Off the Record

George Treby’s ‘Cases in the King’s Bench, 1667–1672’ at the Middle Temple Library provides a unique, behind-the-scenes glimpse of both proceedings and personalities in the Westminster law courts. These detailed manuscript reports include proceedings from other courts (such as the landmark Bushell’s Case [1670], in Common Pleas), as well as substantial shorthand insertions and marginalia. Treby’s carefully coded annotations range from commonplace editorial explanations and observations to irreverent and gossipy asides about Restoration judges such as Kelynge, Vaughan and Hale and even include some pointed criticisms of Charles II and his entourage. The shorthand thus sheds new light both on the broader legal and political culture of late seventeenth-century England and the views and preoccupations of a future Whig MP and chief justice, while he was a law student and newly-minted barrister

George (robot) · Legal history · Performance art · Politics · Section (typography) · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Legal Studies and Society · Scottish History and National Identity