Excerpt from The Life of Sir Edward Coke, Vol. 1: Lord of Justice of England in the Reign of James I; With Memoirs of His Contemporaries At the same time, I have on no occasion eu deavoured to conceal Coke's great and manifold defects, so often displayed during his long and eventful career. But, in reviewing these errors, we must not forget the character of the age in which he lived. We must remember, that mo deration of language, and liberality of feeling, were not then the fashionable attributes of public characters, or mildness of punishment the de sired attribute of the criminal code of England. Moreover, we must not forget that if Coke, in common with the political party with whom he associated, sometimes outstepped the bounds of moderation and humanitv he was surrounded by difficulties and perplexities at once novel and unprecedented; that he was claiming for the Commons privileges never before exercised, and combating mighty prerogatives of the crown. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.