Sir William Blackstone

Wikipedia entry has extensive information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blackstone

First paragraph of wiki entry:

English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the Commentaries on the Laws of England. Born into a middle-class family in London, Blackstone was educated at Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke College, Oxford in 1738. After switching to and completing a Bachelor of Civil Law degree, he was made a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford on 2 November 1743, admitted to Middle Temple, and called to the Bar there in 1746. Following a slow start to his career as a barrister, Blackstone became heavily involved in university administration, becoming accountant, treasurer and bursar on 28 November 1746 and Senior Bursar in 1750. Blackstone is considered responsible for completing the Codrington Library and Warton Building, and simplifying the complex accounting system used by the college. On 3 July 1753 he formally gave up his practise as a barrister and instead embarked on a series of lectures on English law, the first of their kind. These were massively successful, earning him a total of £56,000 in 2012 terms, and led to the publication of An Analysis of the Laws of England in 1756, which repeatedly sold out and was used to preface his later works.

Excerpts from: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/biographies/william-blackstone/

Blackstone believed the king could do no wrong. However, "Blackstone was not a pure monarchist. In his perfect world, which he believed the United Kingdom of his day closely resembled, Parliament played a central role as the source of legislation, and within Parliament the House of Commons and the House of Lords balanced each other. Blackstone did not invent the concept of separation of powers but he made the idea concrete and accessible for others to use."

" The philosophy of the Declaration of Independence asserting the "self-evident" "unalienable Rights" of people granted by "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" could have come, and probably did, from Blackstone's description of the rights of Englishmen under the British Constitution. The indictment against the Crown, the bulk of the Declaration, recites many of the absolute rights of individuals covered by Blackstone including the prohibition of taxation without consent. Thomas Jefferson, the chief drafter of the Declaration, was certainly familiar with Blackstone.

In 1761 " he was appointed a King's Counselor and elected to the House of Commons. Blackstone was a loyal if undistinguished Tory, voting, for example, against the repeal of the Stamp Act directed against the American colonies."

"In 177O Blackstone was knighted and accepted an appointment as a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. Blackstone was often in poor health, and was irritable and impatient on the bench. As a judge his record was no more distinguished than his time at the Bar. He died of dropsy on Feb 14, 1780 at the age of 57, four years after the American Revolution he unintentionally inspired."