Constitutional History
The struggle over constitutional norms and confidence in legal institutions has been a crucial part of English history over the centuries. My research explores how constitutional law was created and contested in early modern England.
Constitutional Foundations
Sir Edward Coke and the Reformation of the Laws re-interprets the foundations of modern English
constitutionalism
My book, Sir Edward Coke and the Reformation of the Laws (available in paperback), examines the career of Sir Edward Coke.
Coke was among the greatest common law judges and a parliamentarian noted for his opposition to the king in the early seventeenth century. Many of his decisions and law reports are still cited today in common law jurisdictions.
The book uses new archival material to re-interpret our understanding of his career and legal thinking. By doing so, the book adds to our knowledge of the development of constitutional law in England during the early modern period and by extension, the basis of many modern liberties.
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My chapter on the sixteenth century in the Cambridge Constitutional History of the United Kingdom provides a modern overview the historical study of the constitutional law of the period.
Religious Thought and the Law
A new essay on Coke and the religious influences on his jurisprudence can be found in Great Christian Jurists in English History, a collected volume of essays from Cambridge University Press.