Sir John Fortescue

15th Century Chief Justice of the King's Bench, MP, and author of 'De Laudibus Legum Angliae' and ‘On the Governance of England’

Even in the 15^th century, there were complaints that there were too many lawyers. It was even discussed in Parliament, and Bills were passed to limit their number. Yet one of them became the first man to write in English about the constitution, and what he wrote resonates to this day. Indeed, his arguments could be applied to the reasons for, and even the necessity of, Brexit.

The date of Sir John Fortescue’s birth is uncertain. He became a Serjeant-at-Law in 1429 or 1430, and wrote that no one could reach this eminence who had not studied the law for sixteen years. From that, it can be deduced that he was born in the middle of the 1390s. The date of his death is equally unknown, but he is buried in Ebrington in Gloucestershire, where local tradition maintained that he lived to be ninety. The last record of his life was in 1476, so he certainly achieved a great age.

Fortescue was a lawyer and a judge, and claimed to be Henry VI’s Chancellor, as well as being the Chief Justice of the King's Bench. He was a loyal Lancastrian during the Wars of the Roses. Following the disastrous defeat of the Lancastrian army at Towton in 1461, he went into exile in Scotland. In 1463 he went with Queen Margaret (Henry VI’s consort) and the Prince of Wales to Flanders, where he lived in very reduced circumstances.