Julius Caesar
The most memorable element of the text is the author’s call for a Parliament which subjugated the monarchy to a position of a lesser authority and strength in order to create a republic in the mold of Rome. The death of a republic is proposed as easily avoided: do not create a system of governance which can create a tyrant through conferring unlimited power. Julius Caesar is forwarded history’s abject lesson in how quickly a republican can collapse into tyranny as the result of just one man with ambition.
The Coroner
Named characters such as Caesar are in short supply in the text, but as a narrative offering a glimpse into daily life during Elizabethan England, the cast of characters is fascinating from the perspective of insight into the type of men who occupy a certain status. The coroner of a town, for instance, is chosen by the Prince and is described as being “a meaner sort of gentleman, for the most part a man seen in the laws of the Realm to execute that office.”
Constables
Constables today have taken on the air of being kind of happy-go-lucky security guards rather than actual police officers. This was not always so and, indeed, constables at the time seem far more like American cops than those nice Brits seen in TV shows today: “whosoever refuseth to obey the Constable therein, all the people will set straight upon him, and by force make him to render himself to be ordered.” In addition, Constables had pretty much unlimited search and seizure powers as long as they believed a suspected criminal was trying to escape into a house.
Nobles
What exactly is meant by the phrase “of noble blood” or just plain nobility? A section outlines the hierarchy which can be very confusing for those not raised within a history of aristocracy. Let’s face it: for most Americans this kind of stuff is pretty silly. But it was taken quite seriously back then and remnants of that serious remain even today. “Dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts and barons either be created by the prince or come to that honor by being the eldest sons, as highest and next in succession to their parents.” Those desiring more should consult the text as, like most other sections, it is not long.
