Fortescue's most significant works were composed in Scotland and France, where the Lancastrian party had taken refuge, between 1463 and 1471. Taken together, "Opusculum de natura legis naturæ et de ejus censura in successione regnorum suprema" ("A Small Work on the Nature of the Law of Nature, and on its Judgment on the Succession to Supreme Office in Kingdoms", c. 1463), "De laudibus legum Angliæ" (1468–1471), and a work written in English around 1471 which was later published as "The Difference between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy" (1714) and as "The Governance of England" (1885), provide the first discussion of the political and conceptual underpinnings of the common law, besides commenting on England’s constitutional framework. His works, in particular the masterly vindication of the laws of England "De laudibus legum Angliæ", circulated in manuscript in late medieval England and were cited by the leading thinkers of the early Tudor period, among them the printer and playwright John Rastell and the lawyer Christopher St. Germain. "De laudibus legum Angliae" did not appear in print until about 1543 in the reign of Henry VIII as "Prenobilis militis, cognomento Forescu "qui temporibus Henrici sexti floruit, de politica administratione, et legibus ciuilibus florentissimi regni Anglie, commentarius" ("Commentary on Political Administration and on the Civil Laws of the Most Flourishing Kingdom of England, of the Very Noble Knight, surnamed Forescu "[sic", who Flourished during the Reign of Henry VI"). It was subsequently reprinted many times under different titles.