born 0441; 1385, Norris, Somerset, Eng.
died 0441; 1479, Ebrington, Gloucestershire
English jurist.
He served as chief justice of the King's Bench from 1442. He was the first to state the basic principle that it is better that the guilty escape than that the innocent be punished. He fled to Scotland after Henry VI 's defeat in 1461. Hoping for a restoration of the House of Lancaster , he educated Prince Edward in France, and he wrote for Edward's instruction De laudibus legum Angliae , the first book about law written for the layperson. Returning to England in 1471, he was captured by Yorkists but was allowed to retire to his home.