Edward Coke's Opinions
Among the first of respected jurists to seriously write about the great charter was Edward Coke, who influenced how Magna Carta was perceived throughout the Tudor and Stuart periods, though his views were challenged during his lifetime by Lord Ellesmere, and later in the same century by Robert Brady. Coke used the 1225 issue of the Charter.
Coke "reinterpreted or misinterpreted" Magna Carta "misconstruing its clauses anachronistically and uncritically". He would interpret liberties to be much the same as individual liberty. The historian J.C. Holt excused Coke on the grounds that the Charter and its history had itself become 'distorted'.
Coke was instrumental in framing the Petition of Right, which became a substantial supplement to Magna Carta's liberties. During the debates on the matter, Coke famously sought to deny the King's sovereign rights with the claim that "Magna Carta is such a fellow, that he will have no 'sovereign'"; he believed the statutes (not the King) were absolute.
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