Early Seventeenth-Century Common Injunctions

Abstract

In Hutchins v Martin (1613) the Court of Chancery was informed that some eight years earlier the plaintiff had gone as the defendant ’ s factor aboard the Blessings of Plymouth to the island of St Michael ’ s, entering a bond to make a true account for the venture. The plaintiff arrived at St Michael ’ s with the defendant ’ s merchandise shortly aft er a proclamation that all Flemish goods being landed should be forfeit. The Blessings ’ cargo – unknown to the plaintiff comprising Flemish goods – was seized and the plaintiff imprisoned, whence ‘ with great trouble and hazard of his life ’, he escaped. Th e defendant nonetheless threatened to put the bond in suit at law, whereupon the plaintiff sought relief in Chancery. The matter being ready for hearing, it appeared that the defendant had arrested the plaintiff in Plymouth upon the bond. It was thereupon ordered that unless cause were shown to the contrary, ‘ an injunction is awarded against the defendant his counsellors attorneys and solicitors for stay of [his] proceedings at the common law upon the … bond until the matter shall be heard and determined or otherwise ordered by this court ’. While the facts of Hutchins v Martin may catch the eye, it is merely one instance of the injunctions against proceedings in another court – known as common injunctions which appear with great frequency in the early seventeenth-century Chancery register ’ s books. It is very well known that the issuing of common injunctions after judgment at law was at the heart of the controversy between Sir Edward Coke CJKB, and Lord Ellesmere C which flared up in the 1610s. But little is otherwise known about common injunctions in the early seventeenth century. Drawing upon a sample of just over 300 entries concerning common injunctions gathered from the first 50 folios of register ’ s books for 1605 – 06, 1613 – 14, 1614 – 15, 1615 – 16, 1616 – 17, 1617 – 18 and 1626 – 27, together with a small number of instances gathered from earlier years, this chapter begins to fill the gap.