Tag Archive for: Common Law

A Tale of Five Kings

Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat its mistakes, so I share with you a tale of five kings so you can understand when Patrick Henry said; ” I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way to judge the future but by the past”.”

There was king by the name of William who began his reign in 1066. King William was not from Great Britain, he was from Normandy.  He set himself up on the throne to fundamentally change Great  Britain . He didn’t like Great Britain because Great Britain , though similar to other kingdoms had one exception; common law. Common law that said there are common rules based on common standards, commonly applied throughout the kingdom. Common law constrained Kings. So William set out to fundamentally transform Great Britain and began to attack common law. First he decides to replace judges. He wants judges loyal to him and not common law. He wants to enforce his foreign law on the people. He starts chasing land owners off their land and handing their land over to his foreign Norman friends. Discover what King William the 1st did next and more.