Abstract
This article exonerates Charles I and Attorney General Sir Robert Heath from charges that they tampered with the records of the court of King's Bench in the Five Knights' Case. It refutes allegations made by John Selden in the parliament of 1628 and repeated by modern historians. Selden's attack on Heath and the king's government was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of King's Bench enrolments and a radical view of the crown's intentions in imprisoning loan resisters. The view that Charles was attempting to establish the prerogative right to imprison opponents without remedy at common law has no basis in either the arguments presented during the Five Knights' Case or the king's behaviour both before and during the parliament. By accepting the most radical critique of Caroline government at face value, historians have concluded that Charles was attempting to establish a ‘legal tyranny’. This article rejects these views.
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