Out of Print
Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) actively practised law in the courts for forty years, first as a private practitioner, then as a legal officer of the Crown, and finally as a royal judge. He served in Parliament and also worked with the Privy Council, and accumulated a fortune while participating in the factional struggles of the later Elizabethan and Stuart periods.
This work analyses Coke's prominent role in the lower House of the four parliaments of the 1620s. In this important decade Parliament became the only forum in which he could publicly attack "the grievances of the commonwealth" and propose remedies for them, and the only institution through which he could directly and significantly influence English law, government and society.
Through detailed and systematic re-search, Stephen White considers Coke's legal views in conjunction with his political activities and thus initiates a re-examination of his entire career.
Stephen D White is Assistant Professor of History at Wesleyan University,
