Book Review: Chief Justice Coke

Abstract

The long subtitle of the first of these books accurately describes its contents to be the story of Coke's long rivalry with Francis Bacon, some account of their times and contemporaries, famous trials in which Coke participated, his stand against King James I to maintain the supremacy of the Common Law, his share in wresting the Petition of Right from King Charles I, with. a statement about the law writings of Coke on which generations of lawyers were trained. These matters find their appropriate places in :five sections respectively on Coke the boy, the lawyer, the judge, the patriot and the writer. There is an appendix on the Rule in Shelley's Case. The book is well indexed, and contains nineteen excellent illustrations.