This study is devoted chiefly to Ellesmere's career and writings as Lord Chancellor, 1603 1617.

Part I. Law and Politics: 1. The Making of a Legal Mind; 2. Kingship and the Problem of Sovereignty; 3. Lords and Commons; 4. Reforming Privy Councillors: Crown Finances and the Administration of Government; 5. The Problem of Law Reform; 6. The Clash of Jurisdictions: Central and Local Authorities, Secular and Ecclesiastical; 7. Les Enfants Terribles: Coke, Ellesmere, and the Supremacy of the Chancellor's Decree; 8. The Provenance of Ellesmere's Tracts; Part II. Ellesmere's Tracts: 9. 'A Coppie of a wrytten discourse by the Lord Chauncellor Elsemore concerning the Royall Prerogative' (c. 1604); 10. 'The Speech of the Lord Chancellor of England, in the Eschequer Chamber, touching the Post-Nati' (1608); 11. 'Special obseruacions touching all the sessions of the last parlement anno 7 Regis and etc.' (1611); 12. 'Thinges to be Considered of before a parlement to be Called' (1615); 13. 'Memorialles for Iudicature. Pro Bono Publico' (c. 1609); 14. 'Some Notes, and Remembrances, concerning Prohibitians, for Staying of suites in the Ecclesiastical Courts, and in the Courts of the Admiraltie' (1611); 15. 'The Lord Chancellor Egertons Observations upon ye Lord Cookes Reportes' (1615); 16. A breviate or direccion for the Kinges learned Councell collected by the Lord Chauncellor Ellesmere, mense septembris 1615 Anno Yacobi Regis'.