Ultimately the bishop of Quebec, unable to get a mandamus from the English privy council to dig him up, solemnly deconsecrated the ground down to the estimated depth of the lid of the wife's coffin.
The court has appellate jurisdiction only, except for the power to issue writs of mandamus, quo warranto, certiorari, injunction and other original and remedial writs.
This recourse in England sometimes took the form of the appeal to the king given by the Constitutions of Clarendon, just mentioned, and later by the acts of Henry VIII.; sometimes that of suing for writs of prohibition or mandamus, which were granted by the king's judges, either to restrain excess of jurisdiction, or to compel the spiritual judge to exercise jurisdiction in cases where it seemed to the temporal court that he was failing in his duty.
English law has largely moulded, for example, criminal and commercial law and the law of evidence; the development of the law of corporations, damages, prohibitions and such extraordinary remedies as the mandamus has been very similar to that in other states; while in the fusion of law and equity, and the law of successions, family relations, &c., the civil law of Spain and France has been unaffected.
The supreme court has original jurisdiction in habeas corpus, quo warranto and mandamus proceedings against all state officers; and it has appellate jurisdiction except in civil actions for the recovery of money or personal property, in which the original amount in controversy does not exceed $200, and which at the same time do not involve the legality of a tax, impost, assessment, toll or municipal fine, or the validity of a statute.