English law under two Elizabeths: the late Tudor legal world and the present

"I The English legal system under Elizabeth I I have lived through one Elizabethan age - so far - and spent part of my career time-travelling in the other. I can still dimly remember the euphoric optimism in the 1950s greeting the new Elizabethan age, and it has certainly proved as transformational a period in the nation's history as that of the first Elizabeth. Both queens have been greatly admired, and their loving subjects have seen changes beyond all imagination when they acceded to the throne. Their reigns are separated by an enormous distance of time. In theory, though, England was subject in both periods to the same common law. One does not need to be a historian to appreciate that this is the kind of theory which borders on fiction. After four centuries of evolution, the queen's courts and their proceedings look very different. But the theory does have a basis in truth. What it means is that there has been no sudden jurisprudential break, no Justinian or Napoleon, no Lenin or Mao, to disturb the legal continuity in England between the sixteenth century and the present. Elizabethan cases can still be cited, if they are relevant to some current question and have not been overruled or overtaken by later cases or statutes, though in the nature of things this is now rare"--