JOURNAL: The Journal of Legal History XXXVI (2015), Issue 1

(image: Taylor&Francis online)

 The Journal of Legal History published its first issue for 2015.

Contents:

Andrew R.C. Simpson, "Counsel and the Crown: History, Law and Politics in the Thought of David Chalmers of Ormond"

Abstract:

In 1579, the Scottish jurist David Chalmers argued that remedies for the contemporary political troubles of his native country could be found in the study of law and history. His thinking in this regard was indebted to the French writer Jean Bodin. And yet while Chalmers was evidently familiar with Bodin's Les Six Livres de la Republique, he did not endorse all of the latter's more radical claims. In particular, he does not seem to have accepted that all law-making was dependent upon an exercise of sovereign will. In 1566 Chalmers had already argued that in Scotland the binding force of law could be attributed to that which local legal experts recognized to be just and rational on the basis of their learning. He developed this idea in 1579 to create an intriguing account of how both legal and historical learning could be used to shape Scottish laws and government.

Gregory Allan, "Ceylon Coffee, the Comtesse and the Consignee: A Historical Reappraisal of Rochefoucauld v Boustead"

Abstract: This paper examines the Court of Appeal judgment of Rochefoucauld v Boustead [1897] 1 Ch. 196 through use of archive records, rarely cited law reports and nineteenth-century academic opinion. A full and hitherto untold account of the facts of the case is presented. It is revealed that the land which was the subject matter of the dispute was sold under the direction of the Ceylon District Court, and that the plaintiff was an accomplished individual who utilized various means to frustrate her former husband's attempts to obtain the land. The Court of Appeal's rulings that the defendant was a trustee of the land for the prevention of fraud, and that the trust was to be treated as an express trust, are also analysed with the aim of establishing how these issues were understood at the time of the judgment. It is argued that both of these aspects of the judgment were regarded as uncontroversial because there was a settled concept of equitable fraud, and because trusts imposed for the prevention of such fraud were an established category of trust in their own right, separate from express, resulting or constructive trusts.

Sir John Baker, "Migrations of Manuscripts 2014"

Book Reviews

All articles are accessible at Taylor & Francis online.