Word: coke
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Liberty v. Liberties. Coke's clashes with the King began immediately. He denied the King's right to make law by simple proclamation, and when James I assured him that he would "ever protect the common law," Coke retorted sharply: "The common law protecteth the King." The enraged James went at him "with bended fist, offering to strike," reported a chronicler, "Which the Lo. Cooke perceaving fell flatt on all fower; humbly beseeching his Majestic to take compassion...
...Later, Coke turned again defiant. The exasperated James retaliated, first by kicking Coke upstairs and creating him Lord Chief Justice of England, second by dismissing him altogether from the bench. It was useless. The "masterful, masterless" Coke merely returned to the House of Commons, where his shrewd advice created endless trouble for James. When Commons suggested that James be petitioned for liberty of speech and action, cagey Edward Coke pointed out to the members the potentially fatal error of begging for something that was already theirs by right of law. "Take heed," he said, "that we lose not our liberties...
Remedy for Consumption. James sent Coke to the Tower of London, from which he was released primarily because his imprisonment weakened the prestige of the Crown. "Throw this man where you will," growled James, "and he falls upon his legs." Within three years James was dead, Charles I on the throne-and three years after that, Coke was back in Commons to participate in what has been called "the crisis of Parliaments." Said one member: "We shall know by this if Parliaments live or die ... Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Up stood Coke, 76 and full of "sturdy...
...Coke's remedies were habeas corpus (its use as a safeguard against unjust imprisonment was only beginning to emerge) and that great milestone of liberty, the Petition of Right, which set out at length what Coke put bluntly in brief: "Magna Carta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign." When Charles, cornered by lack of money, gave sour assent to the petition, there "broke out ringing of bells and bonfires" such as London had not seen for years. But the petition was Coke's last great achievement. When Parliament rose, he retired into the country...
Readers of Author Bowen's biography may be tempted to compare Justice Coke with her earlier subject, Mr. Justice Holmes. Seen superficially, both were liberals and doughty fighters for freedom against privilege. But they meant very different things by freedom, privilege, and, in the end, by the law itself. To Coke, the law, however flexible, must be based on permanent principles and rest above persons. To Holmes, the law was based less on permanent principles than on current need, an experiment shifting with the times. To Coke, liberty was "such a fellow that he will have no sovereign...