The common law, which the Normans had suppressed and which the radicals wanted restored, was the birthright and particular genius of the English and their Anglo-Saxon forebears. English common law – and once exported to the North American colonies, Anglo-American common law – was seen as an autochthonous system of law for a unique people. This excellent work, exploring the origins of due process in the American legal system, unintentionally addresses common law’s origin myths. While the jury has a peculiarly English origin, many of the safeguards claimed by common law slipped into English law via church courts and the works of university-trained scholars such as 13th century jurist Henry de Bracton and Sir Edward Coke before the Civil War. When Lilburne, on trial for treason, demanded his rights under England’s ‘Ancient Constitution’, he was, possibly without knowing, demanding rights that were more ius commune than common law.