Life
Sheppard was baptised at Whitminster, Gloucestershire, at the end of 1595, and entered the Middle Temple in 1620; he was called to the bar in 1629. [1] He lived in Horsley and enjoyed a large country legal practice. [2]
Whitminster is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, on the A38 trunk road approximately 6 miles south of Gloucester and 6 miles northwest of Stroud. The parish population at the 2011 census was 881. It was formerly known as Wheatenhurst, the name being changed officially in 1945. Wheatenhurst manor, with Whitminster House and the parish church of St Andrew, lies about a mile to the west of the modern village.
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean.
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn. It is located in the wider Temple area of London, near the Royal Courts of Justice, and within the City of London.
About 1653 Sheppard was invited to London by Cromwell, and made one of the clerks of the upper bench. In 1656 he became a serjeant-at-law, and was nominated with three others to prepare the charters granted to town corporations. [2] In September 1659 he was appointed chief justice in North Wales, by the Rump Parliament. [2]
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader. He served as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland "and of the dominions thereto belonging" from 1653 until his death, acting simultaneously as head of state and head of government of the new republic.
A Serjeant-at-Law (SL), commonly known simply as a Serjeant, was a member of an order of barristers at the English bar. The position of Serjeant-at-Law, or Sergeant-Counter, was centuries old; there are writs dating to 1300 which identify them as descended from figures in France before the Norman Conquest. The Serjeants were the oldest formally created order in England, having been brought into existence as a body by Henry II. The order rose during the 16th century as a small, elite group of lawyers who took much of the work in the central common law courts. With the creation of Queen's Counsel during the reign of Elizabeth I, the order gradually began to decline, with each monarch opting to create more King's or Queen's Counsel. The Serjeants' exclusive jurisdictions were ended during the 19th century and, with the Judicature Act 1873 coming into force in 1875, it was felt that there was no need to have such figures, and no more were created. The last Irish Serjeant-at-Law was Serjeant Sullivan. The last English Serjeant-at-Law was Lord Lindley.
The Rump Parliament was the English Parliament after Colonel Thomas Pride purged the Long Parliament, on 6 December 1648, of those members hostile to the Grandees' intention to try King Charles I for high treason.
After the Restoration of 1660 Sheppard was deprived of his offices and left public life. He had six children: John (a clergyman), Elizabeth, Sarah, Samuel, Anne, and Dorothy. [2]
Works
Sheppard wrote legal and religious works: [2]
- The office and duties of Constables, or tythingmen … and other lay ministers. Whereunto are adjoined the several offices of church ministers and church wardens, London, 1641; 4th ed. 1657.
- The Court Keeper's Guide, London, 1641; 7th ed. by William Brown, 1685.
- A Catechism, London, 1649.
- Four Last Things, 1649. A theological work, its introduction expressed political support for the Rump Parliament, slanted against the Presbyterian faction. [3] [4] Of the Foure Last and Greatest Things (1658) was a collaboration with Thomas Barlow. [1]
- Guide to Justices of the Peace, 1649; 5th ed. 1669.
- The Faithful Counsellor, London, 1651–4. An early encyclopedic work on English law, it was used in later compilations. [1]
- England's Balme, London, 1651. A comprehensive plan for legal reconstruction. [1] With Sir Matthew Hale and John March, Sheppard wished to reform the common law from within. [5]
- The People's Privilege and Duty guarded against the Pulpit, London, 1652. Sheppard has been identified as a follower of John Owen; and this expression of the Independent line on preaching may have recommended him to Cromwell. [1]
- Justice of the Peace his Clerk's Cabinet, 1654.
- The Parson's Guide or the Law of Tithes, London, 1654; 2nd ed. 1670.
- The Precedent of Precedents, London, 1655; ed. by Thomas Walter Williams, 1825.
- View of the Laws concerning Religion, London, 1655.
- Epitome of the Common and Statute Laws, London, 1656.
- Survey of the County Judicatories, London, 1656.
- Office of Country Justice of Peace, London, 1655–6.
- Concerning Sincerity and Hypocrisy, Oxford, 1658.
- Of Corporations, Fraternities, and Guilds, London.
- A New Survey of the Justice of the Peace his Office, London, 1659.
- Actions upon the Case for Slander, 1662; 2nd ed. London, 1674.
- Office of the Clerk of the Market, London, 1665.
- The Practical Counsellor in the Law, London, 1671.
- Actions upon the Case for Deeds, 2nd ed. London, 1675; 3rd ed. 1680.
- A Grand Abridgement of the Common and Statute Law of England, London, 1675.
Thomas Barlow was an English academic and clergyman, who became Provost of The Queen's College, Oxford, and Bishop of Lincoln. He was seen in his own times and by Edmund Venables in the Dictionary of National Biography to have been a trimmer, a reputation mixed in with his academic and other writings on casuistry. His views were Calvinist and strongly anti-Catholic, and he was among the last English bishops to dub the Pope Antichrist. He worked in the 1660s for "comprehension" of nonconformists, but supported the crackdown of the mid-1680s, and declared loyalty to James II of England on his accession, having strongly supported the Exclusion Bill, which would have denied it to him.
John March (c.1611–1657) was an English barrister and legal writer.
In law, common law is that body of law derived from judicial decisions of courts and similar tribunals. The defining characteristic of “common law” is that it arises as precedent. In cases where the parties disagree on what the law is, a common law court looks to past precedential decisions of relevant courts, and synthesizes the principles of those past cases as applicable to the current facts. If a similar dispute has been resolved in the past, the court is usually bound to follow the reasoning used in the prior decision. If, however, the court finds that the current dispute is fundamentally distinct from all previous cases, and legislative statutes are either silent or ambiguous on the question, judges have the authority and duty to resolve the issue. The court states an opinion that gives reasons for the decision, and those reasons agglomerate with past decisions as precedent to bind future judges and litigants. Common law, as the body of law made by judges, stands in contrast to and on equal footing with statutes which are adopted through the legislative process, and regulations which are promulgated by the executive branch. Stare decisis, the principle that cases should be decided according to consistent principled rules so that similar facts will yield similar results, lies at the heart of all common law systems.
He also published the Touchstone of Common Assurances (1641); tradition said he had found it in manuscript in Sir John Doddridge's library, but a connection with Doddridge is no longer accepted. The eighth edition of this work, by Edmond Gibson Atherley, was published in 1826. Sheppard wrote a second part, published with the first, Law of Common Assurances (1650). [2] [6]
A Collection of Choice Declarations (1653), attributed to Sheppard in the first edition of the Dictionary of National Biography , was by William Small. [1]
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