Godden v Hales (1686) 11 St Tr 1166
Catholics; constitution; religious penal laws
(309 words)
Facts
Sir Edward Hales was a member of the House of Commons and a close associate of King James II. He converted to catholicism in 1685. He subsequently received the command of a regiment of foot from the King, a position that would have normally required him, among other things, to receive Holy Communion in the Church of England and to take the oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance – i.e. actions that could not be done by a Catholic. Sir Hales’s servant (acting on his lord’s instruction), Mr Godden, brought legal action against him and he was convicted. Hales appealed to the Court of King’s Bench.
Issues
Sir Hales argued that he had evidence – in the form of letters from the King – that exempted him from taking the required oaths. Mr Godden claimed that such an exemption would be invalid. The Court had to decide whether the monarch possessed the power to dispense from religious penal laws on an individual basis. The case was in fact a set-up by the government to confirm the King’s dispensing power.
Decision/Outcome
The Court found in favour of Hales. It made the comparison that God could dispense with divine laws, so the legislator should be able to dispense with man-made laws where appropriate (there may be situations the lawmaker did not expect or think of when it made the law, exceptions shoud be allowed). The Court summarised its findings by saying that English monarch were sovereigns and English laws were thus the monarch’s laws. Consequently, English monarchs had an inseparable prerogative to dispense with penal laws in individual cases and where this was necessary. The monarch was the sole judge of the meaning of necessity. Finally, this power to dispense with penal laws was vested in the monarch by ancient rules of sovereign power and prerogative that could not be taken away from them.
Updated 19 March 2026
This article accurately summarises the facts, issues, and outcome of Godden v Hales (1686) as a matter of legal history. The dispensing power confirmed by this case was effectively abolished by the Bill of Rights 1689, which declared the suspending or dispensing power as claimed and exercised by the Crown to be illegal. That constitutional development is not mentioned in the article but is highly relevant context for students: the case is studied primarily as an illustration of the pre-1689 constitutional settlement and the limits placed on royal prerogative following the Glorious Revolution. No subsequent statutory or case law development affects the historical accuracy of the summary itself, though readers should be aware that the legal position described reflects seventeenth-century constitutional law and has no continuing practical application.
