England and Wales

England and Wales (, ) is a legal jurisdiction covering

England

and

Wales

, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom. England and Wales forms the constitutional successor to the former

Kingdom of England

and follows a single legal system, known as English law.

The devolved

Senedd

(Welsh Parliament; cy, Senedd Cymru) – previously named the National Assembly of Wales – was created in 1999 by the Parliament of the United Kingdom under the Government of Wales Act 1998 and provides a degree of self-government in Wales. The powers of the Parliament were expanded by the Government of Wales Act 2006, which allows it to pass its own laws, and the Act also formally separated the Welsh Government from the Senedd. There is no equivalent body for England, which is directly governed by the parliament and government of the United Kingdom.

History of jurisdiction

During the Roman occupation of Britain, the area of present-day England and Wales was administered as a single unit, with the exception of the land to the north of

Hadrian's Wall

– though the Roman-occupied area varied in extent, and for a time extended to the

Antonine/Severan Wall

. At that time, most of the native inhabitants of

Roman Britain

spoke Brythonic languages, and were all regarded as Britons, divided into numerous tribes. After the conquest, the Romans administered this region as a single unit, the province of

Britain

.

Long after the departure of the Romans, the Britons in what became Wales developed their own system of law, first codified by

Hywel Dda

(Hywel the Good; reigned 942–950) when he was king of most of present-day Wales; in England Anglo-Saxon law was initially codified by Alfred the Great in his Legal Code, . However, after the Norman invasion of Wales in the 11th century, English law came to apply in the parts of Wales conquered by the

Normans

(the Welsh Marches). In 1283, the English, led by

Edward I

, with the biggest army brought together in England since the 11th century, conquered the remainder of Wales, then organised as the

Principality of Wales

. This was then united with the English crown by the

Statute of Rhuddlan

of 1284. This aimed to replace Welsh criminal law with English law.

Welsh law continued to be used for civil cases until the annexation of Wales to England in the 16th century by the Welsh

House of Tudor

. The Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 then consolidated the administration of all the Welsh territories and incorporated them fully into the legal system of the Kingdom of England, this was in part, to update outdated Welsh laws, but also to control Wales along-side England, through these acts, Wales could be seen as equals to the English, this was reflected on both

Henry VIII

&

Elizabeth I

's coat of arms where the dragon represented Wales and the lion represented England, however as soon as the Tudor dynasty ended with the death of

Elizabeth I

, the

red dragon of Wales

was dropped and replaced with the Unicorn of Scotland with the succession of

King James I

who demoted Wales' status on the coat of arms and on the first adaptation of the

Flag of Great Britain

.
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Prior to 1746, it was not clear whether a reference to "England" in legislation included Wales, and so in 1746 Parliament passed the Wales and Berwick Act. This specified that in all prior and future laws, references to "England" would by default include Wales (and

Berwick-upon-Tweed

). The Wales and Berwick Act was repealed by the Welsh Language Act in 1967, although the statutory definition of "England" created by that Act still applies for laws passed before 1967. In new legislation since then, what was referred to as "England" is now "England and Wales", while subsequent references to "England" and "Wales" refer to those political divisions.

Law

England and Wales are treated as a single unit for some purposes, because the two form the constitutional successor to the former Kingdom of England. The continuance of Scots law was guaranteed under the 1706

Treaty of Union

that led to the Acts of Union 1707, and as a consequence English lawand after 1801, Irish law