Described Hardwick & Luard: iv.48–53; Baker & Ringrose pp. 443–6.

[1]

f. 215

There be two kinds of kingdome of the which that one ys a lordshipp called in latin dominium regale and that other ys called dominium politicum and regale by the first a kinge may rule his people by sych laues as hee maketh himselfe and therefore hee may sett upon them taxes and other imposicions …

f. 240

… against such important suitors and yet his grace may leaue this order when him liketh and god saue the kinge.

‘Sir John Fortescue knight lord cheife justice of the kinges bench … writt a treatise intituled jus regale and jus politicum et regale … the first chapter of which treatise ys thus verba[tim] out of an old manuscript written and copied an example what good counsell helpeth and advanta[geth] and of the contrary that followeth by the relation of the said sir john fortescue cheife justice as above oh what good wealth and prosperity should come to the realme of england if such a councell bee once perfectly established and the kinge guided thereby the romanes which by wisedome and manhood gott the lordshipp and monarchye of the world were first governed by kings but when the kings through …’ (f. 214). ‘Explicit liber compilatus et factus per johannem fortescue militem quondam angliae capitalem justiciarium’ (f. 240). Seventeenth-century copy of John Fortescue (d. 1477?), On the Governance of England. IPMEP 717; ed. C. Plummer, The Governance of England … by Sir John Fortescue, Kt. (Oxford, 1885), pp. 109–55.

Other texts: IPMEP lists 10 and notes a further MS which contains a Latin epitome; IMEP 1 adds Huntington EL 34.C.18 [1] and BodL Rawl D. 69 f. 1. For other MSS already indexed see IMEP 3 indexing BodL Digby 145 [1] and 198 [1]; IMEP 13 indexing Lambeth 262 [1]; IMEP 16 indexing BodL Laud misc. 593 [1].

s. xvii in.