The jurist Sir Matthew Hale (1609-76) was Chief Justice from May 18, 1671 until his death on Christmas Day, 1676. He is best known to the sexual grievance industry and legal dominance feminism for his comments on rape, including marital rape.
Historia Placitorum Coronæ was his magnum opus. Titled in English The History Of The Pleas Of The Crown, it was published posthumously only in 1736.
This file contains the front cover and pages 634-5 of Volume I from the 1847 American edition; the full work can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. His comments about rape being an easy allegation to make, harder to prove, and even harder to defend, appear at the bottom of page 634. This is followed by the mention of two cases, one from Sussex Assizes and the other from Northampton Assizes, both of which involved clearly false allegations of actual rape. The first case was one Hale himself tried. I have been unable to find the cases concerned, but they are beyond the scope of this database which covers cases only from 1674 to the present.
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