The Casebook of Sir Edward Coke

Abstract

Abstract Sir Edward Coke, Jacobean Lord Chief Justice, is commonly regarded as being one of the great jurists in English legal history. In considerable part, for reason of his vigorous defence of the courts of common law against the seeming intrusions of royal prerogative, his running dispute with King James I is renowned, not least as a precursor to the civil wars which would later engulf James’s son, King Charles I. The purpose of this essay is revisit Coke and, more closely still, some of his most famous judgments, in order to trace the origins of the principle of ‘legality’. It will close in whimsical tones, by wondering what Coke might have thought of ‘legal’ regime put in place in the UK during the coronavirus pandemic.