The Tyrannicide Brief - Hardcover

Robertson QC, Geoffrey

4.21

332 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0701176024 ISBN 13: 9780701176020

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2005

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Charles I waged civil wars that cost one in ten Englishmen their lives. But, in 1649, parliament was hard put to find a lawyer with the skill and daring to prosecute a King who was above the law - in the end the man they briefed was theradical barrister, John Cooke. Cooke was a plebeian, son of a poor Leicestershire farmer. His puritan conscience, political vision and love of civil liberty gave him the courage to bring the King's trial to its dramatic conclusion: the English republic. Cromwell appointed him as a reforming Chief Justice in Ireland, but, in 1660, he was dragged back to the Old Bailey, tried and brutally executed. Geoffrey Robertson QC, the internationally renowned human rights lawyer, provides a vivid new reading of the tumultuous Civil War years, exposing long-hidden truths: that the King was guilty as charged; that his execution was necessary to establish the sovereignty of Parliament; and that the regicide trials were rigged and their victims should be seen as national heroes. John Cooke was the bravest of barristers, who risked his own life to make tyranny a crime. He originated the right to silence, the 'cab rank' rule of advocacy and the duty to act free-of-charge for the poor. He conducted the first trial of a Head of State for waging war on his own people - a forerunner of the prosecutions of Pinochet, Milosevic and Saddam Hussein, and a lasting inspiration to the modern world.

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Review:

Praise from the United Kingdom for"The Tyrannicide Brief""Those terrible, blood-soaked years are vividly conjured up by Geoffrey Robertson. This is a fine book: well researched, well written, well indexed and well illustrated. The fact there is no bibliography is evidence that Robertson has broken new ground. Not only has he written the first biography of John Cooke, one of the pivotal figures of the mid-seventeenth century, but he has illuminated the legal process by which a powerful monarch was held to account by the law of the land.""-Sunday Herald""In telling his story, Geoffrey Robertson has redeemed from obscurity an unsung hero of true greatness, a selfless champion of the poor and a law reformer of rare distinction. More important, he has shed invigorating light on the course of the English Civil War.""-The Spectator""Geoffrey Robertson provides us with some fascinating insights into this significant case. What makes the book especially illuminating are the parallels with modern practice . . . [A] work of great compassion and, at a time when it seems to be fashionable for politicians to denigrate lawyers, an essential read for anyone who believes in the fearless independence of the law.""-The Times""[Robertson's] forensic intelligence can penetrate where professional historians have not yet reached.""-Literary Review""A work of literary advocacy as elegant, impassioned and original as any the author can ever have laid before a court.""-The Observer"

From the Publisher:

Life and law during the Civil Wars as you have never seen it before - and a passionate argument for the people's right of justice against tyrannical leaders

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