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"The King's peace" is a core concept in early English law pertaining to the royal house. From the seventh to the twelfth centuries, "the king's peace" developed through four stages, with the Germanic "family peace" acting as its main source. Its development was reflected in its attributes of public and private rights. The former gradually took shape on the basis of the growth, of the scope of protection, exclusive jurisdiction and means of remedy; this constituted the vehicle for the existence and continuance of the corpus of royal law. The latter was based on the rights and privileges of family peace and took as its destination the remedy of the rights of peace. "The king's peace" was inherited continuously with this inborn attribute of private rights, which balanced the attribute of public rights and thus constituted a necessary condition for the optimization of royal law. In the course of the transformation of royal law to common law, "the king's peace," which had attributes of both public and private rights, was widely applied. It thus promoted the formation of the English legal and judicial governance model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]