Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #350431 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

The Sunday Times
"shows just why his vision of justice and accountability is of
continuing importance"

The Week
`An absorbing portrait of a hitherto forgotten figure in British
history'

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

Customer Reviews

A Fascinating Perspective
Apart from anything else, this book is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Geoffrey Robertson's style brings immediacy to the events he narrates and makes the book as enjoyable to read as if it were a well-written historical novel.

As other reviewers have noted, the book is blatantly anti-royalist, but since all history is written from a perspective, I think it is refreshing to find Robertson owning up to his perspective right from the title, which makes it obvious where his sympathies lie.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the book is a further perspective that Robertson brings, namely that of a lawyer. Seeing the trials of both Charles I and the regicides from the insider viewpoint of someone who is intimately familar with the law as opposed to most historians, who interpret events primarily from a political standpoint, brings all kinds of new insights to the interpretation. An independent judiciary, and one where lawyers must take any brief brought to them by a citizen, is an integral element in a functioning democracy and it is enlightening to read about some of the early developments in this direction, particularly those espoused by Cooke.

I would, however, definitely recommend balancing the views in this book with other sources on the civil war as there are certainly areas that are glossed over by Robertson in presenting his partisan point of view.

One of the most engaging books on the period
Geoffrey Robertson's life of John Cooke is one of the most engaging books I have read on the Seventeenth Century.
Robertson has researched his subject throughly, but as you might perhaps expect from a top barrister, he wears his learning lightly and presents the story with wit and style.
It is particularly timely because this era was decisive for the development of civil liberties in Britain, as Robertson shows.
Men like Cooke risked their lives to hold authority to account. Their reputations deserve to be rescued from the aspersions cast on them by royalist historians.
The Tyrannicide Brief succeeds in that task admirably.

Arguing the Cooke Brief
I enjoyed reading this work, which gave dimension to a courageous radical who undoubtably had the courage of his convictions. Nevertheless, I had the feeling throughout that I was attending to partisan advocacy rather than reading a work of history.
I am not naive enough to expect any historian to be completely objective and disinterested, but this work makes no pretence of balance. Royalists are demonized and held to 21st- century standards of behaviour. Presbyterians are all double-dealing rogues, and only Puritan Independents emerge as admirable or even tolerable. At worst, their more aggressive deeds are judged by a 17th-century standard, a courtesy denied their opponents. In this regard, it is hard to accept the rationalization of the Drogheda massacre and yet swallow the concept of Charles I as the predecessor of Milosevic or Hussein.
The book is, as noted, interesting, and certainly Cooke deserves to be re-examined and re-evaluated. Nevertheless, this work needs to be viewed as pleading or advocacy, and as such be read critically in the context of other works dealing with the Civil War and Interregnum.