). The King’s Peace was, at first something special, the King’s own personal law. Breaking King’s Peace was a more serious matter than mere theft which was for the Sheriff to deal with. The King could give his peace (hence his protection) to his servants, his favourites, and even to those who might pay for the privilege. Those of lower classes were in the early days of the Common Law, outside the purview of the law protecting the King’ Peace. Cases involving members of these humbler classes were mainly heard in the manorial courts. At first the King’s peace was a personal thing and not governmental abstraction and died with the king. The original of the King’s Peace was the king’s presence which imparted peace, not only to his residence, but to a considerable district around it. At certain times and holidays also, the King’s Peace was proclaimed throughout his kingdom. It followed that what made a breach of the King’s Peace was not the intrinsic quality of the offending act in question, but the person, the place, and even the season. The same act, or one more outrageous, might in other circumstances be a breach not of the King’s Peace, but of the Sheriff’s Peace. At the early periods of the Common Law, there were no regular armies, police force or law and order organs. There existed no laws to regulate the conducts of the people. Just as private individual could proceed against one who had wronged him (private vengeance), so the king proceeded against those who violated his personal rights, and in this connection a violation of the King’s
