; how are some lands extraparochial; to whom
are their tithes payable; yet what does the statute 17 Geo. II. c. 37 enact as
to extra-parochial waste and marsh lands, when improved and
drained?

17. How is the second division subdivided?

18. What is tithing?

Friday

19. What is a town now, what a city, and what a borough?

20. What is a hundred, what a wapentake, what a county or
shire, what a lathe, what a rape, and what a
trithing?

21. What is a county-palatine; what three counties are now of
this nature; whence is the origin of their privileges; how were the powers of
their owners abridged in 27 Henry VIII; and who are those owners now?

22. What is the Isle of Ely?

23. What is a county-corporate?