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.
Read more about this topic: Magna Carta
Famous quotes containing the words edward, coke and/or opinions:
““Novelties and notions?” What kind of notions you got?”
—Mae West, U.S. screenwriter, W.C. Fields, and Edward Cline. Flower Belle Lee (Mae West)
“Our life without love is coke and ashes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I set out as a sort of self-dependent politician. My opinions were my own. I dashed at all prejudices. I scorned to follow anybody in matter of opinion.... All were, therefore, offended at my presumption, as they deemed it.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)