The Englishman's Right

Book excerpt: Reprint of the last edition published during the eighteenth century. Called "the foundation text of jury independence and of the jury as a bulwark of English Liberty," this important work was first published in 1680 with the title Grand Juryman's Oath and Office Explained. A staunch Whig, Hawles [1645-1716] wrote The Englishman's Right to outline the rights, duties and proper behavior of a juryman and to show him how he was an agent against tyranny. Immediately successful among Whigs and others who saw themselves as defenders of English liberties, it was received with great enthusiasm in America, where it was reprinted several times well into the nineteenth century. According to Cohen's Bibliography of Early American Law, it was probably the first English law book reprinted in the American colonies (1481).