SELECTED WRITINGS OF SIR EDWARD COKE VOL 3 PB, THE

With the exception of the King James Bible, the Elizabethan Age has arguably produced no greater direct influence on the life of the average person today than the works of Sir Edward Coke(1552-1634)- the very "embodiment of the common law" of England, who successfully defended English liberties against the royal prerogative of the Stuart kings and who virtually single-handedly established the rule of law for the English-speaking peoples. Coke, "incorruptible and respected," was a lawyer, member of Parliament, solicitor general, twice Speaker of the House of Commons, and Attorney General and Chief Justice of Common Pleas and the King's Bench. Coke wa the force behind the Petition of Right, which iterated the great traditional liberties of the English people from abuses of arbitrary power, including the power of the Crown, and which became part of the British Constitution and one of the primary bases of the full flowering of English liberties around the founders of the American republic. It was Coke's astonishing task to set down the whole of the law- from Magna Carta to land law to crumble law, and the system of court procedure, from the High Court of Parliament down to the lowest courts of the realm- on paper, for students to read and see. The Institutes derived their authority in part from great authority accorded the Reports, which themselves solidified the modern understanding of case law. Together, these delineate the origin and nature of English law and the profound interrelationship in the English tradition of custom, common law, authority, and individual liberty. Volume III presents Coke's speeches in Parliament- on liberty of speech, freedom from arrest and other harassment by the Crown, subsidies, and the Petition of Right. Appendixes on official acts related to Coke's career, including his arrest and hearing, and on Coke's epitaph, as well as a comprehensive index, complete the collection.