Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of Exchequer
Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of Exchequer, in the years 1655, 1656, 1657, 1658, 1659, and 1660, and from Thence Continued to the 21st year of the Reign of His Late Majesty King Charles II
by Sir Thomas Hardres
| Hardres' Reports | |
 Title page from Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Court of Exchequer, George Wythe Collection, Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary. | |
| Author | Sir Thomas Hardres |
| Published | London: Printed by the assigns of Rich. and Edw. Atkins for Christopher Wilkinson, Samuel Heyrick and Mary Tonson |
| Date | 1693 |
| Edition | First |
| Language | English |
| Pages | [12], 232, 301-512, [20] |
| Desc. | Folio (32 cm.) |
Sir Thomas Hardres (1609/10)-1681 was an English lawyer and politician. [1] His French surname reveals the antiquity of his bloodline, with his ancestors possibly arriving in Kent around the time of the Norman invasion.[2] In 1629, he entered Gray’s Inn and was called to bar in 1636. He married in 1639 and, following the death of his first wife, remarried in 1651. During the Civil War, he remained pro-monarchy, a position that brought him under the suspicion of the protectorate government. Although he was already a public figure (he was made steward of Lambeth in 1649), it was after the restoration that his political career began to flourish. He held numerous positions including serving as the freeman of Canterbury (1661), Common Councilman (1662), and recorder (1664). He became MP for the Borough of Kent in 1664. In 1669 he became serjeant at law and in 1676 he became King’s serjeant. He was Knighted in 1676.
Some have argued that Hardres' Reports of Cases in the Exchequer (1655-1670) “contain some of the most learned arguments of the old reports.”[3] The eight volumes, published in 1693 twelve years after his death, demonstrate his acquaintance with precedent and reveal his old-fashioned style of dissecting arguments.[4]
Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library
The Brown Bibliography[5] suggests Wythe owned this title based on notes in John Marshall's commonplace book.[6] Brown bases the edition in part on the copy Thomas Jefferson sold to the Library of Congress in 1815.[7] The Wolf Law Library followed Brown's suggestion and moved a copy of the 1st edition (1693) from another rare book collection to the George Wythe Collection.
Description of the Wolf Law Library's copy
Bound in contemporary blind calf with gold tooling on edges. Later rebacked in brown calf with a red label. Purchased through the generosity of Daniel W. Baran and Lena Stratton Baran, Class of 1936.
View this book in William & Mary's online catalog.
References
- ↑ Stuart Handley, “Hardres, Sir Thomas (1609/10-1681)”, “Oxford Dictionary of National Biography”, (Oxford University Press, 2004- ), accessed December 9, 2013. Subsequent biographical information derives from this sources unless otherwise noted.
- ↑ John William Wallace, The Reporters Arranged and Characterized with Incidental Remarks (Boston: Soule and Bugbee, 1882), 291.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Bennie Brown, "The Library of George Wythe of Williamsburg and Richmond," (unpublished manuscript, May, 2012) Microsoft Word file. Earlier edition available at: https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/13433
- ↑ The Papers of John Marshall, eds. Herbert A. Johnson, Charles T. Cullen, and Nancy G. Harris (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, in association with the Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1974), 1:65.
- ↑ E. Millicent Sowerby, Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 2nd ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983), 2:339 [no.2058].
