Court of King's Bench (England)

The Court of King's Bench was a common law court in the English legal system that existed from around 1200 until 1873, emerging in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century out of the curia regis and, after traveling with the monarch, becoming permanently seated at Westminster Hall in 1318. Its jurisdiction covered criminal matters, cases involving the Crown, and general business not claimed by other courts, and it heard appeals from lower courts until 1830, while devices such as the Bill of Middlesex let it expand into civil disputes in competition with the Court of Chancery. Led by a Chief Justice, later the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and typically three puisne justices, it was merged with the Common Pleas, the Exchequer, and the Court of Chancery into the new High Court of Justice under the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873, sitting for the last time on 6 July 1875 before continuing as the King's Bench Division of the High Court.