Shakespeare's Legal Acquirements Considered (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1859 edition. Excerpt: ...This is the true doctrine, "Pater est quern nuptivs demonstrant." It was likewise properly ruled that the father's will, in favour of his son Kobert, had no power to dispossess the right heir. Philip might have recovered the land, if he had not preferred the offer made to him by his grandmother, Elinor, the Queen Dowager, of taking the name of Plantagenet, and being dubbed Sir Kichard. In Act ii. Sc. 1, we encounter a metaphor which is purely legal, yet might come naturally from an attorney's clerk, who had often been an attesting witness to the execution of deeds. The Duke of Austria, having entered into an engagement to support Arthur against his unnatural uncle, till the young prince should be put in possession of the dominions in France to which he was entitled as the true heir of the Plantagenets, and should be crowned King of England, says, Idssing the boy to render the covenant more binding, " Upon thy check I lay this zealous kiss, As seal to this indenture of my love.'' In a subsequent part of this play, the true ancient doctrine of "the supremacy of the crown" is laid down with great spirit and force: and Shakespeare clearly shows that, whatever his opinion might have been on speculative dogmas in controversy between the Keformers and the Eomanists, he spurned the ultramontane pretensions of the Pope, which some of our Koman Catholic fellow subjects are now too much disposed to countenance, although they were stoutly resisted before the Keformation by our ancestors, who were good Catholics. King John declares, Act in. Sc. 1, " No Italian priest Shall tithe or toll in our dominions; But as we under heaven are supreme head, So, under heaven, that great supremacy, Where we do reign, we will alone uphold, Without th' assistance of a...