When Coke took on the King
James E Hurford reviews 'The Reformation of the Constitution: Law, Culture and Conflict in Jacobean England'.
In Alan Bennett’s 2004 play The History Boys, one character defines history as
‘just one f*****g thing after another’. Pithy, certainly, and not wholly untrue.
Often, the historian’s role is to identify which of those things are most significant, and in viewing them from the vantage point of the present day, identify the reasons behind the events and their subsequent impacts.
Ian Ward picks as his subject the 1616 decision of the Court of Exchequer in the Case of Commendams and its subsequent fallout.
Commendams, a challenge to the use of a prerogative writ allowing the King to transfer ecclesiastical benefices, brought to a head a conflict between two different views of the law and the state.
Author's summary: Historian Ian Ward examines the 1616 Case of Commendams.