Boston College Law Review Volume 39 Article 2 Issue 1 Number 1 12-1-1998 "Understanding,Authority, and Will": Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan Origins of Judicial Review Allen Dillard Boyer Follow this and additional works at: http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr Part of the Legal History Commons Recommended Citation Allen D. Boyer, "Understanding,Authority, and Will": Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan Origins of Judicial Review, 39 B.C.L. Rev. 43 (1998), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr/vol39/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Boston College Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. "UNDERSTANDING, AUTHORITY, AND WILL": SIR EDWARD COKE AND THE ELIZABETHAN ORIGINS OF JUDICIAL REVIEW ALLEN DILLARD BOYER * Bacon and Shakespeare: what they were to philosophy and litera ture, Coke was to the common law. • J.H. Baker I. INTRODUCTION Of all important jurisprudents, Sir Edward Coke is the most infu- riatingly conventional. Despite the drama which often attended his career—his cross-examination of Sir Walter Raleigh, his role in uncov- ering the Gunpowder Plot, his bitter rivalry with Sir Francis Bacon and his explosive face-to-face confrontations with King James I—Coke's work presents a studied calm.' Coke explains rather than critiques. He describes and justifies existing legal rules rather than working out how the law provides rules for making rules.