The Court of Great Sessions in Wales was the main court for the prosecution of felonies and serious misdemeanours in Wales between the second Laws in Wales Act of 1542 and the court's abolition in 1830. It had the same powers in civil law as the King's Bench in England, (it also had equity jurisdiction) and its criminal jurisdiction was equivalent to the English county assizes. According to historian John Davies, the treatment of Monmouthshire in this arrangement was the cause of the erroneous belief that the county had been annexed by England rather than remaining part of Wales.