Robert Calvin, born in Scotland in November 1605, was granted estates in England, but his rights to that were challenged on the grounds that, as a Scot, he could not legally own English land.

The lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton, 1st Viscount Brackley, alongside 14 judges gathered in the Exchequer Chamber ruled in Calvin's favour, finding that he was not an alien and did have the right to hold land in England.

[13] Objections were also raised that granting naturalisation to all the Scots would have encouraged the legal philosophy, espoused by James, of absolute monarchy and the divine right of kings.

[16][17][18] Some scholars believed that the case did not fit America's situation, and thus reasoned that the 18th century colonists could "claim all the rights and protections of English citizenship".

[19] Owing to its inclusion in the standard legal treatises of the nineteenth century (compiled by Edward Coke, William Blackstone, and James Kent), Calvin's Case was well known in the early judicial history of the United States.