Читать книгу A Concise History of the Common Law - Theodore F. T. Plucknett - Страница 58

Although Sir Edward Coke had found it impossible to avoid taking a vigorous part in national politics, his successor, Chief Justice Hobart, succeeded in winning the confidence both of the royalists and the parliamentarians. In fact, the courts were well served during the period of the Commonwealth; Henry Rolle became Chief Justice of the “Upper Bench”, while Sir Matthew Hale sat in the Court of Common Pleas during the Commonwealth and won royal favour after the Restoration. It is interesting to note that a good many anticipations of modern legal reforms were proposed during this period although it is hardly necessary to say that most of these premature advances ceased at the Restoration. Among them we may mention the settlement of the jurisdiction of the various courts in order to prevent the scandalous competition between them. Chancery, which had been bitterly attacked by Sir Edward Coke, undertook to reform itself; ecclesiastical jurisdiction had already been abolished. The growth of overseas commerce provoked the reorganisation of the admiralty courts, while district courts for small claims were proposed. Legal education was revived in the Inns of Court and legal records were for a time in English. A good deal of thought was given to a projected codification of the law, and a system of registering titles to land was likewise proposed. As early as 1648 an essayist suggested that there should be only two legal estates, fee simple and for life, abolishing the entail entirely. Rather less creditable was the proposal to restrict the equity of redemption to very narrow limits;² it is difficult to resist the conclusion that this project emanated from the military and financial interests who were deeply engaged in speculative, and sometimes corrupt, operations in land.³ The eleven short years of Republican rule were too much filled with war and high politics and religious dissension for these proposals to reach any very practical result, and the restoration of Charles II, in 1660, automatically restored the state of affairs as it existed at the eve of the civil war.¹