consideration of the law of nature, by which the question is to be decided; in the second part, Justice, sitting as judge, hears the arguments of the rival claimants, the daughter, the grandson, and the brother, and decides in favour of the last. The treatise was one of Fortescue's ‘writings sent out of Scotland,’ and therefore written between 1461 and 1463. First printed by Lord Clermont, with translation and notes by Mr. Chichester Fortescue (Lord Carlingford). 3. ‘De Laudibus Legum Angliæ.’ Written for the instruction of Edward, prince of Wales, while he was in exile in Berry, with his mother, Queen Margaret: date about 1470. It is in the form of a conversation between Fortescue and the prince, who is encouraged to acquaint himself with the laws of England. First printed in 1537. Subsequent editions: (a) containing translation by Robert Mulcaster, 1573, 1575, 1578, 1599, 1609, 1616 (with preface and notes by Selden, but without his name, and containing also the ‘Summæ’ of Hengham), 1660 (reprint of 1616), 1672 (with Selden's name, said to be a faulty edition); (b) translation by Francis Gregor, 1737, 1741, 1775, 1825 (with notes by A. Amos), 1869 (Lord Clermont). Also ‘Fortescutus illustratus; or a commentary on that nervous treatise, “De Laudibus Legum Angliæ,”’ &c., by Edward Waterhouse, 1663. The work still waits a competent and careful editor. It is said to have suffered from interpolations; in particular, chapter xlix., on the inns of court, &c., has been questioned (see Pulling, Order of the Coif, pp. 153–4). 4. A treatise on the monarchy of England, variously entitled ‘The Difference between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy,’ ‘On the Governance of the Kingdom of England,’ ‘De Dominio Regali et Politico,’ probably written after Fortescue's return to England in 1471 (see Plummer, pp. 94–6). Having repeated the distinction which he draws in the ‘De Natura’ and the ‘De Laudibus’ between ‘dominum regale,’ or absolute monarchy, and ‘dominum politicum et regale,’ or constitutional monarchy, he discusses the means of strengthening the monarchy in England, taking many illustrations, by way of contrast, from his experience in France; the increase of the king's revenues, for ‘ther may no realme prospere, or be worshipful and noble, under a poer kyng;’ the perils that arise when subjects grow over-mighty; that the safeguard against rebellion is the wellbeing of the commons; a scheme for the reconstitution of the king's council; and the bestowal by the king of offices and rewards. The treatise is referred to in Selden's preface to the ‘De Laudibus;’ it was first published in 1714 by Lord Fortescue of Credan (another edition in 1719), and the same text was printed in Lord Clermont's collection. In 1885 a revised text was published by Mr. Charles Plummer with an historical and biographical introduction and elaborate notes. Mr. Plummer's work is a mine of information concerning not only Fortescue himself, but also the history of his time, and every historical and constitutional question suggested by his treatise. 5. ‘A Dialogue between Understanding and Faith,’ wherein Faith seeks to resolve the doubts raised by Understanding as to the Divine justice which permits the affliction of righteous men (first printed in Lord Clermont's collection, date unknown).
Lord Clermont prints several other short pieces, including one on ‘The Comodytes of England’ and a rhymed ‘legal advice to purchasers of land,’ but the evidence of Fortescue's authorship is not strong (see Plummer, pp. 80–1).
[Plummer's Introduction to The Governance of England; Life of Fortescue in Lord Clermont's edition of Fortescue's works; Foss's Judges, vol. iv.; Biog. Brit.; Gairdner's Paston Letters.]
FORTESCUE, Sir JOHN (1531?–1607), chancellor of the exchequer, was the eldest of the three sons of Sir Adrian [q. v.], by his second wife, Anne, daughter of Sir W. Rede. He was eight years old at the date of his father's execution, and was brought up under his mother's care. He is said by Lodge (Peerage of Ireland, 1789, iii. 346) to have been educated at Oxford, and afterwards entered at one of the inns of court, but there is no further evidence of his having been at either. In 1551 an act of parliament was passed for his ‘restitution in blood’ (Statutes at Large, v. p. xiv), which removed the effect of his father's attainder and gave him possession of his property at Shirburn in Oxfordshire. On the accession of Mary, his mother, who had married Sir Thomas Parry, comptroller of the royal household, was taken into the queen's service, and received various grants of lands in Gloucestershire, which were, after her death, inherited by her eldest son. About the same time Fortescue was appointed to superintend the studies of Queen Elizabeth (Camden, Annales, 1625, ii. 27), while his youngest brother, Anthony, received the appointment of comptroller of the household of Cardinal Pole, whose niece, Katherine Pole, he had recently married. Fortescue owed his place no doubt in part to the reputation which he enjoyed throughout his life as a Greek and Latin scholar, but perhaps still
