The Liberty of Edward Coke

Abstract

Sir Edward Coke¹ and the common lawyers provoked a strong response from Hobbes, who doubted their doctrine of rights against the sovereign king. Coke derived his arguments from the “Magnae Chartae libertatum Angliae” or “Great Charters of Liberties of England,² which listed England’ s “fundamental laws.”³ Coke’ s Institutes asserted that any statute “contrary to the Great Charter … shall be holden for none”⁴ or “void.”⁵ He called both courts and charters “libertates,” because they protect and administer the laws of the realm, which make men free (“quae liberos faciunt”).⁶