Sir matthew hale biography of michael

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A lawsuit over his inheritance of his late father's estate prompted Hale to return to England, and research the law to defend his case. It was then that he determined to give up his dissolute pursuits and study law seriously, enrolling at Lincoln's Inn in late Called to the bar inHale ascended in the legal profession. Although a royalist by inclination, Hale tried to remain neutral in the political tumult and English Civil War of the s.

Hale signed the Solemn Covenant of and was one of the chief negotiators for the surrender of Oxford inbut subsequently sought to bring about reconciliation between King and Parliament to no avail and defended royalists in several court cases. During the English Protectorate period, Hale sat as a member of the parliaments of andand tried to steer a moderate course.

When a Duke approached him before a case "to help the judge understand a case that was to come before him", Hale said that he would only hear about cases in court. In another case, he was sent venison by a party. After noticing the man's name and verifying that he had indeed sent Hale some venison, Hale refused to let the case proceed until he had paid the man for the food.

Some other person, having a design to put a trick upon him, sent them in his name". On 2 Septemberthe Great Fire of London broke out. Roger North wrote that "I have known the Court of King's Bench sitting every day from eight to 12, and the Lord Chief Justice Hale's managing matters of law to all imaginable advantage to the students, and in that he took a pleasure or rather pride; he encouraged arguing when it was to the purpose, and used to sir matthew hale biography of michael with counsel, so that the court might have been taken for an academy of sciences as well as the seat of justice".

ByHale had begun to suffer from ill-health; his arms became swollen, and although a course of bloodletting relieved the pain temporarily, by the next February his legs were so stiff he could not walk. He was buried next to his first wife's tomb in the churchyard of St Kenelm's, the church which adjoined his home at Alderley, with a monument erected that reads:.

Here is buried the body of Matthew Hale, Knight, the only son of Robert Hale, and Joanna his wife; born in this parish of Alderley on the 1st day of November, in the year of our Lordand died in the same place on the 25th day of December in the year of our lord ; in the 67th year of his age. His estate was largely left for his widow, with his legal texts given to his grandson Gabriel if Gabriel chose to study the law, and his more valuable manuscripts and books given to Lincoln's Inn.

Descriptions of Bishop differ; Roger North wrote that "[Hale] was unfortunate in his family; for he married his own servant made, and then, for an excuse, said there was no wisdom below the girdle". Richard Baxteron the other hand, described Anne as "one of [Hale's] own judgment and temper, prudent and loving, and fit to please him; and that would not draw on him the trouble of much acquaintance and relations".

Hale's views on rape, marriage and abortion have had a long legacy not only in Britain's legal system, but also in those of the British Colonies. According to Edward Foss inHale was widely considered an excellent judge and jurist, particularly through his writings: he was an "eminent judge, whom all look up to as one of the brightest luminaries of the law, as well for the soundness of his learning as for the excellence of his life".

InHenry Flanders, described Hale in the University of Pennsylvania Law Reviewduring his lifetime as "the most learned, the most able, the most honorable man to be found in the profession of the law". Hale's writings have been cited by the US Supreme Court on numerous occasions. Justice Harry Blackmun cited Hale in " Roe v. Wade ". Kansas ".

InHale's opinion on abortion was cited by Samuel Alito in his opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organizationgenerating political controversy. Inin the case of R v Kingstonthe Court of Appeal relied on his statement that "drunkenness is not a defence" to uphold a conviction. For Hale Hale has frequently been compared with Edward Coke.

Campbell considered Hale to be the superior lawyer, because while he failed to engage in public life he treated law as a science, and maintained judicial independence and neutrality. While Hale was in possession of judicial impartiality, and his written works are considered highly important, his lack of venture into public affairs limited his progressive influence.

Corbett, wrote in the Alberta Law Quarterly inthat with Hale's popularity at the time Parliamentary constituencies "fought over the privilege of returning him" he could have been just as successful as Coke if he had chosen to take an active role in public affairs. Hale's posthumous legacy is his written work.

Sir matthew hale biography of michael

The Analysis was based on lectures he gave to students, and was most likely not intended to be published; it is considered the first history of English law ever written. William Blackstonewhen writing his Commentaries on the Laws of Englandnoted in his preface that "of all the earlier schemes for digesting the Laws of England the most natural and scientific, as well as the most comprehensive, appeared to be that of Sir Matthew Hale in his posthumous Analysis of the Law".

William Holdsworthhimself considered one of the greatest common law historians, described it as "the ablest introductory sketch of a history of English law that appeared till the publication of Pollock and Maitland's volumes in ". The Historia is perhaps Hale's most famous work. Pleas of the Crown were capital offences committed "against the peace of our Lord the King, his Crown and dignity"; as such, the book dealt with capital crimes and the associated procedure.

In the 19th century, Andrew Amos wrote a critique of the Historia titled Ruins of Time exemplified in Sir Matthew Hale's History of the Pleas of the Crownwhich both criticised and praised Hale's work while directing the main criticism at the judges and lawyers who cited the Historia without considering that it was dated. Hale also reorganised the first of Coke's Instituteswhich dealt with Thomas de Littleton 's Treatise on Tenures ; Hale's edition was the most commonly used, and the first to extract Coke's broader philosophical points.

His written works, however, were fragmentary, and did not individually lay out his jurisprudence. Bermanwriting in the Yale Law Journalnotes that it is only "possible by a study of the entire corpus of Hale's writings to reconstruct the coherent legal philosophy that underlies them". Hale's writings on witchcraft and marital rape were extremely influential.

Inhe was involved in " one of the most notorious of the seventeenth century English witchcraft trials ", where he sentenced two women Amy Duny and Rose Cullender to death for witchcraft. Hale believed that a marriage was a contract, which merged the legal entities of husband and wife into one body. According to a article by G. Geis in the British Journal of Law and SocietyHale's opinions on witchcraft are closely tied to his writings on marital rape, which are found in the Historia.

Geis argues that both arose from misogynistic bias. Although Hale wrote voluminously, he published little in his lifetime: his writings were discovered and published by others after his death. There are still dozens of volumes of his manuscripts that remain unpublished, including numerous theological treatises. During Hale's period as a barrister and judge, the general conclusion in England was that the repository of the law and conventional wisdom was not politics, as in Renaissance Europe, but the common law.

Coke asserted that judge-made law had the answer to any question asked of it, and as a result, "a learned judge However, he argued that this did not necessarily create judicial discretion to play with it, and that proper did not necessarily equal perfect. The law was nothing more than a contract made by the English people; this is known as the "appeal to contract".

He was an extreme anti-ritualist, having apparently no ear for music, and objecting even to singing, and in particular to the practice of intoning. Though strictly orthodox in essentials, he was impatient of the subtleties of theology BaxterNotes on the Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale. With Baxter he was wont to discuss questions of philosophy, such as the nature of spirit and the rational basis of the belief in the immortality of the soul.

He carried puritan plainness in dress to such a point as to move even Baxter to remonstrate with him. His first wife was dead in She was of comparatively humble origin, 'but the good man,' says Baxter, 'more regarded his own daily comfort than men's thoughts and talk. His posterity died out in the male line in StowSurvey of Londoned.

State PapersDom. Hale's judgments are reported by Sir Thomas Raymond, pp. An opinion of his, together with those of Wild and Maynard, on the mode of electing the mayor, aldermen, and common councilmen of the city of London, was printed in 'London Liberty; or a Learned Argument of Law and Reason,' London, Other of his opinions were published together with 'The Excellency and Praeheminence of the Laws of England ' by Thomas Williams, speaker of the House of Commons inLondon,8vo.

Two of his judgments in the court of exchequer, reported by Ventris loc. In Hale edited anonymously Rolle's 'Abridgment,' with a preface, giving a brief account of the author, whose intimate friend he had been. His earliest original works were: 1. Neither treatise possessed any scientific value. The latter is well described by a contemporary as 'a strange and futile sir matthew hale biography of michael of one of the philosophers of the old cast to confirm Dame Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum, and to arraign the new doctrines of Mr.

These two tracts elicited from Dr. Henry More a volume of criticism worthy of them, entitled 'Remarks upon two late Ingenious Discourses,' London,to which Hale rejoined with 'Observations touching the Principles of Natural Motions, and especially touching Rarefaction and Condensation,' which appeared posthumously, London,8vo. Three other works by Hale also appeared anonymously shortly after his death.

The work was in the press at Hale's death, and is stated in the preface to have been printed without the consent or privity of the author, by an ardent admirer into whose hands the manuscript had come by chance. It was reprinted with Burnet's 'Life of Hale' in This brief and inaccurate digest of the criminal law went through seven editions, being considerably augmented by G.

Jacob; the last appeared in8vo. Hale left many manuscript treatises, chiefly on law and religion, and voluminous antiquarian collections, part of which he bequeathed to Lincoln's Inn and the remainder to his eldest grandson, conditionally on his adopting the law as a profession, and in default to his second grandson. He gave express direction that nothing of his own composition should be published except what he had destined for publication in his lifetime, an injunction which has been by no means rigorously obeyed.

The following is Burnet's somewhat confused list of the manuscripts other than those bequeathed to Lincoln's Inn, which remained unpublished at his death: ' 1. Concerning the Secondary Origination of Mankind, fol. Concerning Religion, 5 vols. Vox Metaphysica, pars 1 et 2; b Pars 3. The composition of the work was spread over seven years, but appears to have been completed while he was still chief baron.

Both advised condensation, for which Hale never found leisure. The first part was published after his death as 'The Primitive Origination of Mankind considered and examined according to the Light of Nature. The book was translated for Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg, the great elector, by Dr. Schmettau in The other parts have never been published.

Of Policy in Matters of Religion, fol. De Anima to Mr. De Anima, transactions between him and Mr. Tentamina de ortu, natura, et immortalitate Animae, fol. Magnetismus Magneticus, fol. Magnetismus Physicus, fol. Magnetismus Divinus' an edificatory discourse published as 'Magnetismus Magnus; or Metaphysical and Divine Contemplations on the Magnet or Loadstone,' London,8vo.

De Generatione Animalium et Vegetabilium, fol. Of the Law of Nature, fol. A Letter of Advice to his grandchildren, 4to : ' a transcript of this manuscript exists in Harl. Placita Coronae, 7 vols.