De Laudibus Legum Angliae (In Praise of English Law). . . by John Fortescue
This month’s featured text is De Laudibus Legum Angliae (In Praise of English Law). . . by Sir John Fortescue (c.1397-1479). Fortescue was born around 1397 to John Fortescue, an administrator for the Courtenay family (Earls of Devon, in Southwest England). He studied at Lincoln's Inn (an early law school in London) around 1420 and became governor of Lincoln's Inn in 1424. Fortescue also was elected to Parliament from various locations in Devon and Wiltshire between 1421 and 1436. He was married twice first to Elizabeth Brytte (who died in 1426) and then to Isabel James with whom he had two daughters and a son, Martin. By 1442, Fortescue had become chief justice of the King's Bench, a wealthy landowner, and a great supporter of the Lancastrian government during the Wars of the Roses. He was knighted in 1442 by Henry VI and received several annuities from the crown for his service. When Edward IV, the Yorkist claimant to the throne, came to power in 1461, Fortescue fled with Henry VI to Scotland and became Henry's chancellor. He then left for France to gain the support of Louis XI. In 1470, Henry VI was restored to the throne but was assasinated in 1471 and Fortescue was captured by the Yorkists. Surprisingly, instead of being executed, Fortescue was reinstated as a royal counselor to Edward IV, and served until his death in 1479.

Fortescue likely survived because of his value as a political propagandist with a large reading public. He wrote at least fourteen and perhaps as many as twenty works during his lifetime including A defence of the title of the house of Lancaster, or, A replication to the claim of the duke of York and his most famous work De laudibus legum Angliae written while in France ostensibly to instruct the young prince of Wales (Henry's son Edward who died in battle a day before his father was murdered). It is an explanation of the difference between Roman law used on the continent and English law. Fortescue defines the English commonwealth as "dominio regale et politico" in other words a mixed or limited monarchy held in check by parliament, not an absolute monarchy like France or Spain. Fortescue argued that the king ruled by hereditary right but was subject to the law and his power derived not from the divine but from the body politic institutionalized in parliament. Therefore, judges, lawyers, and politicians did not exist to enforce the king's will but to enforce the law which was beyond the whims of any one king. This argument differentiated English law from the rest of Europe and served as a foundation for American and many other legal systems. Later lawyers like Thomas More used Fortescue as a foundation for arguing against Henry VIII's divorce; after the English Civil War politicians used Fortescue as a formula to protect individual liberties, and in 1778 Granville Sharp used Fortescue's authority for colonial resistance against an "absolute" parliament. In all, Fortescue's work has been a highly important foundational legal tract which continues to influence arguments over the rights of governments today.

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