Since midway through the sixteenth century until the present time, the office of sheriff in England has had little political clout or government importance compared to the wealth of power that it once had during medieval times. The position of justice of the peace had relieved the last vestiges of the position's former judicial duties. The Lord's Lieutenant took away its military importance and appointment powers of the office were taken away from the king and transferred to parliament. This took away all of the king's political patronage that had previously been so important to the position. The serious decline of the office might have been the death of the sheriff if it had not been for England's colonization. Finding new life on different soil would allow this faltering office to flourish in a transplanted environment. Invigorated in the New World, the office of sheriff would find a whole new potential.