This chapter focuses on comparison. It considers the effect on access to justice of abolishing the assizes and disposing of court buildings. Civil procedure has been transformed, formalism is less important, but there is eternal tension between practical efficiency and desire for absolute justice. Land law is less dominant today, even though for the first time a majority of householders are freehold-owners. Torts law has been transformed by the ever-expanding boundaries of negligence, though contract law looks very similar. While public law has moved in several new directions, judicial review’s roots are Elizabethan. Most of today’s human rights were recognised then. Judicial decisions have changed in character as a result of abolishing the civil jury; the public is less involved with traditional-type law. Debt-collection aside, horizontal disputes are less prominent than vertical claims, and tribunals have grown in importance. The complexity of statute-law and regulation today means that citizens have less understanding of the law than Elizabethans. One consequence is that the legal profession is ten times larger (in proportion to the population) than that of Elizabethan England.

This chapter continues with the differences between then and now and explores the difficulties of an evaluative comparison. The question is approached in terms of the rule of law, as now understood. In terms of accessibility, efficiency and fairness, in the sphere of civil justice the scales seem to be evenly balanced between the two periods. The criminal law, on the other hand, is now more protective of the accused and less severe; the removal of the death penalty, however, has led to the removal of some of the older safeguards. A meaningful comparison of the substantive content of the law in both periods is hindered by the intervening social changes and by changing attitudes to property and personal autonomy. The transformation of family law is a case in point. Nevertheless, the ultimate conclusion is that the law under two Elizabeths is in essence the same organism, facing similar challenges, and tackling them in recognisably similar ways. Much of what we regard as achievements of modern enlightenment should in fact be credited to the lawyers of the sixteenth century and the common-law heritage.