Fortescue, Sir John (ca. 1385–ca. 1479)

Abstract Sir John Fortescue, English jurist and constitutionalist, was a member of the House of Commons (1421–36) and a chief justice on the king's bench (1442). He supported Lancaster under Henry VI, being exiled with him in Scotland during the civil war (the War of the Roses) after Edward of York (Edward IV) designated him traitor; there Henry appointed him “chancellor of England.” In Scotland Fortescue wrote Lancastrian propaganda, including De natura (1461–3), on the law of nature that also challenged York's claim to the throne. He accompanied Henry's queen as tutor to the prince of Wales to France (1463), where he wrote De laudibus legum Anglie (1468–71), In Praise of the Laws of England . This dialogue between the chancellor and the prince is one of the first modern “mirrors of princes,” anticipating both Christopher St. German's Doctor and Student , and Machiavelli's The Prince . After Henry VI's defeat and murder in 1471, Edward IV granted Fortescue a general pardon, subject to retraction of his Lancastrian propaganda. This Fortescue did in Declaration upon Certain Writings (1471–3). From October 1471, he was a member of Edward's council and sat in the Star Chamber. In 1471 Fortescue wrote The Governance of England , the first constitutional treatise written in English; while probably first envisaged as a template for Henry VI's government, it is directed to Edward IV.