A novel experiment in comparative legal history, exploring the legal world in England during two different periods.

Designed for those studying law for the first time, this book explores where the English common law came from.

This book explores accountability from a range of perspectives, crossing traditional disciplinary, thematic, and professional boundaries. It asks fresh questions about accountability and its place and importance in democratic societies. Accountability matters. It matters because it connects the governors with the governed, and for this reason it is a hallmark of democratic governance. And yet, amidst a backdrop of concerns about democratic back-sliding, the rise of populism, the role of algorithmic governance, moral barbarism, and post-truth politics - to mention just a few issues - a number of potentially far-reaching questions of accountability have been asked. It is for exactly this reason that this book explores the concept of accountability from a range of perspectives, crossing traditional disciplinary, thematic, and professional boundaries. It asks fresh questions about accountability and its place and importance in democratic societies. The book considers the questions raised by the shifting architecture of accountability. Whilst some scholars suggest that accountability processes have never been so effective -trumpeting the rise of monitory democracy with its dense array of watchdogs, sleaze-busters, auditors, legislative committees, statutory supports, and investigative mechanisms - others express concern about the risk of 'overloads', 'gaps', and 'traps'. This has led to a focus on fuzzy accountability and diagonal accountability, pointing to increasing conceptual confusion. Bringing together world-leading scholars and former politicians and public servants, the book cuts through this confusion and provides the reader with the answers to the most debated issues, including rarely discussed 'pathologies of accountability', post-human governance, and a novel focus on balance and proportionality.

Elizabeth I was born into a world of women.As a child, she was served by a predominantly female household of servants and governesses, with occasional visits from her mother, Anne Bolyen, and the wives who later took her place.As Queen, Elizabeth was cons

"I The English legal system under Elizabeth I I have lived through one Elizabethan age - so far - and spent part of my career time-travelling in the other. I can still dimly remember the euphoric optimism in the 1950s greeting the new Elizabethan age, and it has certainly proved as transformational a period in the nation's history as that of the first Elizabeth. Both queens have been greatly admired, and their loving subjects have seen changes beyond all imagination when they acceded to the throne. Their reigns are separated by an enormous distance of time. In theory, though, England was subject in both periods to the same common law. One does not need to be a historian to appreciate that this is the kind of theory which borders on fiction. After four centuries of evolution, the queen's courts and their proceedings look very different. But the theory does have a basis in truth. What it means is that there has been no sudden jurisprudential break, no Justinian or Napoleon, no Lenin or Mao, to disturb the legal continuity in England between the sixteenth century and the present. Elizabethan cases can still be cited, if they are relevant to some current question and have not been overruled or overtaken by later cases or statutes, though in the nature of things this is now rare"--

From Anne Barnhill, the author of At the Mercy of the Queen, comes the gripping tale of Mary Shelton, Elizabeth I's young cousin and ward, set against the glittering backdrop of the Elizabethan court Mistress Mary Shelton is Queen Elizabeth's favorite ward, enjoying every privilege the position affords. The British queen loves Mary like a daughter, and, like any good mother, she wants her to make a powerful match. The most likely prospect: Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. But while Oxford seems to be everything the queen admires: clever, polished and wealthy, Mary knows him to be lecherous, cruel, and full of treachery. No matter how hard the queen tries to push her into his arms, Mary refuses. Instead, Mary falls in love with a man who is completely unsuitable. Sir John Skydemore is a minor knight with little money, a widower with five children. Worst of all, he's a Catholic at a time when Catholic plots against Elizabeth are rampant in England. The queen forbids Mary to wed the man she loves. When the young woman, who is the queen's own flesh and blood, defies her, the couple finds their very lives in danger as Elizabeth's wrath knows no bounds.