View source for Reports and Cases Collected by the Learned Sr. John Popham

{{DISPLAYTITLE: ''Reports and Cases Collected by the Learned Sr. John Popham, Kt ... Written with His Own Hand in French, and Now Faithfully tr. into English, to Which are Added Some Remarkable Cases Reported by Other Learned Pens Since His Death''}}
===by Sir John Popham===
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|shorttitle=Reports and Cases Collected by the Learned Sr. John Popham
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|author=[[:Category:John Popham|Sir John Popham]]
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|publisher=Printed by the assigns of Richard and Edward Atkins, esquires, for John Place
|year=1682
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|pages=[8], 212, [8] 
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}}[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Popham_%28Lord_Chief_Justice%29 Sir John Popham] (c. 1531-1607) was  educated at Balliol College, Oxford, but did not take a degree. He entered the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Temple Middle Temple], and was autumn reader in 1568, Lent reader in 1573, and treasurer in 1580. Popham represented Bristol in the parliaments of 1571 and 1572. He was created serjeat-at-large in 1578 and appointed solicitor-general in 1579. Popham was elected speaker of the House of Commons in 1581 and was appointed attorney-general the same year. He was appointed to the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Bench King’s Bench] in 1592, remaining until his death in 1607.<ref>David Ibbetson, "[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/22543 Popham, Sir John (c.1531–1607)]," ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford University Press, 2004- ), accessed on February 19, 2015.</ref><br />
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Known as a "hanging judge", Popham was notoriously severe towards thieves, but was also one of the principal creators of the poor law of 1598.<ref>Ibid.</ref> He was also heavily involved in the English colonization of the Americas. In 1606 he played a large role in the creation of the Virginia Company and the award of its charter. Popham also was likely the principal patron of the Plymouth Colony, and through that the main inspiration of the Maine colony. <br />
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As chief justice of the King's Bench, Sir John Popham embraced common law and moved it forward. Notably, Popham presided over the trials of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Devereux,_2nd_Earl_of_Essex Earl of Essex] (in which his own testimony to the uprising was important), the trial of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Raleigh Sir Walter Raleigh], and the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_Plot Gunpowder conspirators].<ref>Ibid.</ref> During his tenure, rumors spread of his previous work as an amateur highwayman. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aubrey John Aubrey], described as “gossipy” by Douglas Walthew Rice, included a detailed account of rumors he had heard of Popham’s involvement in pardoning William Darell, involved in various intrigues, in exchange for his property at Littlecote.<ref>Douglas Walthew Rice, ''[http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=m67hSNxB2s0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=%22Sir+John+Popham%22&ots=WM1Vj3c-Am&sig=dAxzxlYOAeU3-s86FpeBqmsPH4g#v=onepage&q&f=false The Life and Achievements of Sir John Popham 1531-1607]'' (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp, 2005), 19; John Aubrey, ''Brief Lives: A Modern English Version'' (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1982), 252.</ref> Sir Edward Coke, in contrast, praised Popham for his "integrity and patience."<ref>Bernard Brown, "Chief Justice Popham, Mistris Line, and Will Shakespeare on Them Both," ''New Zealand Law Review'' (2004): 2.</ref><br />
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Unpublished until 1656, ''Reports and Cases'' covers the cases Popham presided over or participated in during his tenure.<ref>Rice, ''The Life and Achievements of Sir John Popham'', 19.</ref> The reports had passed into private hands upon Popham’s death, but he always wished them to be made public.<ref>Sir John Popham, ''Reports and Cases, Collected by the Learned Sir John Popham'' (London: Printed by Tho. Roycroft, for Henry Twyford and John Place, 1656).</ref> The volume includes cases up to 1627, twenty years after Popham's death. Thus, only the first one hundred and twenty pages or so contain Popham's cases, which were "more respected than those which follow."<ref>John William Wallace, ''The Reporters, Arranged and Characterized with Incidental Remarks'', 4th ed., rev. and enl. (Boston: Soule and Bugbee, 1882), 207.</ref> Legal bibliographer J. G. Marvin relates that "the decisions reported by Popham, 'contain matter profound, yet with convenient brevity, and are of good authority and use. The additional cases ... ought not to be regarded.'"<ref>J. G. Marvin, ''Legal Bibliography or a Thesaurus of American, English, Irish, and Scotch Law Books'' (Philadelphia: T. & J. W. Johnson, Law Booksellers, 1847), 577.</ref>

==Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library==
Both [[Dean Bibliography|Dean's Memo]]<ref>[[Dean Bibliography|Memorandum from Barbara C. Dean]], Colonial Williamsburg Found., to Mrs. Stiverson, Colonial Williamsburg Found. (June 16, 1975), 13 (on file at Wolf Law Library, College of William & Mary).</ref> and Brown's Bibliography<ref>Bennie Brown, "The Library of George Wythe of Williamsburg and Richmond," (unpublished manuscript, May, 2012, rev. May, 2014) Microsoft Word file. Earlier edition available at: https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/13433.</ref> suggest Wythe owned the second edition (1682) based on references in John Marshall's law notes<ref>''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), 1:44.</ref> Brown also notes that Wythe referred to these reports in his arguments for the plaintiff in ''[[Bolling v. Bolling]]'', "for in that it was agreed by Gawdy and Popham 'if tenant for life sows the land, and grants over his estate and the grantee dies before the corn served, his ex[ecuto]r shall not have the corn, but he who sowed the land.'"<ref>''Thomas Jefferson and Bolling v. Bolling: Law and the Legal Profession in Pres-Revolutionary America'' ed. Bernard Schwartz, Barbara Wilcie Kern, R. B. Bernstein (San Marino, CA: The Huntingdon Library; New York: New York University School of Law, 1997), 152.</ref> 

==Description of the Wolf Law Library's copy==
Bound in contemporary calf. Title page includes previous owner signature, "Loury Boavis."

Images of the library's copy of this book are [https://www.flickr.com/photos/wolflawlibrary/albums/72157693285013014 available on Flickr.] View the record for this book in [https://wm.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01COWM_INST/g9pr7p/alma991024979759703196 William & Mary's online catalog.]

==See also==
*[[Wythe's Library]]

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Case Reports]]
[[Category:Chancery Reports]]
[[Category:Common Pleas Reports]]
[[Category:George Wythe Collection at William & Mary's Wolf Law Library]]
[[Category:John Popham]]
[[Category:King's Bench Reports]]
[[Category:Titles in Wythe's Library]]

[[Category:English]]
[[Category:Folios]]
[[Category:London]]