Inside the Court of King's Bench
To visually reconstruct the interior of King’s Bench and understand its appearance and acoustics required more information about the colours, materials, furnishings, items, and judicial symbolism within the court. Contemporary coloured and monochrome prints provided much useful evidence, but again they were rarely consistent and often presented the room as if it was noticeably larger than the surveyors’ documented measurements, plus packed with legal and public spectators.
Dighton’s satirical image (1795) depicts a chaotic scene of lawyers and clerks observed by an incompetent jury of deaf, blind, dumb, or sleeping men. While the grey colourwash is unrealistic there are details that proved useful. Three judges are sat on a cloth covered bench behind wooden desks. Other images show either the Lord Chief Justice alone or all four judges in court, suggesting these were changeable. The AR recreation depict this arrangement, partly to demonstrate how portable the fittings were. The judges and the clerks using quill pens show they (rather than newer ink pens) were still in legal use then. Legal documents were both in scroll and folded forms were tied with what was called ‘pink’ tape.
The tapestry behind the Judges in shown in the images of 1795 and 1804 (below). It was described as blue by a French visitor in 1765, but he only noted the symbol of the King’s arms. The embroidery had probably changed thirty years later. Nevertheless, the Royal Arms remain central to the tapestry depicted in later eighteenth-century prints. It provides a powerful reminder that this was the King’s Court and his judges acted in his name.
Dighton’s print (left, and the one below) depict an embroidered sword and sceptre crossed in front of the scales of justice (left). The sword and sceptre also represent royal authority, while the scales symbolise truth and a system of balanced justice in which evidence is fairly weighed. On the right, is a winged rod with two snakes coiling round it and a Fasces, with an owl perched on it. The rod is a caduceus, which has two snakes, unlike the single snake depicted on the symbol for medicine. The caduceus was carried by Hermes, the messenger of the Greek gods and is more often seen on statues of him. However, it also symbolised arbitration, commerce and and balance, which is probably why it is used here. The fasces – a bundle of rods with an axe in the middle – were a symbol of a Roman magistrate’s power and right to punish wrongdoers.
The rods symbolised physical beating, the axe execution by beheading. An owl was usually a symbol of wisdom, but it was also the sacred bird of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, law and justice. The symbols either side of the Hanoverian coat of arms therefore, combined to convey a powerful message of Royal and Civic or parliamentary justice administered by the judges seated high above the rest of the court, yet within the centre of national political power.
Walker’s later etching (1804) depicts the same tapestry behind all four King’s Bench judges as part of a more formal, ‘polite’ and orderly scene. The judges and clerks have access to a library of law books to enhance their own knowledge and demonstrate the collective ‘authority’ of centuries of common law. The perspective, however, makes the court seem larger than the maximum space of 30 ft indicated on the surveyor’s plans and Dighton’s image above. The 12 male jurors are watching intensely from their box, and they have removed their hats that hang in an orderly row on the wall behind them, as have the men in the box opposite. These all appear to be early versions of the ‘top hat’, which became increasingly popular and widely worn by different ranks from the 1790s. They were considered essential for men to wear them outside and could be retained in social areas like pubs, but not in homes or formal spaces. That hats have been removed is therefore an indication of respect for the court and polite etiquette. The hats appear in all three images shown here were an important detail that has been added to the AR version. These men are well dressed and likely to be elite or important spectators who had reserved a place – in 1827 Jeremy Bentham noted court officials charged for this privilege. There is no obvious inclusion of an enclosed ‘dock’ and during the eighteenth-century it was not uncommon for defendants and witnesses to stand at the bar, as the men and women standing beneath the clerks’ desk appear to be doing here. The numerous people who remain standing and have filled the small external and less comfortable court spaces, are probably public spectators.
The image depicts curtained access to the courtroom left of the judges and in the internal wall (right) to the corridor that separated King’s Bench from Chancery. The etching provides little sense of how bright the courtroom was. Yet the statues of the three Kings are dramatically lit from above left, and an internal window on the corridor wall let in light from the Hall’s great South window.
All three images on this page depict the statues of three kings above the partial ceiling that covers the judges. The wooden statues of ancient Kings on the eastern side of the South wall, had been placed in their Gothic niches in the 1390s. They were originally adorned with gilded gold crowns and red and green robes, traces of which remain in some C18th prints. It was not possible to provide a detailed model of these intricate monuments in the AR version of the court, but they are another essential representation of centuries of royal power and justice situated above the judges in full view of the court.
In the print above, originally produced in 1808, four years after Walker’s, the Kings are shown clad in red and gold over green tunics. Neither the judicial backdrop nor the Kings are rendered in great detail, but it depicts an additional wooden box on the right and the man in it is being addressed by a King’s Counsellor, who may be either a defendant or a witness. The courtroom is shown as less crowded and there are fewer members of the public are present, but the principal aim was to precisely reproduce this iconic space. It was drawn by Charles Augustus Pugin, a trained artist and architectural draughtsman who was knowledgeable about medieval architecture. Architecturally therefore, it is almost certainly the most accurate depiction of the courtroom. He often worked with famous caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson, who peopled Pugin’s beautiful drawings with a range of diverse characters that brought the scenes alive. J Bluck, then engraved the image on a plate and hand coloured it to produce tonal effects in a process known as aquatinting, developed in the 1760s. The finished prints of significant London sites were first published as The Microcosm of London (1808-10). These were frequently republished at later dates, which resulted in variations of colouring, hence in another version the King’s wear gold crowns but their robes are merely lighter grey.
In Pugin’s finished drawing, but shown more clearly in an earlier sketch, the lawyers’ benches are tiered as they were in Soane’s survey plans from 1820. Some of the main wooden are furnishings are different from Walker’s print four years earlier. It seems likely that many furnishings were moveable and likely to be dismantled for major trials in the great Hall, then replaced afterwards as required. The arrangement may also have depended on whether the case concerned a criminal or civil matter, since King’s Bench had jurisdiction over both; or, concerned an appeal from a lower court.
The desks of the clerks and King’s Counsellors are protected by green baize (strong loosely woven wool) covers. The curtains either side of the judges and covering all the openings to the court, appear to be a heavier, more richly coloured fabric. In any event, since neither Chancery nor King’s Bench had doors and the entrance to the corridor from the Hall was open, then external noise from both must have frequently intruded on court proceedings.
Sound and light were important considerations when creating the AR version of the courtroom because both would have impacted on what judges, lawyers, defendants, and witnesses, would have seen and heard. Pugin’s and Rowlandson’s image shows light pouring in from just one of the external windows and highlighting the Kings’ statues, but only diffuse light from the internal window opposite. Yet, given the 30’ size of the court a second external window (not shown) would also have provided some light. Hence the AR recreation shows both windows and some weak light from the hall showing through the windows in Kent’s screen, although contemporaries commented on the darkness and images above show lanterns at regular intervals.
Some sources suggest judges preferred to finish their daily sessions around 4pm or earlier, but others like Lord Mansfield would sit later and very public trials in the great Hall, could continue until 9pm. Nevertheless, in the Michaelmas term (October-December) and the first two months of the Hilary term (January and February) the light would be weak, especially on wet or snowy days, and the sun had set by 4pm.
Even on relatively bright days, the AR version suggests that the height of the windows would leave low areas of the court in some shadow. The team therefore added candles to the digital version of the court, as the most likely method of providing extra light by which to read detailed legal documents and better view the trial participants.
Recent historians have asked what judicial architecture can tell us about how courts functioned in the past. It has been seen as a historically and socially contingent form of communication about how state power, ideas about justice and the relative roles of legal and public participants in trials were understood. This AR re-creation of the late C18th and early C19th court of King’s Bench can therefore provide new insights into how the Georgians viewed the process of justice there and the practical issues that impacted on trials.
Dr Nicola Phillips