The downfall of the conciliar courts as a result of the constitutional conflicts in the Stuart period deprived the King's Council of jurisdiction that it had previously exercised. The position was that the Council had jurisdiction in any matter unless jurisdiction had been taken away or had become vested in some other tribunal. Practically the only jurisdiction left to the Council was the hearing of petitions from the King's dominions beyond the seas. As the British Empire increased, this jurisdiction became substantial. The cases were handled by a committee of the Privy Council, which generally acted judicially. In 1833 the committee was reorganised by statute, the general idea being to reconstitute it as a body drawn from the superior judges. Subsequent statutes broadened the composition, so that it included judges from dominions and British India and some colonies and allowed the Crown to make two special appointments carrying salaries. In fact the judicial personnel of the House of Lords has supplied much of the working judicial strength. A somewhat belated widening of the membership of the Judicial Committee was the appointment in 1962 of nine Commonwealth judges to be Privy Councillors, and there have been other such appointments since. These judges do not all sit regularly, but may attend when they can be spared from their own countries.