Bench agreeing to hear cases under this piece of legal fiction. The judges of the Common Pleas, however, a more traditional group, rejected this argument and only accepted cases where an actual promise had been made in addition to the contract. The action of assumpsit had several advantages over a writ of debt; the plaintiff could count on always having a jury, while in writs of debt the defendant could rely on wager of law, where he produced twelve people to swear he did not owe the plaintiff money and had the case dismissed. In addition, it worked for executory agreements, not just normal contracts. In 1585 a new form of the Court of Exchequer Chamber was set up, an appellate court where the Common Pleas judges held a majority, and regularly began to reverse King's Bench judgments which were based on assumpsit. This, and the conflict between the King's Bench and the Common Pleas as a whole, was problematic; a plaintiff at assizes could not be sure which sort of judge his case would come before, lending uncertainty to the law. Boyer suggests that, in this environment, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench John Popham deliberately provoked the Common Pleas to resolve the matter, and did so through Slade's Case. Facts John Slade was a grain merchant, who claimed that Humphrey Morley had agreed to buy a crop of wheat and rye from him, paying £16, and had reneged on the agreement. He brought the case before the assizes in 1596, where it was heard by two judges; one of the Common Pleas, and one of the King's Bench. It was heard under assumpsit, and the jury found that Morley indeed owed Slade money. Before a judgment could be issued, Popham had the case transferred to an older version of the Court of Exchequer Chamber, which, sitting in Serjeant's Inn, allowed the King's Bench judges to sit. Edward Coke was counsel for Slade, arguing that the King's Bench had the power to hear assumpsit actions, along with Laurence Tanfield, while Francis Bacon and John Doddridge represented Morley. The quality of legal argument was high; Bacon was a "skillful, subtle intellect" capable of distinguishing the precedent brought up by Coke, while Doddridge, a member of the Society of Antiquaries, knew the records even better than Coke did. Coke, rather than directly confronting opposing counsel, made a twofold argument; firstly,