Henry Hallam (1777–1859) was educated at King's College, Cambridge, and turned to the study of history and literature after tiring of the legal profession. In his first book, A View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages (1818), he documents the development of the English constitution until the demise of the house of Plantagenet at the end of the fifteenth century. A direct continuation of this theme, and Hallam's most famous book, this two-volume work covers a three-century period from the reign of Henry VII to the death of George II in 1760. First published in 1827, it focuses on the history of the laws and institutions of England (including the Church of England); its somewhat arbitrary cut-off point was chosen because Hallam hoped to avoid the stirring of political passions then still in the recent past. Volume 1 covers the period from 1485 to 1642.