Indeed, in the same decision quoted above, the Chief Justice wrote, "To what end must hundredors
be of the jury, whom the law supposeth to have nearer knowledge of the fact than those of the vicinage in general?" Id.
Vaughan applied the same logic in discussing the requirement for hundredors, members of an even smaller local unit than the vicinage.
His observation about the impossibility of using another's eyes or ears appears in the paragraph that separates his discussion of the hundredors from his remarks about the "absurd[ity]" of punishing jurors when the judge is unaware of the facts.
Hawles's first reference to the case is also his most dramatic: When the juryman worries that a disobedient verdict might result in a fine that would "utterly ruin ones Family," the barrister declares, in the pamphlet's only typographical shift into a gothic, black-letter font, that "there is never a judge in England that can Fine or Imprison any Jury-man in such a Case." (83) In explicating the decision, which he quoted at length, Hawles briefly revisited the vicinage argument ("`To what end must Hundredors be of the Jury, whom the Law supposeth to have nearer knowledge of the Fact than those of the Vicinage in general?'" (84)), which he connected to the relation between law and fact: As the Judge can never direct what the Law is ...
Patrick Henry, citing the "immemorial practice of [our] British ancestors" under which "a number of hundredors were required on a jury," insisted on the criminal defendant's right to "an impartial jury of the vicinage, acquainted with his character and the circumstances of fact." (189) George Mason defended the "impartial jury of the vicinage" as a "great palladium of national safety," because it guaranteed that the defendant would be judged by "his character and reputation." (190) In response, Edmund Pendleton noted that a jury of the vicinage would not necessarily "be acquainted with the personal character of the person accused," (191) since the requirement targeted the locality of the crime, not the defendant's neighborhood.
6, [section] 5 (1585) (reducing the requisite number of hundredors from six to two in trials of personal actions).
Oldham notes that throughout the seventeenth century, "there were some limitations on challenges for default of hundredors. Juries in treason and felony trials were to be drawn from the shire where the acts were laid, but no challenge was `to be had for the Hundred.'" James C.