A Learned Commendation of the Politique Lawes of England..

1567. London, 1567. 1st ed in English. London, 1567. 1st ed in English. Handsome Annotated Copy of the First English-Language Edition of Fortescue's De Laudibus Fortescue, Sir John [1394?-1476?]. Mulcaster, Robert [16th. c.], Translator. A Learned Commendation of the Politique Lawes of England: Wherin by Moste Pitthy Reasons and Evident Demonstrations They are Plainelye Proved Farre to Excell Aswell the Civile Lawes of the Empiere, As Also All Other Lawes of the Worlde, With a Large Discourse of the Difference Betwene the ii. Governementes of Kingdomes: Whereof the One is Onely Regall, And the Other Consisteth of Regall and Politique Administration Conjoyned. Written in Latine Above an Hundred Yeares Past, By the Learned and Right Honorable Maister Fortescue Knight, Lorde Chauncellour of England in ye Time of Kinge Henry VI. and Newly Translated into Englishe by Robert Mulcaster. [London: In Fletestrete Within Temple Barre, At the Signe of the Hand and Starre, by Rychard Tottill, 1567]. [i], 132, [3] ff. English and Latin in parallel columns. Octavo (5-1/2" x 3-1/4"). Recent period-style calf, blind frames and corner fleurons to boards, raised bands and lettering piece to spine, endpapers renewed, edges rouged. Front hinge just starting. Moderate toning to interior, lower corners of ff. 91 and 121 and upper corner of f. 32 lacking without loss to text, small tear to text block of f. 1 without loss to legibility, occasional early and later (seventeenth and eighteenth-century?) underlining and annotations, mostly brief glosses, in two hands in Latin and English, early ownership signatures (of Thomas Disney, possibly Thomas Disney [c.1510-1568], and Gilbert Peterson) to title page. A very appealing copy. $10,000. * First edition in English, by Robert Mulcaster, the great Elizabethan educationalist. De Laudibus Legum Angliae, a history of English law, was written for the instruction of Edward, the young Prince of Wales. Cast in a friendly dialogue form, it demonstrates that the common law was the oldest and most reasonable legal system in Europe. The first work to examine trial by jury and the Inns of Court at length, it also extols the superiority of a constitutionally limited monarch to an absolute monarch. De Laudibus was written around 1470 and first published (in Latin) in 1537. "Fortescue was a favorite among the old lawyers, and will be read with profit in modern times by tho.