His Life & Death
A Progressive and Enlightened Lawmaker
by Dr David Johnson
‘We have no difficulty in pronouncing Richard’s Parliament the most meritorious national assembly for protecting the liberty of the subject and putting down abuses in the administration of justice that had sat in England since the reign of Henry III’1
The protection of ordinary people from dishonest officials was a marked feature of Richard III’s only Parliament, which met in January 1484. Here are brief summaries of a series of acts passed in that Parliament which sought to prevent the rich and powerful riding roughshod over the poor and the weak.2 The quotations are from modern English translations of the statutes which were written in the English of Richard’s day.
'An act for granting bail to people suspected of felony'
‘Because various people are arrested and imprisoned daily on suspicion of felony, sometimes out of malice and sometimes on vague suspicion, and thus kept in prison without bail…to their great vexation and trouble’, Richard ordered that no officer ‘shall take or seize the goods of any person arrested on suspicion of felony before the person thus arrested and imprisoned has been convicted or attainted of the felony according to the law’. This act empowered Justices of the Peace to grant bail in such cases and required them to inquire more carefully into all arrests of persons on mere suspicion.
'An act for returning adequate jurors'
‘Because various great difficulties and perjuries occur daily in various counties of England due to false verdicts given in inquisitions and inquiries before sheriffs…by people of no substance or standing, who do not fear God or the world’s shame, as a result of which many…have been wrongly indicted at the incitement and instigation of their ill-wishers, and others who ought rightfully to be indicted are often spared at such incitement and instigation, contrary to the common right and to good conscience’, Richard raised the standard of juries appointed to sheriffs’ courts by decreeing that jurymen should be worth 20s or over a year. It was generally believed that the more prosperous members of society were less open to bribery.
'An act for trials in the court of piepowder held in fairs'
Piepowder courts took place at fairs and markets to administer justice among itinerant dealers and other temporary residents. But because ‘these courts have recently been abused by stewards, bailiffs, commissaries and other officers holding and presiding over the said courts of the said fairs for their private profit’, Richard ordered the correction of dishonest officials by the introduction of new penalties and the strengthening of previous legislation. He thus provided traders with swift and reliable justice in cases that arose during markets and fairs.
'An act against secret and unknown enfeoffments'
Richard strengthened the common law against the fraudulent conveyance of land by taking action against secret and unknown enfeoffements, ‘a practice by which a seller of land concealed from the buyer that a part of the property had already been disposed of to somebody else. It was enacted that henceforth every estate feoffement, gift of land and the like ‘shall be good to him that it is made unto and against the sellers and their heirs.’3 The establishment of clear title meant that unscrupulous dealers were unable to sell the same property on multiple occasions.
'An act to free subjects from benevolences'
Richard, ‘mindful that the commons of this his realm have been enslaved by intolerable charges and exactions as the result of new and unlawful inventions and inordinate covetousness, contrary to the law of this realm, and in particular by a new imposition called a benevolence’, therefore ordered ‘that henceforth his subjects and the commonality of this his realm shall in no way be burdened by any such charge, exaction, or imposition called a benevolence or by similar charges.’
The Book Trade
Richard sought to protect the domestic market by taking action against foreign competition. However, one notable exception to this general principal was the promotion of the Book Trade. Richard ordered that nothing should ‘obstruct, harm or impede any craftsmen or foreign merchant’ from importing or selling ‘any kind of books written or printed’. Paul Murray Kendall stated that ‘To Richard and his councillors belongs the honour of having devised the first piece of legislation for the protection and fostering of the art of printing and the dissemination of learning by books.’4
Trade Protection
Other acts concerned the cloth industry and the office of alnager and decreed standard measurements and size of butts for wine and oil so that merchants and the buying public would be protected from unscrupulous business practices. Further laws also protected the collectors of taxes on the clergy in the court of the exchequer. ‘These were useful and all promoted by the men involved.’5
King Richard's first deed as King
Following his election as King by the Three Estates of the Realm, Richard III’s first act was to call his judges before him and decree that they dispense justice without delay or favour.6
Laws written in English
Richard was particularly keen to ensure that laws enacted during his reign were written in English rather than the traditional French and Latin. Whereas most of the acts in Edward IV’s last Parliament in January 1483 were written in English, Richard’s 1484 Parliament was the first in which legislation was written entirely in English.
Blind Justice, Clear Title and the Presumption of Innocence: Richard's Reputation as a Lawgiver
Richard’s reforms of the legal process prompted what we would today recognise as the principles of Blind Justice, Clear Title and the Presumption of Innocence and the exceptional quality of his legislation has long been recognised. It is perhaps no wonder that in the 1620s England’s Lord Chancellor, Sir Francis Bacon, would later describe Richard III as a ‘good lawmaker for the ease and solace of the common people.’7 And the nineteenth-century Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice, Lord Campbell, declared: ‘We have no difficulty in pronouncing Richard’s Parliament the most meritorious national assembly for protecting the liberty of the subject and putting down abuses in the administration of justice that had sat in England since the reign of Henry III.’8
The high percentage of acts passed by Richard’s Parliament, which markedly improved conditions for ordinary people, are quite clearly the reason for Sir Francis and Lord Campbell’s good opinion.
To delve further into the technicalities of King Richard’s laws, you can read H G Hanbury’s complete legal analysis here.9
‘This paper will have served its purpose if it has succeeded in portraying him (Richard III) as a singularly thoughtful and enlightened legislator, who brought to his task a profound knowledge of the nature of contemporary problems, and an enthusiastic determination to solve them in the best possible way, in the interests of every class of his subjects.’
H G Hanbury, Q.C. D.C.L. Vinerian Professor of English Law, University of Oxford (1949-1964)
1. Lord Campbell, First Baron Campbell, Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice (1779-1861).
2. Richard III: January 1484, in Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, ed. Chris Given-Wilson, Paul Brand, Seymour Phillips, Mark Ormrod, Geoffrey Martin, Anne Curry and Rosemary Horrox (Woodbridge, 2005), British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/parliament-rolls-medieval/january-1484 (accessed 3rd August 2018).
3. P M Kendall, Richard III (1973 ed), pp. 282-3.
4. Kendall, Richard III, p.285
5. Richard III Society website https://richardiii.net/richard-iii-his-world/his-life-and-death/parliament/ ‘An officer appointed to examine woollen cloth and certify its quality’ (Oxford English Dictionary).
6. C Ross, Richard III (1981), p.173.
7. M Lewis, Richard III: Loyalty Binds Me (2018), p. 340
8. A Carson, Richard III: The Maligned King (2008, 2013 ed) p.268
9. H G Hanbury, ‘The Legislation of Richard III’, American Journal of Legal History, vol 6 (1962), pp 95-113.
Articles with named authors reflect the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Richard III Society.