were gathered in Calvin's Case (1608), 4 to the making of which all the judges 
of England, the Lord Chancellor, and certain future luminaries of the bench 
contributed. This particular case concerned the status in English law of a 
Scot born after the accession of James I, and it was a culminating episode in 
the long-sustained controversy over the union of England and Scotland. In 
the course of the discussion in Parliament and elsewhere a number of fundamental 
points were bruited that were presently to be of real importance in the 
relations of crown and plantations. Once or twice there were allusions to the 
Indies and Virginia, 3 but the new adventure was not involved except by subsequent 
implication. Nevertheless, a number of the personalities who participated 
in the debates had or shortly were to have connections with the Virginia 
enterprise. 6 
Calvin's Case was a fabricated cause brought for the purpose of securing a 
judicial settlement of certain questions of law, and comprised both an action 
at law and a suit in Chancery. The issue raised by the pleadings was whether 
or not Calvin, a Scot born after the accession of James I, was an alien and so 
disabled from bringing a real or personal action for lands in England. The 
case was adjourned to the Exchequer Chamber, there to be argued by all the 
great mastiffs of the law. The leading report composed by Sir Edward Coke 
ranges over a variety of matter which his ingenious mind thought appropriate 
to the four operative words: "ligeance," "kingdoms," "laws," and "alienage." 
Fundamental to the discussion is the basic medieval distinction between realm 
and the dominions of the King not parcel thereof but under his obedience, 
a distinction significant as well to what is said about the diversity of laws, 
as to the extension of acts of Parliament. The passage which was destined to 
play so great a role as a precedent respecting the colonies occurs in the discussion 
of alienage. Here Coke distinguished between the acquisition of 
territory by conquest from a Christian king and from infidels whom the law 
presumed to be perpetual enemies. In the former case, existing law remained 
until altered, and such alterations were at the will of the English King. Where 
4 7 Co\e Rep. i; 2 Howell, State Trials 559. 
Hawarde, Les Reports del Cases in Camera 
Stellata (Baildon ed., 1894), 349, has a report 
which gives, among other items not in Coke's 
report, Walmesley's dissent. 
5 Bacon refers to the Indies in his speech (2 
Howell, State Trials 590-91). In answer to 
objections made in Commons respecting the 
danger of letting the impecunious Scots swarm 
over England, he is reported to have said, "If 
we be pent in England diere is room abroad — 
Ireland, Virginia" (1 /. H. 0/ C, 337). 
6 When the first Virginia charter passed the 
seals, Coke was still Attorney General, and 
Dodderidge, who argued the post nati question 
in an early stage, was Solicitor General. 
Sir Edwin Sandys and the Earl of Salisbury 
(grantees of the 1609 Virginia charter) participated 
in tile Parliamentary argument. 
Laurence Hyde, who argued there against die 
extension of allegiance, was later a shareholder. 
Hobart, Attorney-General, and Bacon, Solicitor 
General, who argued in Exchequer Chamber, 
were among the grantees in the 1609 charter. 
Chief Baron Tanfield was a grantee of the 
Newfoundland charter. Heron, Baron of the 
Exchequer, was a 1610 subscriber to the Virginia 
adventure.