Sir Edward Coke initiates the Petition of Right, a statement of civil liberties sent by Parliament to Charles I and conceded by the King in return for a grant of taxation.
Written in the late 1620s, Sir Edward Coke’s Institutes was a pioneering four-volume treatise on English common law. While the first volume was published in 1628, the final three volumes appeared only posthumously, because the manuscripts in question had been confiscated on the orders of Charles I. The confiscation of these documents was prompted by Coke’s Second Institute, which included an extensive clause-by-clause analysis of Magna Carta. As stated in the Proeme, this book eulogised the Great Charter, explaining that, ‘It is called Magna Charta, not that it is great in quantity … but in respect of the great importance and weightinesse of the matter.’ King Charles I’s efforts to suppress the work proved short-lived. Recognising its potential for propaganda, Parliament ordered in 1640 that Coke’s papers be recovered and published. Coke’s Second Institute was finally printed in 1642 on the eve of the English Civil Wars.