Full Description
This study is devoted chiefly to Ellesmere's career and writings as Lord Chancellor, 1603-1617. After an introduction to his life and career from 1541 to 1603, Part One is a study of his role in the legal and political history of Jacobean England. In order to place the analysis of law and politics in a broader context, topics discussed include economics, religion, social customs and thought, in addition to questions concerning the forms of action at common law, disputes between the courts, law and equity, and the political activities of Parliament, the Privy Council, and the Crown. Part Two consists of a critical edition of eight of Ellesmere's little known or unidentified tracts on the royal prerogative, Anglo-Scots Union, the Parliament of 1604-1610, the administration of government, law reform, the ecclesiastical courts, Coke's Law Reports and the Chancery-Common Law conflict.
Contents
Part I. Law and Politics: 1. The Making of a Legal Mind; 2. Kingship and the Problem of Sovereignty; 3. Lords and Commons; 4. Reforming Privy Councillors: Crown Finances and the Administration of Government; 5. The Problem of Law Reform; 6. The Clash of Jurisdictions: Central and Local Authorities, Secular and Ecclesiastical; 7. Les Enfants Terribles: Coke, Ellesmere, and the Supremacy of the Chancellor's Decree; 8. The Provenance of Ellesmere's Tracts; Part II. Ellesmere's Tracts: 9. 'A Coppie of a wrytten discourse by the Lord Chauncellor Elsemore concerning the Royall Prerogative' (c. 1604); 10. 'The Speech of the Lord Chancellor of England, in the Eschequer Chamber, touching the Post-Nati' (1608); 11. 'Special obseruacions touching all the sessions of the last parlement anno 7 Regis and etc.' (1611); 12. 'Thinges to be Considered of before a parlement to be Called' (1615); 13. 'Memorialles for Iudicature. Pro Bono Publico' (c. 1609); 14. 'Some Notes, and Remembrances, concerning Prohibitians, for Staying of suites in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and in the Courts of the Admiraltie' (1611); 15. 'The Lord Chancellor Egertons Observations upon ye Lord Cookes Reportes' (1615); 16. A breviate or direccion for the Kinges learned Councell collected by the Lord Chauncellor Ellesmere, mense septembris 1615 Anno Yacobi Regis'.
