Starting about 1615 when Roger Williams was about 12, he apprenticed under Sir Edward Coke, the famous jurist. Coke was a prominent defender of free speech and one of England’s bravest defenders of human rights at a time when a new king was trying to restrict popular liberties. There is no doubt Sir Edward Coke influenced Roger Williams, and there is no doubt Roger Williams influenced America’s founding fathers both directly and indirectly.
In the shadowed forests of the Late Carboniferous, long before mammals, birds, or even dinosaurs,
