THE JUDGES OF ENGLAND; SKETCHES OF THEIR LIVES, AND MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES CONNECTED WITH THE COURTS AT WESTMINSTER, FROM THE TIME OF THE CONQUEST. BY EDWA11D FOSS, F.S.A OF THE INNER TEMFLK, VOL. VI. CONTAINING THE IIEIGNS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES I. ; AND THE INTERREGNUM. 1603—1660. LONDON: V LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS, ik ROBERTS. 1857. •served. London : Printed by Spottiswoode & Co. New-street Square. CONTENTS THE SIXTH VOLUM E. Page James I., 1608—1625. Survey of the Reign - - - 1 — 48 Biographical Notices - 49 — 206 Charles I., 1625—1649. Survey of the Reign - - - 207—248 Biographical Notices - - - 249 — 396 Interregnum, 1649 — 1660. Survey of the Period - - - 397—416 Biographical Notices - - - 417—523 Index, in which the names of the Judges are given - 525 — 527 THE I l)(i Ks OF ENGLAND. JAMES I. Reigned 22 years and 3 days, from March 24, 1603, to March 27, 1625. SURVEY OF THE REIGN. King James was not content with merely resuming the practice adopted by some of his predecessors, of occasionally appearing in the Court of King's Bench, when the chief justice made way for him and sat at his feet l ; but he even claimed and attempted to exercise a judicial power. This led to a very amusing discussion between his Majesty and the judges, in which Sir Edward Coke, having stated that it was not competent for the king to decide questions of law, the king said, " that he thought the law was founded upon reason, and that he and others had reason as well as the judges." To this Coke answered, " That true it was, that God had endowed his Majesty with excellent science and great endowments of nature, but his Majesty was not learned in the laws of his realm, and causes which concern the life, or inheritance, or goods, or fortunes of his subjects, they are not to be decided by natural reason, but by the artificial reason and judgment of law ; which law is an act which requires long study and experience before that a man can 1 State Trials, iii. 942. VOL. VI. B 2 ROYAL INTERFERENCE. James 1. attain to the cognizance of it; and that the law was the golden mete-wand and measure to try the causes of the sub- jects ; and which protected his Majesty in safety and peace." The king, greatly offended, said, " That then he should be under the law, which was treason to affirm : " wherewith Coke replied, i( Bracton saith, Quod rex non debet esse sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege." y Though the manly resistance of Sir Edward Coke in this instance prevailed, the king could not altogether refrain from interfering with the practice of the courts. He enjoined Lord Ellesmere to delay one suit for the convenience of a defend- ant, " because he had in the parliament house showed himself forward in our service ; " and to hasten the proceedings in another, that he might be Cf freed from the continuall impor- tunities " of the parties. 2 His attempts to supersede law by proclamations 3; his calling the judges to account for judgments they had given 4 ; his i( auricular taking of opinions " from them, as Coke called it, with a view to future conviction 5 ; and the reprimand he gave them for disobeying his mandate not to proceed in a private cause till they had first consulted him6; betray his unfortunate propensity to intermeddle. Such a course could not but tend to degrade the judicial character, and to withdraw from the bench that respect and veneration which had hitherto been its invariable attendants : and the advice given by Bacon " to make some example against the presumption of a judge, whereby the whole body of those magistrates may be contained in better awe," 7 showed too ready a disposition to assist the sovereign in destroying the independence of the bench, and converting the judges from being expounders of the law, to be mere instruments for the execution of the royal mandates. How far the direful 1 12 Coke's Reports, 65. 2 Egerton Papers, 464. 483. 8 12 Reports, 74. 4 ibid. 51. s Johnson's Life of Coke, i. 246. 8 Bacon's Works (Montagu), vii. 307 — 338. 7 Ibid. xii. 36. 1603—1625. CORRUPTION OF LAWYERS. 6 events of the next reign are to be attributed to Bacon's counsels, must be a subject of serious reflection with those who consider that one of the principal causes which led to the discontent of the people, was the corruption of the law and the subservience of its administrators. Coke's sturdiness had few imitators among his colleagues. That they succumbed and acknowledged their error is not to be wondered at, since it is more than probable that they had paid for their places. The general corruption of this reign, which notoriously pervaded almost every department of the state, extended itself to the courts of justice and those con- nected with them. The proceedings against Lord Chancellor Bacon show that bribery was common, though dignified with the title of presents and new year's gifts. An entry in the archives of the borough of Lyme Regis leaves " to the mayor's discretion wliat gratuity he will give to the lord chief baron and his men " at the assizes in 1620, when their charter was in question.1 No place or dignity but had its price. Sir James Ley offered the Duke of Buckingham 10,000/. for the office of attorney-general ; and Sir Henry Yelverton, though he would not condescend to barter for it, felt himself constrained by the common practice, when he was appointed, to present the sum of 4000/. into the hands of his Majesty. Even the dignity of the coif could not be obtained without a payment to the king or those about him of 600/. ; and Sir George Croke, by his refusal to submit to the imposition, enhanced the respect with which his character was regarded.2 The question that had long been agitated between the courts of Common Law and the Chancery as to the juris- diction of the latter over the decisions of the former was now 1 Walter Yonge's Diary, 37. 2 Judge Whitelocke's Diary, quoted in Montagu's Works of Bacon (Life), vol. xvi. p. cccix. note, D 2 4 CHANCELLORS AND KEEPERS. James I. brought to a conclusion, principally in consequence of the violent proceedings of Sir Edward Coke. That great lawyer was dismissed ; and the functions claimed by the chancellor were finally established. The Great Seal during this reign was in the hands of three persons only. The first two were lawyers, who, after being intrusted with it with the title of lord keeper, were honoured with the higher designation of lord chancellor. The third, after an interval of more than fifty years, was again se- lected from churchmen, and bore the title of lord keeper only. Lord Chancellors and Keepers. Sir Thomas Egerton, in whose hands the Great Seal had been for the last seven years of Elizabeth's life, was continued in the office of lord keeper by King James ; who on July 19, 1603, created him Lord Ellesmere, and on the 24th, con- stituted him lord chancellor.1 On November 7, 1616, the title of Viscount Brackley was bestowed upon him ; and on March 3, 1617, his infirmities obliged him to resign the Seal, which was given to Sir Francis Bacon, the attorney-general, on March 7, with the title of lord keeper, which was exchanged on the fourth of the following January for that of lord chan- cellor.2 He was successively created Lord Verulam on July 11, 1618, and Viscount St. Albans on January 27, 1621. The disgraceful exposure which took place after he had held the office for five years, obliged the king to resume the Seal on May 1, 1621, when a commission was issued to Sir Julius Ca3sar, master of the Rolls, Baron Bromley, and Justices Winch, Doderidge, and Sutton, with the masters in Chancery, to hear causes in that court ; with two other commissions, one authorising Chief Justice Sir James Ley to act in the House of Peers, and another to three lords, with power to 1 Rot. Claus. 1 Jac. I., p. 12. 2 Ibid. 16 Jac. L, n. 13. 1603—1625. CHANCELLORS AND KEEPERS. — SEAL. 5 perform the other duties devolving on the lord chancellor. These commissions remained in force for about two months, when John Williams, Dean of Westminster, and bishop de- signate of Lincoln, was on July 10, 1621, constituted lord keeper1; which he continued to hold till the death of the king on March 27, 1625. The allowances to the lord chancellor and lord keeper are detailed in various patents. He was to receive " for his wages, diettes, robes, and liveries of himself and the masters of our Chancery " from the keeper of the Hanaper 5427. 15s. sterling by the year ; also 50/. for every term, and 300/. by the year for his attendance in the Star Chamber: from the chief butler, 60/. for twelve tuns of wine by the year, and from the keeper of the great wardrobe, 16/. for his wax.2 What his emoluments were beyond these allowances does not ap- pear ; but some idea of them may be formed from the detail subsequently given of the profits of the master of the Rolls and their sources. Queen Elizabeth's Great Seal was used by King James for more than four months after his accession. On July 19, 1603, at Hampton Court it was returned to the king, who first struck it with a mallet, and then Charles Anthony, the royal seal engraver, totally destroyed it. Nothing is said as to the appropriation of the pieces as a perquisite to the lord keeper, to whom a new seal was then delivered.3 Within two years this was found to be defective ; " the canape over the picture of our face is so lowe imbossed, that therby the same seale in that place therof doth easily bruse and take disgrace." An authority was thereupon given to Charles Anthony "to imbosse and engrave the said canape over the picture of our face higher and deeper ; " and this was accord- 1 Clauft. 19 Jac. I., p. 13. n. 1. ■ Rymcr, xvi. 541., xvii. 1. 55. 311. jrmer, xvi. 495. B 3 6 MASTERS OF THE ROLLS. James I. ingly done in the chancellor's house on the 28th of June, 1605.1 Camden, in his annals of this reign, notices the t( solemn, procession in mighty pomp " of Sir Francis BziGon, keeper of the Great Seal, to Westminster on the first day of the term after his appointment : — 1. Clerks and inferior officers in Chancery. 2. Students in law. 3. Gentlemen, servants to the keeper, serjeants-at-arms, and the seal bearer : — all on foot. 4. Himself, on horseback, in a gown of purple satin, between the treasurer and the keeper of the Privy Seal. 5. Earls, barons, privy councillors. 6. Noblemen of all ranks. 7. Judges, to whom the next place to the privy councillors was as- signed. That the custom, which has only been lately discontinued, of the lord chancellor having a nosegay of aromatic herbs, prevailed in this reign, is proved by the authority of Bacon, who in one of his letters to the king, says " It is my lord chancellor's fashion, especially towards the summer, to carry a posy of wormwood.2 Masters of the Eolls. Sir Thomas Egerton, who during the seven years he had been lord keeper to Queen Elizabeth had also held the office of master of the Rolls, was allowed to retain it for nearly two months after King James's accession. Edward Bruce, Lord Kinloss, a senator of the College of Justice in Scotland, was appointed on May 18, 1603. After holding the office about seven years he died in it, and was succeeded by Sir Edward Phellips, serjeant-at-law, on January 14, 1611. He had in 1608 procured a grant of it in reversion 1 Egerton Tapers, 402. 2 Bacon's Works (Montagu), xii. 36. 1603—1625. MASTERS OF THE ROLLS. 7 on Lord Kinloss's death, with a proviso in the patent that the grant should not operate as a precedent; and yet no sooner was Kinloss dead than a similar reversionary grant, to take effect on the death of Sir Edward Phellips, which occurred on September 11, 1614, was made to Sir Julius C^sar, chancellor and under treasurer of the Exchequer ; who obtained a new patent of the place on October 1, 1614, and retained it during the king's life. The emoluments of the office of master of the Rolls, by an account of actual receipts in the four terms preserved among the Lansdowne MSS. vol. 161. No. 329., appear to have been in 1608-9, 1987/. 8s.; and in 1609-10, 2110/. 5s. 9d. In No. 334 of the same volume is a " General view of fees due to the master of the Rolls, 20 Sept., 1614," which gives the following detail of the profits : — " The moytie of the casual fynes payed by the Cursitors upon original writts, and nowe receaved by Whitby, the Lo. Chancellor's servant, and yerely accompted for by him to the Mr. of the Holies " - " - - - - - - 900u. " Fees due for Patents passed the Great Seale, payed and ac- compted for by the Clerk of the Hanaper at th' end of every terme, being iis for every xxs payed for the seale of any Patent, and so pro rata ------ CCU. " Fees due for several busynes in the Pettie bagg - •• 400u. " Fees due out of the Offices of the six Clerks, for decrees, dis- missions, exemplifications, and dedims potestatem upon Sheriff's patents, and Escheator's patents - 300H. " Fees due from the Clerks of the Inrollments for deeds and recognizances inrolled, and for cancellacons - 200H. " Fees due from the Clerks of the Chappell - 20011. A Fee allowed oute of the Exchequer yerelie for exacacon of extracted Holies ------ iou. " The Rents of tenements and houses yerelie belonging to the Mr. of the Holies ------ i60u. " In toto p. computac. - - 237011.' This computation was made on the appointment of Sir Julius Caesar, who, in 1631, subjoined the following note: — B 4 8 MASTERS IN CHANCERY. James I. " Thus the proverb is verified : He that accompts without his hoast must accompt againe : — This exceedeth truth by much ; for I found it but at 2200 lib. or thereabouts, in my first yere ; and since abated by litle and litle, so that this last yere it amounted but to 1600 lib. or thereabouts, and no more; and in Q. Elizabeth's time at 1500, or 1400, or 1300, or 1200, or 1100."1 Masters in Chancery. Sir Thomas Egerton, M. R. Edward Bruce, Lord Kinloss, M. It. Sir Matthew Carew, LL. D. Sir Richard Swale, LL. D. Sir Edward Stanhope, LL. D. Thomas Legge, LL. D.- John Hone, LL. D.- William or John Hunt, LL. D. Sir John Amye, LL. D. - Sir John Tyndall 2 George Carewe - Edward Grymstone Henry Hickman, LL. D. Henry Thoresbye - Sir John Bennet, LL. D. - Sir Thomas Crompton, LL. D. Sir Thomas Ridley, LL. D. Sir Edward Phellips, M. R. Gregory Bonhault Sir Julius Caesar, M. R. - Francis James, LL. D. John Wolveridge - Sir Charles Caesar, LL. D. Richard More - - - Sir John Hayward, LL. D. Ewball Thelwall - 1 Jac. I. 1 to 8 — 1 to 16 — 1 to 6 — 1 to 5 — 1 to 5 — 1 to 14 — 1 to 13 — 1 to 19 — 1 to 14 — 1 to 10 — 1 to ? — 1 to 13 — 5 to 13 — 5 to 19 — 6 — 6 to 17 — 8 to 12 — 10 to 12 — 12 to 23 — 12 to 23 — 13 to 22 — 13 to 23 — 13 to 23 — 14 to 23 — 14 to 23 __ 1 Lodge's Life of Sir Julius Caesar, 1810, p. 31. 2 Sir John Tyndall was shot on Nov. 12, 1616, by Mr. Barham, a disap- pointed suitor, who afterwards hanged himself in prison. Diary of Walter Yonge, p. 28. 1603—1625. JUDGES. 9 Robert Rich . - - _ 16 to 23 Jac. I. John Michel! - - - - 17 to 23 — Edward Salter - - - - 19 to 23 — Edward Leech - - - - 19 to 23 — Sir William Birde, LL. D. - - 19 to 22 — Sir Peter Mutton - - •• 22 to 23 — Edward Clarke - - - - 22 to 23 — The offices of the Six Clerks in Chancery Lane were burned down on December 19, 1621 l; and the Rolls in their custody having been consumed, a proclamation was imme- diately issued for the relief of those who had suffered by the loss, and to remedy the inconvenience thereby occasioned.2 In the first year of his reign, King James thought proper to add another judge to the four who sat in each of the courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas ; giving as his reason for doing so, that " many times in cases of great difficulty the judges being equally divided in opinion in either court, the matter depended long undecided." Sir David Williams was accordingly added to the Court of King's Bench, and Sir William Daniel to the Common Pleas ; his majesty saying that " Numero Deus impare gaudet." 3 It is to be presumed that the alteration did not answer his expectation, for the odd number was discontinued after the eleventh year. The salaries paid to the judges from the Exchequer in the time of Sir Edward Coke, were, to the chief justice of the King's Bench 224/. 19s. 4c/., to the chief justice of the Com- mon Pleas, 161/. 13s. 4c/., and to each of the judges of those courts, 154/. 1 9s. 8d. They all received, in addition, 33/. 6s. 8d. a year for their circuits, together with their diet and tra- velling expenses. The chief baron was paid the same as the puisne judges, and the other barons had only 133/. 6s. 8d. each.4 Their income, therefore, which greatly exceeded that 1 Diary of W. Yonge, 48. ' ike, Pref. to i Report - Itymcr, xvii. 347. 1 Johnson's Life of Coke-, i. 348, 10 JUDGES. — KING'S BENCH. James I. amount, must have principally arisen from the fees appertain- ing to their offices. Some of the judges when they went the circuit, adopted the ridiculous fashion of carrying a large fan, with a handle at least half a yard long. Sir William Dugdale (who, how- ever, could not have been above ten years old) saw Sir Ed- ward Coke with such a fan ; and the Earl of Manchester (Sir Edward Montagu) also used one.1 The plague visited London soon after James's accession, so that Trinity Term was obliged to be adjourned, and Mi- chaelmas Term was held at Winchester. A further visita- tion in 1606 occasioned Michaelmas Term to be delayed for three weeks: and in 1625, Michaelmas Term was kept at Reading.2 After the gunpowder plot, the court and law business were on every 5th of November "intermitted for a little in the morning, whilst the judges in their robes went solemnly to the great church at Westminster, to give God thanks for our great delivery from the powder treason, and hear a sermon touching it ; which done, they return to their benches." 3 Chief Justices of the King's Bench. Sir John Popham, the chief justice of the last reign, con- tinued in his place for the remainder of his life. Sir Thomas Fleming, the chief baron of the Exchequer, succeeded him on June 25, 1607, and presided till his death. His place was filled by Sir Edward Coke, the chief justice of the Common Pleas, on October 25, 1613, till his discharge three years afterwards; when Sir Henry Montagu, recorder of London and king's 1 Legal Observer, ii. 352. ; Diary of Walter Yonge, 89. 2 Rymer, xvi. 555. ; Croke Jac. 3 Spelman, Reliq. p. 93. 1603- 1625. KING'S BENCH. — COMMON PLEAS. 11 serjeant, was raised to the chief justiceship on November 16, 1616; and filled the office till he was appointed lord high treasurer. Sir James Ley, attorney of the Court of Wards and Live- ries, was then advanced to the head of the court on January 29, 1621 ; and retired from it, like his predecessor, on obtain- ing the treasurership. Sir Ranulphe Crew, one of the king's Serjeants, was thereupon constituted chief justice on January 26, 1625, only two months before the king's death on March 27. Justices of the King's Bench. I. 1603. March. Francis Gawdy, -| the former judges, Edward Fenner, J- received new pa- Christopher Yelverton, J tents. 1604. Feb. 4. David Williams, a fifth judge, was added. III. 1606. Jan. 13. Laurence Tanfield, vice F. Gawdy. V. 1607. June 25. John Croke, vice L. Tanfield. X. 1612. Nov. 25. John Doderidge, vice C. Yelverton. XL 1613. April 21. Robert Houghton, vice D. Williams. XVIII. 1620. Oct. 8. Thomas Chamberlayne, vice J. Croke. XXII. 1624. Oct. 17. William Jones, vice R. Houghton. 18. James Whitelocke, vice T. Chamberlayne. The fifth judge of this court had been discontinued at the death of Sir Edward Fenner. At the end of the reign the judges were Sir Ranulphe Crew, chief justice, Sir John Doderidge, Sir William Jones, Sir James AVhitelocke. Chief Justices of the Common Pleas. Sir Edmund Anderson, Queen Elizabeth's venerable chief justice of the Common Pleas, received a new patent, and presided in the court for nearly two years and a half under King James. At his death, Sir Francis Gawdy, one of the justices of the King's Bench, was raised to the chief seat in the Common Picas on August 26, 1G05 ; but died within a year, when 12 COMMON PLEAS. — EXCHEQUER. James I. Sir Edward Coke, the attorney-general, was constituted chief justice on June 30, 1606. On his advancement to the head of the Court of King's Bench, Sir Henry Hobart, the attorney -general, succeeded him on November 26, 1613, and presided in this court for the rest of the reign. 1604. Feb. 3. III. 1606. Jan. V. 1607. Nov. 24. IX. 1611. Nov. 7. X. 1612. Nov. 26. XV. 1617. May 3. XIX. 1621. XXI. 1624. Feb. 11. XXII. Oct. 18. Justices op the Common Pleas. I. 1603. March. Thomas Walmesley, 1 resumedtheirseafs George Kingsmnl, > , _ to___ , & under new patents. Peter Warburton J William Daniel, a fifth judge, was added. Thomas Coventry, vice G. Kingsmill. Thomas Foster, vice T. Coventry. Humphrey Winch, vice W. Daniel. Augustine Nichols, vice T.Walmesley. Richard Hutton, vice A. Nichols. William Jones, vice P. Warburton. George Croke, vice T. Foster. Francis Harvey, vice W. Jones. The four judges of this court, the place of Sir Humphrey Winch not having been filled, at the end of the reign were Sir Henry Hobart, chief justice, Sir Richard Hutton, Sir George Croke, Sir Francis Harvey. Chief Barons of the Exchequer. Sir William Peryam, retaining his former place of chief baron, enjoyed it for about eighteen months under James I. Upon his death, Sir Thomas Fleming, then solicitor-general, was ap- pointed on October 27, 1604; but being removed in less than three years to the chief justiceship of the King's Bench, he was succeeded by Sir Laurence Tanfield, a judge of the King's Bench, on June 25, 1607, who continued to preside in the Exchequer for the remainder of the king's reign. 1603— 1G2- EXCHEQUER. 13 Barons of the Exchequer. I. 1603. March. John Sotherton, Robert Clarke, John Savile received new patents for their former places. II. 1604. Oct. 14. IV. 1606. July 8. 1607. Feb. 9. V. Nov. 5. VII. 1610. Feb. 6. VIII. May 26. Oct. 24. XV. 1617. May 2. George Snigg, as a fifth baron. Nowell Sotherton, vice J. Sotherton. James Altham, vice J. Savile. Edward Heron, vice R. Clarke. Edward Bromley, vice E. Heron. Thomas Cajsar. John Sotherton. John Denham, vice J. Altham. These three seem to have been merely cursitor barons. The bench of the Exchequer at the end of this reign was filled by Sir Laurence Tanfield, chief baron. Sir Edward Bromley Sir John Denham. Sir George Snigg's place was not filled up. Table of the Chancellors and Keepers of the Seal, and of the masters of the rolls. A. R A.D. Lord Chancellors and Keepers. Masters of the Rolls. 1 1 603. March 24 Sir Thomas Egcrton, Keeper Sir Thomas Egerton May 18 — Edward Bruce, Lord Kinloss. July 19 created Lord Ellesmere — 24 — Chancellor — 8 1611. Jan. 14 — Sir Edward Phellips 1614. Sept. 11 *— Sir Julius Caesar. 12 1616. Nov. 7 created Viscount Brackley — 14 1617. March 3 resigned — 7 Sir Francis Bacon, Keeper — 1618. Jan. 4 „ „ Chancellor — 15 July 1 1 created Lord Verulum — 1G 1621. Jan. 27 „ Viscount St. Albans — 18 May 1 removed — 19 July 10 John Williams, Bishop of Lin- coln, Keeper The king died March 27, 1625. 14 KING'S BENCH. James I. M g w H O CO O P P 1-3 P 3 a OB 5 £ * s .2 1 1 1 to S c PC 1 1 1 1 a o 1-9 S 1 2 '? I J P o £ d o 01 1 1 1 o to 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 VI 0) J3 5 ■tl b O a 2 P 5 !a a s O H En O w W CD o g a | 1 1 p s & Cbi 1-5 Is & -a W 0) s R _£3 2 "3 2 cd 1 s S3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 c | B 2 ? a o rt c 5 5 n3 a XI c S c H s I ai O fe to C B £ D s 1 X! ft 1 1 1 1 1 s o | a s CU 1 s*. I O a O Ph a | 3 1 0 ! 1 c H H K *■* « P J3 -* cc us cm CM m CM 2 00 si cc to ' c & «< c > C i •-8 o e« CO o s 8 | 2 2" «? CM CM CM > *o a £ 3 a. ■3 S P 3 PC a • £> bin 111111=1=1 iP •-s £ £ £ .2 fa a c £ £ I II Is I I 1 1 1 1 lg If 1 1 1 1 c ^ a *3 if 0 l| I I IS I I 1 I I 6 I 8 8S..S! 5x5 ^ e C 'i **' > > £? XJjJXJ : 2 - '■=> C — — i- — rN ?l CI CO tC O tD tD CO .- 11 3 ° «_ O ' 3 V^k-Z^^CS >\rf a > XJ >•« & >0 *i-»6>-»35Ck«OJB |1 ss O t^ 00 iC 16 CURSITOR BARON. James I. The name of CuRSITOB Baron first occurs in this reign, in an order of the Inner Temple, to be presently noticed ; and that such an officer, distinct from the rest of the barons, was now for the first time appointed, seems to be fully es- tablished by a consideration of the following facts. It is true that the office of cursitor baron is, according to the general acceptation, as old as the Exchequer itself, whether the introduction of that department of the state is dated at the time of the Conquest, or in the reign of Henry I. And for this there is some semblance of probability ; for the same duties which were, till a recent alteration1, entrusted to the cursitor baron, have been performed by some officer of the Exchequer from the most distant period. It has therefore not unnaturally been presumed that the executor of those duties in ancient times bore the same title as the officer of the present day. But if it were so, how is it that we never meet with the name of cursitor baron for more than five centuries after the introduction of the Exchequer ? Is it not rather extraordinary that it never occurs in any ancient record? — that it is not mentioned in the elaborate history of the court by Madox? — and that it is not noticed in any subsequent work, from the end of the reign of Edward II., at which Madox terminates his history, till the early part of that of James I. ? This universal silence — especially on the part of that careful historian Madox, who gives the name and describes the duty of every officer of the court, from the chief justiciary who presided, down to the pesour and the fusour of the metal — cannot fail to create in the mind of any intelligent inquirer a strong doubt whether an officer so called then existed ; and to induce him to seek for some further evidence, 1 By stat. 3 and 4 William IV. c. 99., some of these duties are now trans- ferred to the Commissioners for Auditing Public Accounts. 1603—1625. CURSITOR BARON. 17 in the hope of finding the time when, and the reason for which, he was actually created. The principal duty devolving upon the cursitor baron, until the recent act of parliament, was the examination and passing of the accounts of the sheriffs of all the counties in Eng- land. There can be no doubt that this duty was origin- ally performed by one of the regular barons, and that at one time they used to travel for some of the purposes connected with it. By a statute of Edward I., it is enacted, " that at one time certain every year, one baron and one clerk of our said Exchequer shall be sent through every shire of England, to inroll the names of all such as have paid that year's debts exacted on them by green wax. And the same baron and clerk shall view all such tallies and inroll them. And shall hear and determine complaints made against sheriffs and their clerks and bailiffs, that have done contrary to the premisses."1 The examination of the sheriffs' accounts was generally per- formed in London, and when completed, the baron and the clerk assisting him signed their names at the head. It does not distinctly appear in what order the barons acted ; but probably they at first took the duty in turn, and, as after the appointment of a chief baron the others were called the second, third, and fourth baron, it then perhaps became the peculiar province of the junior of these three. It is therefore evident that at some period this duty was transferred from the regular barons to a distinct officer ; and in order to discover when and under what circumstances this probably took place, attention must be directed to the changes that have occurred in the ancient constitution of the court In the original institution of the Exchequer, all thejud were lords of the land and actual barons; and until the reign of Henry III. they were indiscriminately shied "Jus- 1 Stat, de Finibus Levatis, 27 Edw. I.; Statutes of the Realm, i. VOL. VI. C 18 CTJRSITOR BARON. James I. ticiarii et Barones." ! On the division of the courts in that reign, the real barons having in the meantime gradually se- ceded from the employment, special persons were assigned to sit in the Exchequer, " tanquam Baro ; " thus retaining the name of baron ; and in order to distinguish their business from that of the two other courts, from which they were now separated, their duty was expressly limited " pro ne- gotiis nostris quaa ad idem Scaccarium pertinent." 2 One of these persons, Alexander de Swereford, had previously been a clerk in the Exchequer, and thus was fully cognizant of all the details of the court. All these barons held equal rank until the reign of Ed- ward II., when, for the first time, one of them was distin- guished by the title of Chief Baron.3 He was sometimes selected from the legal profession ; but the other barons were generally men who had acquired practical knowledge of the revenue in the minor offices of the court. They manifestly held an inferior rank to the judges of the other courts, and were not reckoned among them in judicial proceedings. In the statute of Nisi Prius, 14 Edward III., it is enacted, " that if it happen that none of the justices of the one bench nor of the other come into the county, then the Nisi Prius shall be granted before the chief baron of the Exchequer, if he be a man of the law : " 4 thus excluding the other barons, and even the chief baron, unless he were a regular lawyer. The same distinction occurs in the reign of Henry . IV.5 ; and even the rank of the chief baron does not seem to have been higher than that of the puisne judges of the King's Bench and Common Pleas, if so high; since no less than seven of the chief barons, from the reign of Henry IV. to the middle of that of Henry VIII.6, held, in addition, the 1 Madox's Exchequer, i. 199, 200. 2 Ibid. i. 54. 3 Rot. Pat. 5 Edw. II., p. 2. m. 17. 4 Statutes of the Realm, i. 287. 5 Rot. Parliamentorum, iii. 498. 6 John Cockayne, William Babington, John Juyn, Peter Arderne, Hum- phrey Starkey, John Fitz-James, and Richard Broke. 1603—1625. CURSITOR BARON. 19 judgeship of one of those courts, which two of them subse- quently retained in preference to the office of chief baron. By the poll tax of 2 Richard II., though the chief baron is placed in the same class with the other judges, the puisne ba- rons are not even named ] ; and in a commission in the fifth year of that reign, to inquire into the abuses of the different courts, the barons and great officers of the Exchequer are named after the Serjeants at law.2 Some of the barons in the reign of Henry VI., as Nicholas Dixon, William Derby, and Thomas Levesham, were in holy orders ; others were members of parliament ; and two of them — Roger Hunt and Thomas Thorpe — were speakers of the House of Commons; all during the time they were barons. Fortescue also, who wrote in this reign, does not include them among the judges ; and in reference to the rings given by the Serjeants on taking their degree, says that those for " every justice " must be of the value of " one mark," while " to each baron of the Exchequer, &c." they are to be " of a less value in proportion to their rank and quality." 3 Under Henry VII. and Henry VIIL, the same marked dif- ference still existed, none of them being summoned as attend- ants on the House of Lords, as the judges of the two other benches were, nor being privileged like them to have chap- lains.4 But they were already advancing in legal education, and entering into the inns of Court. Several instances occur of their being members, and even readers there, after they had become barons. But they still were selected principally from the officers of the Exchequer, and one even was raised from the inferior position of clerk of the Pipe.5 No change took place in the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary. One of the barons had been engrosser of the Great 1 Hot. Pari. iii. 58. 2 Ibid. iii. 102. ■ De LaudibtlS (ed. 1741), 115. mites of the Realm, iii. 457. * Nicholas Lathell. — Tint. Pari. vi. 97. c 2 20 CURSITOK BARON. James I. Roll ' ; and at the Serjeants' feasts their servants were not allowed liveries, though those of the judges were provided with them. The rings of the judges were of the value of 16s., while those given to the barons were only 14s. 2, which was still further reduced under Elizabeth to 10s.3 There is no doubt therefore that, from the reign of Henry III. to that of Elizabeth, the barons of the Exchequer were inferior in degree to the judges of the two other courts, and that, in fact, they were little more than superior officers of the revenue, raised to the bench on account either of their long service, or of their known aptness in the details of that department. But by degrees the business of the Exchequer had materially increased ; the causes that were tried there ceased to be confined to cases of revenue ; and by means of the writ of Quo minus all sorts of civil actions were by a le- gal fiction introduced. No wonder, then, that the chief baron, who was the only lawyer among them, required some 'assist- ance to cope with this accumulation of business, and that it was found necessary to graft a little more legal learning on the bench, in order to give weight to decisions on intricate points that were daily arising. Accordingly in the month of June, 1579, 21 Elizabeth, two vacancies in the court, occasioned by death or resignation, afforded the opportunity of trying the experiment. One of them was filled up in the accustomed manner by John So- therton, who had held the office of foreign apposer for twenty years 4 ; but the other was supplied by Robert Shute, as second baron, who for the first time was selected from the Serjeants at law ; and in the patent he received was con- tained a new and special clause, ordering that " he should be reputed and be of the same order, rank, estimation, dignity, and pre-eminence, to all intents and purposes, as any puisne 1 John Darnall. — DugdaWs Chron. Ser. 86. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 129, ISO. 3 Ibid. 125. 4 Stowe's London, 332. 1603—1625. CURSITOR BARON. 21 judge of either of the two other courts." ! He was the first who was thus put on an equality with the other judges, and was consequently privileged to go the circuits, and to hold assizes as they did. John Birch, the baron who remained in the court at their nomination, is represented by Dugdale to have been also a serjeant ; but from various circumstances already detailed, there is little doubt that the author con- founded him with another John Birch, who was a serjeant. The vacancy on his death, and all future vacancies in Eliza- beth's reign, were supplied by Serjeants ; so that at the ac- cession of James I. the whole court consisted of men of the law, except the above John Sotherton, the fourth baron, who was the only one left on the bench accustomed to the routine duties of the Exchequer. Eighteen months after James came to the crown, George Snigg, a serjeant at law, was appointed ; so that then the legal phalanx of four barons of the coif was complete. On John Sotherton's death in July, 1606, he was succeeded by No well Sotherton, who was not a serjeant ; and although of Gray's Inn, he is not mentioned by any of the reporters as an advocate, nor, although the names of all the other barons occur in the books, is he ever mentioned as sitting in court. In May, 1610, Thomas Caesar, the brother of Sir Julius Caesar, master of the Rolls, was, according to Dugdale, ap- pointed a baron ; and for the first time the designation of Baron-Cursitor is used with regard to him. This entry oc- curs in the books of the Inner Temple on his election : — " That the said Thomas Caesar, then being the puisne baron of the Exchequer (commonly called the baron-cursitor), should not be attended to Westminster by any but the officers of the Exchequer; for as much as none but such as are of the coif ought to be attended by the officers of the house." And in the following month another order was made in these 1 Dugdale's Chron. Sor. 22 CUKSITOR BARON, James I. terms : — " That Thomas Caesar, then one of the benchers of this house, notwithstanding an act made 7 June, 5 Jac. — viz. that none who should thenceforth be called to the bench, that had not read, should take place of any reader or have a voice in parliament — having not read, but fined for not reading, and then called to be a puisne baron of the Ex- chequer, should have place at the bench table, the said order notwithstanding." l These entries show, first, that he was not a serjeant ; next, that he had not attained the dignity of reader to the society ; and thirdly, that his appointment of puisne baron or baron-cursitor, was a new occurrence requir- ing a special order of the bench ; and the omission of his name by the reporters proves that he had no judicial function to perform. Thomas Caesar dying before October of the same year, another John Sotherton, of the same inn of Court, was nomi- nated a baron ; and here is the entry in the Inner Temple books with reference to him : — u That John Sotherton, one of the barons of the Exchequer, being called to the bench, should have his place at the bench table above all the read- ers in such sort as Sir Thomas Caesar, late puisne baron of the Exchequer had."2 Thus it is clear that he was not even a bencher at the time of his appointment ; and though the reporters of the period frequently mention all the barons who sat in court, they never introduce his name. From these facts it may be inferred that he held the office of cursitor baron only ; and that it was of greatly inferior grade to that of the regular barons is proved by his name being placed in a special commission to inquire into defective titles, issued in 1622, after the attorney-general, though two other barons, Denham and Bromley, are inserted previous to that officer. This order of precedence again occurs in a similar commission in the next year; and in another, relative to nuisances in 1 Dugdale's Orig. Jurid. 149. 2 Ibid. 1603—16-25. CUHSITOR BARON. 23 London in 1624, several knights and the recorder of London intervene between the regular barons and him.1 While, therefore, it is apparent that the office of cursitor baron was not, eo nomine, an ancient office, the probability afforded by the circumstances above detailed, that it had its origin in the reign of James I., is greatly strengthened by considering the state of the court at that time. John So- therton (the elder) was the last of the regular barons accord- ing to the ancien regime, and the only one who was practically acquainted with the mode of accounting and other formal business of the Exchequer. George Snigg, who was appointed fifteen months before Sotherton's death, being bred a lawyer, could not any more than the other barons left on the bench, have the requisite knowledge of the technical matters of ac- count indispensable for the due investigation of the sheriffs' returns, and other minute matters which up to that time had been customarily performed by one of the regular barons. George Snigg, owing probably to John Sotherton's last illness, made an attempt to master this duty ; for his name is attached to the current accounts of the year of his appointment.2 This audit, no doubt, was sufficient to prove that the duty could not be satisfactorily performed by men whose habits and pre- vious education led them in a very different direction. The exercise also of this laborious but necessary employment must have been so onerous an interference with their judicial func- tions, that it was deemed necessary to appoint some intelligent officer who was conversant with the duties and competent to perform them. Accordingly, nine months after, Nowell Sotherton, who, no doubt, was bred up in the Exchequer, and was the re- lative probably of John Sotherton the last baron, was ap- pointed ; and as in no list of the barons which the reporters 1 Ilymer, xvii. 388. 512. 540. 2 2 & 3 Jao. I. in the Record Office, Carlton Gardens. c 4 24 CURSITOR BARON. Jamm I. give as forming the judicial bench of the Exchequer, do we find his name, the natural inference seems to be, that his appointment was for the sole purpose of auditing the she- riffs' accounts and of transacting all the customary business with regard to them, and the other matters of course which were merely ministerial. It is observable also, that although King James I. in the first year of his reign added a fifth judge to each of the courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas, his order did not extend to the Exchequer, which then had only four, till eight months afterwards; yet when the judges of the two other courts were, after a few years, again reduced to four, the Exchequer, besides the four legal barons, still retained the cur- sitor baron. The title, baron-cursitor, was evidently adopted in imita- tion of the ancient cursitors in Chancery, who, holding the second place under the chief clerks or masters of that court, were called in Latin Clerici de Cursu, and prepared all origi- nal writs and other writs of course. So also the barons cur- sitor held a secondary rank, and were solely employed, like their prototypes, in doing the formal business, the settled rule of the Exchequer. Dr. Cowell, in his " Interpreter," published in November, 1607, by stating under the word "Baron," that there were only four barons of the Exchequer, manifestly shows that he describes the state of the court at an earlier period than the date of his book ; no less than sixteen months having then elapsed since the appointment of No well Sotherton as a fifth baron. The author was a civilian, resident at Cambridge, and being professionally ignorant of the practice of the court, was evidently not aware of the change. His account turns out to be a mere abridgment of the narration of the duties of the barons and other officers, written by Sir Thomas Fan- shawe, the queen's remembrancer, for the instruction of Lord Buckhurst when he was appointed lord high treasurer in 1603—1625. CURSITOR BARON. 25 1599 x ; and that narration of course applied to the state of the court as it existed at that time, and for the twenty previous years — viz. ever since the introduction of legal barons. Both say that the lord chief baron w answereth the barre in matter of lawe ; " — that the second baron, " in the absence of the lord chief baron," doth the like ; — that the third baron, " in the absence of the other two," has the same duty ; — and that the fourth baron " is always a coursetour of the court, and hath bene chosen of some one of the clerks of the Re- membrancers' offices, or of the clerke of the Pipe's office. He informeth the rest of the barons of the course of the court in any mater that concerneth the king's prero- gative." This was precisely the position of John Sotherton (the elder) when all the others had become legal barons. The words " a coursetour of the court? are evidently used merely as descriptive of the duties of the fourth baron, not as denoting his title, for neither he nor his predecessors are ever designated by any other title than that of fourth baron. When, however, on his death, all the four regular barons became legal barons, and none of them were competent to perform the duties which hitherto had devolved on the fourth baron, then an extra and an inferior officer was added to the court to exercise those formal functions ; and as by the con- stitution of the court these duties could not be performed but by a baron, he received the designation of cursitor baron ; but he was not invested with any judicial power. In a work on the Exchequer published by Christopher Ver- non, in 1642, the proper distinction is made. The author there says — " The chief'e baron and three other learned ba- rons, and the puny or cursitor-baron, are all in the king's 1 These instructions seem to have remained in manuscript till 1 658, when they were published under the title of" The Practice of the Exchequer Court, with its several Offices and Officers, Written at the request of the Lord Ihiek- hnrst, some time Lord Treasurer of England. By Sir T. IV P] 26 CURSITOR BARON. James I. gift. The said cursitor baron being eo called because he is chosen most usually out of some of the best experienced clerkes of the two Remembrancers', or clerke of the Pipe's office, and is to informe the bench and the king's learned counsel from time to time, both in court and out of court, what the course of the Exchequer is." 1 The first instance to be found of the designation, " baron of the coife," being applied to the regular barons is in the patent appointing George Snigg in 1604.2 It may then be concluded that Nowell Sotherton was the first person who was added to the four regular barons, as an appendage to the court, with the special denomination of cur- sitor baron ; that Thomas Caesar was the second, which will account for the expression in the Inner Temple order, " com- monly called ; " and that John Sotherton (the younger) was the third. The latter continued in office in the reign of Charles I. ; and when Michaelmas Term was adjourned on account of the plague that raged in the sixth year, the Essoigns were kept by Baron Sotherton, that duty being merely a matter of course. One of the most showy functions of this officer was then, as it till very lately continued to be, to convey the public an- nouncement of the crown's approval of the election to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex, — a duty perhaps imposed upon him because the time of their inauguration occurs in the middle of the vacation, when the other barons are absent. A quaint and humorous speech made, or pretended to be made, on one of these occasions by a cursitor baron in the time of the Protectorate3, proves not only that his rank was 1 Considerations for Regulating the Exchequer. Per C. Vernon, De Scaccario Dom. Regis, 1 642, p. 33. 2 Rot. Pat. 2 Jac. p. 7. 8 " Baron Tomlinson's learned Speech to the Sheriffs of London and Middle- sex, when they came to be sworn at the Chequer." London : printed in the year 1659. The real name was Tomlins. 1603—1625. ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 27 subordinate, but that his dress was inferior to that of the regular barons. After jocosely alluding to the warmth and the colour of the sheriffs' gowns, he says, " 'Tis true, I have a gown too, but they make me wear the worst of any baron of the Exchequer ; 'tis plain cloth, as yee see, without any lining ; yet my comfort is, I am still a baron, and I hope I shall be so as long as I live ; when I am dead, I care not who's baron, or whether there be a baron or no." And again a little further on — " Gentlemen, I am the puisne baron of the Chequer, that is to say, the meanest baron ; for though I am not guilty of interpreting many hard words, yet this hath been so continually beaten into my head that I do very well understand it. However, I could brook my means well enough (for some men tell me that I deserve no better), were it not the cause of my life's greatest misery, for here I am constrained, or else I must lose my employment, to make speeches in my old age, and when I have one foot in the grave, to stand here talking in publike." He concludes thus, i( Now, Mr. Sheriffs, get yee home, kiss your wives, and by that time the cloth's layed, I'll be with you, and so God by till I see you again." Whether this be the real speech or only a burlesque on his usual style of address, it is equally curious and interesting as a record of the practices of the time. About a month before King James's death, he erected by letters patent a new court of the Marshal of the Plousehold within the verge, to hold pleas for those not of the household.1 A ttorneys-General. I. 1C03. March. Edward Coke, who had held the office for the nine previous years, was continued in it till he was made chief justice of the Common Pleas, when 1 Itushworth, ii. 104. 28 ATTOKNEY AND SOLICITOR-GENERAL. James IV. 1606. July 4. XL 1613. Oct. 27. XIV. 1617. March 12. XVIII. 1621. Jan. 11. Sir Henry Hobart was appointed. He va- cated it on being raised to the same chief- ship ; and Sir Francis Bacon, the solicitor-general, re- ceived the appointment, and held it till he was nominated lord keeper. Sir Henry Yelverton was then advanced to this place from that of solicitor-general, but on his being sequestered, he was super- seded by Sir Thomas Coventry, the solicitor-general, who held it till the end of the reign. Solicitors-General. I. 1603. March. Thomas Fleming, the late queen's solicitor- general, was adopted by King James ; who in the next year raised him to the head of the court of Exchequer. II. 1604. Oct. Sir John Doderidge succeeded; but being made king's serjeant, V. 1607. June 25. Sir Francis Bacon was appointed, and held the place from this time till he became attorney- general, when XI. 1613. Oct. 29. Henry Yelverton was advanced to it. On Bacon's receiving the Great Seal, Yelverton succeeded him as attorney-general, and XIV. 1617. March 14. Thomas Coventry was constituted solicitor. On his superseding Yelverton as attorney- general, XVIII. 1621. Jan. 22. Robert Heath was nominated solicitor-general, and continued so till the king's death. Sir Francis Bacon told the king that his place of attorney- was " honestly worth 60001. a year." 1 Nine months before he was made lord keeper he was sworn in as a privy councillor, retaining his office of attorney -general. This elevation pre- vented him from pursuing his ordinary practice at the bar : but it appears by his letter to the university of Cambridge, that he still could give counsel, and if anything weighty or urgent occurred, was even allowed to plead. 1 Bacon's Works (Montagu), xii. 31. 1603—1625. SERJEANTS. 29 Serjeants at Law. The added initial marks the inn of Conrt to which they belonged ; and those who became judges have a *. I. 1603. IV. 1606. VIT. 1609. VIII. 1610. IX. 1611. XII. 1614. * John Croke (I.), * Thomas Coventry (I.) * Laurence Tanfield (I.), * Thomas Foster (I.), Robert Barker (I.), * Edward Phellips (M.), They were summoned by Queen Elizabeth ; but her death before the return of the writ rendered a new one necessary. To them were added John Shirley (M.), * George Snigg (M.), * Richard Hutton (G.), ♦Edward Cuke (I.)3, John Davies (I.), * John Denham (L.), * Henry Montagu (M.).4, * William Methwould (L.). * Augustine Nichols (M.), * Robert Houghton (L.), Thomas Harris (L.), Henry Hobart (L.) l, * James Altham (G.). * John Doderidge (M.) 2, * James Ley (L.). * Humphrey Winch (L.). * Edward Bromley (I.). Robert Hicham (G.), * Ranulphe Crew (L.), George Wilde (I.), William Towse (I.), Francis More (M.), * Francis Harvey (M.), Henry Finch (G.), XIV. 1616. * Edward Henden (G.), XV. 1617. Francis Ashley (M.). XVIII. 1620. John Shirley (M.), XXI. 1623. * George Croke (I,), Rice Gwyn (I.), John Bridgman (I.), Hcneage Finch (I.), Richard Amherst (G.), Thomas Crew (G.), * Humphrey Davenport (G.), John Lloyd (I.). Thomas Headley (G.), 1 Exonerated 3 Jac. I., previous to being made attorney-general. - Exonerated in 2 Jac. I., on being made solicitor-general; but in 5 Jac. I. made kind's Serjeant without further ceremony. ■ Sir Edward Coke took for his motto " Lex est tutiirima wusit," 4 Sir Henry Montagu's motto was " Deo, A'"//, f the Blanket in the- Parish of St. Mary-at-Ilill, London, formerly the Abbot of Waltham's House, by ('. R. Corner, Esq., F. S. A., Archaoloyiu, xxxvi. 400-417. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 295. VOL. VI. E 50 JAMES ALTHAM. James 1. occurring in the Reports as early as 1588), that when the king, soon after his accession, had determined to add a fifth judge to the courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas, Chief Justice Popham named Altham as one of the Serjeants from whom the choice might be made.1 He was not, how- ever, selected on that occasion; but on the death of Sir John Savile he was appointed a baron of the Exchequer on February 1, 1607, when he received the honour of knighthood. Lord Chief Justice Coke seems to have been in the habit of treating the judges rather superciliously, since Justice Williams told Archbishop Abbott, who reported it to Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, " of his utter dislike of all the Lord Coke his courses ; and that himself and Baron Altham did once very roundly let the Lord Coke know their minde, that he was not such a maister of the lawes as he did take on him, to deliver what he list for la we, and to despise all other." 2 After filling the judicial seat for ten years, Sir James Altham died on February 21, 1616-17; and Sir Francis Bacon, in a speech to his successor, calls him " one of the gravest and most reverend judges of this kingdom."3 He was interred in the chapel of Oxhey House, near Watford in Hertford- shire, which he had founded in 1612, under a monument on which he is represented in his robes. He was thrice married. His first wife was Margaret, daughter and heir of Oliver Skinner, Esq., by whom he had one son ; his second was Mary, daughter of Hugh Stapers, Esq., who brought him one son and three daughters ; and his third was Helen, daughter of John Saunderson, mer- chant of London, and widow of John Hyde, citizen and mercer of London, by whom he had no children. His male issue soon failed ; but all his daughters married into noble families. One of them was united to Arthur Annesley the first Earl of Anglesea ; and her second son by him, christened 1 Egerton Papers, 388. 2 Ibid. 448. 3 Bacon's Works ( Montagu), vii. 267. 1603—1625. EDMUND ANDERSON. 51 Altham, was created Baron Altham in Ireland, his descend- ants eventually succeeding to the earldom. The sixth earl's son failed to make good his claim to the English peerage, which thus became extinct; but he succeeded in regard to the Irish titles, and was created Earl of Mountnorris in Ire- land, which title also failed on the death of its second pos- sessor. Another daughter of Sir James Altham married Richard Vaughan, second Earl of Carberry, a title which became extinct in the next generation. The third daughter had three husbands — Sir Francis Astley, of Hill Morton in Warwickshire, knight ; Robert, Lord Digby in Ireland ; and Sir Robert Bernard, baronet, serjeant at law.1 ANDERSON, EDMUND. Ch. C. P. 1603. See under the Reign of Elizabeth. A YOUNGER son of the ancient family of Anderson of North- umberland having migrated into Lincolnshire, the first named as resident in that county is Roger, who had an estate at Wrawbey, and was grandfather of Henry, whose son Ed- ward, of Flixborough in the same county, married Joan Clayton, niece to the Abbot of Thornholme. They had three sons — Thomas, who married Ellinor a daughter of Judge Dalison ; Richard, of Roxby ; and Edmund, the future chief justice.2 Edmund was born about the year 1530, and, being de- signed for the law, after receiving the principal part of his education at Lincoln College, Oxford, was removed thence to the Inner Temple in June 1550. In due degree he rose to the office of reader in Lent, 1567 ; but for some unexplained 1 Morant's Essex, ii. B6B. ; Wotton's Baronet, iii. 66. 3G4., iv. 402. 2 From a pedigree in the family, for which and for several facts in this sketch I am indebted to the kind communication of Sir Charles II. .1. Anderson, of Lea Hall near Gainsborough, Bart., where there is a portrait of him. 52 EDMUND ANDERSON. James I. cause his reading was deferred till autumn. He became du- plex reader in Lent, 1574, having in the meantime attained sufficient practice as a barrister to be noticed in Plowden's Reports in Easter Term, 1571. He was one of seven who were called to the degree of the coif in Michaelmas, 1577 ; and two years afterwards he was nominated queen's serjeant.1 In this character he went as assistant judge on the Western Circuit in that year2, and in November, 1581, conducted the trial of Edmond Campion and others for high treason. His introductory speech, which is described as having been (i very vehemently pronounced with a grave and austere counte- nance," is a fair example of the vicious rhetoric of the bar at that period. It seems to be directed more against the pope than the prisoner; and whatever may have been Campion's guilt, he certainly beats the crown lawyers both in eloquence and argument.3 Within six months the death of Sir James Dyer left a vacancy in the office of chief justice of the Common Pleas ; and it was said that large sums were offered for the place by Chief Baron Man wood. Serjeant Anderson was, however, appointed on May 2, 1582, and soon after knighted. The recorder Fletewood, in a letter to Lord Burleigh, relates that on the day of his investiture the lord chancellor (Hat- ton) >llins ■ Peerage, via. .",«.>.;— E 4 66 FRANCIS BACON. James I. BACON, FRANCIS, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Albans. Lord Keeper, 1617. Lord Chanc. 1618. The greater the reputation which an author acquires by his works, the less probability is there of forming a correct esti- mate of his personal character. The admiration which is unreservedly bestowed on the public instructor, extends itself to the private individual ; and, dazzled by the glory that sur- rounds his intellect, biographers are too apt to conclude that his actions must exhibit the same brightness, regardless of the earthly vapours that may dim it. This is somewhat the case with Bacon. Every one acknowledges the enlarged powers of his mind ; and the productions of his pen are uni- versally appreciated and admired. The general incidents of his life are also well known ; but his biographers, in relating them, have endeavoured to accommodate the practice which he pursued to the principles which he advocated, as if he were perpetually influenced in the world by the inducements which he recommended in the study. Even those who cannot shut their eyes to his failings endeavour to excuse and extenuate them, finding a sort of justification in the conduct of his contemporaries, whose characters they depreciate, and whose motives they misrepresent. Such memoirs, however agreeable to the partisan, are not satisfactory to the historian, who, leaving to others to de- scribe the progress made and the results obtained by the philosopher, must judge of a public man by his public acts, interpreting his aims and aspirations, the course which he chooses, and the impulses which direct him, by such light as can be collected from his history. There is no want of materials for this purpose in Bacon's life ; his correspondence gives the biographer every advantage, extending as it does 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 57 through the whole of his public career from the age of nine- teen till his death. No juster interpretation of a man's transactions, no better explanation of his policy, can be found than that which his own letters furnish ; and in the following sketch those of Bacon have been carefully used in order to form an impartial and unbiassed judgment of his real character. His letters have been collected, in the edi- tion of his works by Mr. Basil Montagu, from the various publications through which they were dispersed ; though their value has been much diminished by the carelessness of the editor, and the total want of chronological arrangement. To that edition, however, the references in the following sketch must of necessity be made.1 Francis Bacon was born at York House in the Strand on January 22, 1560-1, when his father, Sir Nicholas, had been lord keeper of the Great Seal for two years. His mother, Sir Nicholas's second wife, to whose early instructions the future philosopher owed much of his celebrity, was Anne, one of the five daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, tutor of Edward VI., another of whom was Mildred, the second wife of Sir William Cecil, soon after ennobled by the title of Lord Burleigh. Anthony and Francis were the only issue of this union. As no person has claimed the honour of being Francis Bacon's early instructor, it is to be presumed that he spent the first twelve years of his life at home, where, besides the tuition he received from his accomplished mother, he had all the advantage that could be derived from association with the great and learned men who frequented his father's house. In Queen Elizabeth's occasional visits to Gorhambury, she is said to have been so pleased with his readiness, that she 1 The defect here complained of is about to be removed under the careful superintendence of Mr. Spedding, in the last volumes of an excellent collection of all Bacon's works, edited by that gentleman in conjunction with Messrs, Ellis and Heath, now passing through the press. 58 FRANCIS BACON. James 1. called him her young lord keeper ; and his answer to her question how old he was, ie Two years younger than your Majesty's happy reign," is somewhat too easily accepted as a proof of his early wit. When little more than twelve years old, he was sent with his brother Anthony to Trinity College, Cambridge, then presided over by Dr. Whitgift, in addressing whom when Archbishop of Canterbury, he always subscribed himself « your dutiful pupil."1 By the master's books, the account with him began on April 5, 1573, but he was not matricu- lated till June 10; and according to the same account he paid for sizings up to Christmas 1575.2 It is stated that he left the university from disgust at the system of education then adopted there, and which remained without much alter- ation to the days of Milton ; but it seems unlikely that his father should have been induced to listen to such an objec- tion from a boy not yet sixteen. His removal was probably caused by other plans being formed for him, which had diplomacy for their object ; for in the course of the next year he went to France with Sir Amyas Paulet, our ambassador there. Sir Amyas having occasion to send to England, entrusted Bacon with the mission ; and the queen is said to have expressed her approbation of the manner in which the youthful messenger performed the duty. After spending not quite two years and a half in France, during which his journeys into the interior seem to have been only those in which he accompanied Sir Amyas as his " companion," his father's death in February, 1578-9, caused him to be suddenly summoned home from Paris. At this period he was just turned eighteen ; and, as the youngest of a large family, for his father had six children by his first wife, the provision that came to his share was not 1 Works (Montagu's edit), xii- J 89. 2 British Mag. xxxiii. 444. 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 59 sufficient for his maintenance without some aid from his own exertions. He naturally selected the law for his profession, and entered himself at Gray's Inn, as his father had done before him. The date of his entry is uncertain ; but in the questionable MS. of the society, already noticed1, it is stated to be November, 1576 ; and, although at that date he was either gone or going to Paris, it is possible that his father might have entered him previous to his departure; but he could not have kept his terms, or began his studies, till his return in March, 1578. Shortly afterwards he made some suit to his uncle Lord Burleigh, the precise nature of which, from the involved language in which he urged it in two letters addressed to his uncle and aunt2, it is difficult to unravel. It was evidently connected with the law, and required the queen's approval ; but his request being, as he acknowledges, " rare and unac- customed," and one which might be deemed i( indiscreet and unadvised," it will not excite much wonder if a youth not yet twenty should have failed in his application. It has been supposed that a letter without date, which Montagu extracts from the " Cabala3," thanking Burleigh for his inter- cession with the queen on his behalf, was written in the next month after this application.4 But, adverting to the fact that he was then a minor, and to the contents of his subse- quent letters to his uncle, it seems to belong to a much later date, speaking as it does of the queen having " appropriated him to her service," and of " her princely liberality," of which there are no signs at this time, nor were there for a long time after. During the next five years there is no account of Bacon, except that in the Gray's Inn MS. he is stated to have been 1 See ante, Vol. IV. p. 273. ■ Sept. 16, 1580, Works, xii. 471. 3 Works, xii. 7. 4 Strype dates it October 18, 1580; I know not on what authority. 60 FRANCIS BACON. James 1. called to the bar in 1582. On February 10, 1586, there is an order that he "may have place with the readers at the readers' table, but not to have any voice in pension, nor to win ancienty of any that is his ancient, or shall read before him."1 To a copy of this order some notes of Lord Burleigh are appended, being memoranda of the successive favours shown by the inn to Bacon. These are — 1. That he had a "special admittance to be out of commons, sending for beer, bread, and wine ; " which, if he was entered in 1576, might be because he was going abroad : 2. " Admitted to the Grad. Sop., whereby he hath won ancienty of 40, being bar. of 3 years continuance ; " which is perhaps explained by the next : 3. " Utter barrister upon three years study ; " by which he would attain seniority over those who were not to be called till their full term of five or seven years' study had expired : 4. " Admitted to the high table where none are but readers." None of these memoranda have any date ; but the last refers to the order of February, 1586, which proves he was then made a bencher. For this early call to the bench he was apparently indebted to Lord Burleigh, who was himself a member of the Inn. He evidently refers to it in a letter to his Lord- ship in the following May, when speaking of " a late motion of mine own," wherein " I sought an ease in coming within bars."2 In the same letter he alludes to some reports to his prejudice, upon which his lordship had admonished him.3 At the end of that year, having obtained a seat in parliament, he was " vehement against the Queen of Scots4 ; but he does 1 Lansdowne MSS. 51. art. 6. 2 Both Montagu in his Life, and Macaulay in his Critique, suppose that this application was that he might be called within the bar, or, according to the modern acceptation of the term, to be made a queen's counsel. This is a mistake. It had merely a reference to his position in the inn. He calls it in his letter, " not any extraordinary or singular note of favour." 3 Works, xii. 473. * Pari. Hist. i. 837. 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 61 not appear to have taken any other part in the business of the session. In Lent, 1588, he was elected reader, no doubt in his regular turn ; for he did not become double reader till twelve years afterwards, in Lent, 1600, when his reading was on " The Statute of Uses," which was not published till seven- teen years after his death.1 In the meantime, however, he had been actively employed in improving and ornamenting the premises of the society : and various sums were allowed to him for planting the gardens, &c.2 He took also a promi- nent part in promoting those dramatic entertainments for which the society was famous, and with the performance of which the queen was so much gratified. In 1587 a comedy was played in their hall before Lord Burleigh ; in 1588, " certaine devices and shows " were presented by them be- fore the queen at Greenwich, Bacon being among the dres- sers3; and he offered to Lord Burleigh on another occasion, when a joint masque of the four inns of Court failed, to furnish a masque by " a dozen gentlemen of Grey's Inn."4 Soon after this his uncle procured for him a grant of the reversion of the registrarship of the Star Chamber, an office worth 1,600/. a year, which " mended his prospect, but did not fill his barn," as he truly said ; for he had to wait nearly twenty years for the vacancy.5 It is evident that during 1 Works, xiii. 313.; Dugdale's Orig. 295. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 273. There is now in the garden of Gray's Inn a tree with all the marks of age and incipient decay, which is reputed to have been planted by Bacon. But I have the unexceptionable authority of my friend the Bev. John Mitford, to whom it was pointed out by the gardener, that the tree is a catalpa, which was not introduced into this country from America till 17_'(\ a century after Bacon's death. The probability is that the elm which he did plant having died, the catalpa was placed there to commemorate the spot. See also Loudon's Arboretum, iii. 1391. 3 Pearce's Inns of Court, 86. 4 Works, xii. 477. 8 Ibid. 148. 62 FRANCIS BACON. James I. this time he was not getting on in his profession ; for none of the reporters as yet mention his name, and in a letter re- newing his applications to Lord Burleigh in 1592, when he was 6( one and thirty years" old1, he threatens, " if his Lordship will not carry him on," to sell his inheritance and purchase some office of gain that shall be executed by deputy, and so "become a sorry bookmaker." Though his views were afterwards altered, his petitions do not seem at this time to aim at any active legal place ; for he says, " I confess that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends, for I have taken all knowledge to be my province." His suit not receiving so much encouragement from his uncle as he hoped, he applied to his cousin Sir Robert Cecil, to press it. At last Lord Burleigh, in Sep- tember, 1593, tells him that he had induced the lord keeper (Puckering), who had been required by the queen to give to her the names of divers lawyers to be preferred, to put him down as a meet man, but not equal to Brograve and Branth- wait, two other barristers whom Puckering specially recom- mended.2 In the meantime he had again appeared in parliament. In that which met in February, 1589, he busied himself in pro- moting the supply, being appointed to confer with the queen's learned counsel thereon.3 So in the next parliament, in February, 1593, being then member for Middlesex, he supported the motion of his cousin Sir Robert Cecil, to the same purport4; but on a subsequent day he lost the credit he had gained, by objecting to the course proposed for its collection. He soon discovered that he had overstepped discretion ; and in the remaining debates, which continued for nearly three weeks, he had the prudence to be silent. For this interference he so deeply incurred the queen's dis- 1 Works, xii. 5. ■ Ibid. xiii. 72. 3 Pari. Hist. i. 855. 4 Ibid. 881. 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 63 pleasure, that it had not subsided when he received Lord Burleigh's favourable note, nor till some time after.1 In April, 1593, Sir Gilbert Gerard, the master of the Rolls, died; and though this place was destined for Sir Thomas Egerton, it was kept vacant till his successor as attorney-general was determined on. The list of lawyers to be preferred, which the lord keeper was required to give, had no doubt reference to this vacancy ; for though Sir Edward Coke, as solicitor-general, had the first claim to the succession, it is evident that efforts were making to set aside his just pretensions. Bacon put himself forward as Coke's opponent2, endeavouring to break through the accus- tomed routine ; but, as he was then only a young man, and had not yet acquired any reputation either as a lawyer or as a writer, it is difficult to understand on what his claims to an office which had been lately increasing in importance were founded. He could not expect that his legal descent would alone avail him, and his parliamentary character had been lately damaged ; so that his principal dependence must have been on the influence of his friends at court. There, in addi- tion to Lord Burleigh and his son, he had enlisted the Earl of Essex in his cause. The earl became his most strenuous advocate. His letters show that both he and the lord treasurer were zealous pleaders for him; for the queen was strongly prejudiced against him, telling them that none but they thought him fit for the place.3 It is grievous to be obliged to add that Bacon's letters betray an underhand endeavour to impede Coke's success by depreciating his abilities, and nicknaming him the Huddler.4 History may be searched in vain for an earlier example of such degrading solicitation for legal honours, and for such unworthy attempts to decry a rival ; and it is to be lamented that almost all Bacon's future struggles for ad- 1 Works, xii. 28., xiii. 275. 2 Ibid. xiii. 77. 3 Ibid. 75. * Ibid. 71. 64 FRANCIS BACON. James I. vancement were sullied by the same unprincipled accompani- ments. Coke, however, could not with decency be passed over. He received the appointment on April 10, 1594; and in filling up the office of solicitor-general, which he vacated, a longer delay intervened, and a similar disappointment awaited Bacon. This vacancy lasted from April 10, 1594, to November 6, 1595, a period of nineteen months. Bacon exerted every effort to get the place, in letters to Lord Burleigh and his son1, to Lord Keeper Puckering2 and to the Earl of Essex, to whom he says in one of them, " The objections to my competitors your Lordship knoweth partly; I pray spare them not, not over the Queen, but to the great ones, to show your confidence and work their distrust."3 Notwith- standing the intercessions of the earl and some others of his friends, and his own petitions and new year's gifts to the queen4, both of which she refused to receive5, she was so disgusted by his pertinacity that she said if he " continued in this manner she would seek all England rather than take him;"6 and in the end the office was given to Sir Thomas Fleming. Bacon was precluded from complaining of this appointment ; for in a letter to the lord keeper, written in the previous July, he had said, " If her Majesty settle her choice upon an able man, such a one as Mr. Serjeant Flem- ing, I will make no means to alter it." 7 During this contest the degree of Master of Arts was con- ferred upon him by the university of Cambridge on July 27, 1594 8 ; and at the end of it Essex, attributing to himself Bacon's want of success, gave him, as some compensation for his disappointment, an estate at Twickenham, which was afterwards sold for 1,800/.9 Lord Burleigh's " constant and 1 Works, xii. 3. 475., xiii. 78. 85. 2 Ibid. xiii. 51. 56. 3 Ibid. 77. 79. 82. * Ibid, xii. 109. 166; xiii. 73. 5 Ibid. xiii. 81. 6 Ibid. 83. 7 Ibid. 56. 8 Ibid. xvi. app. 3. b. 9 Ibid. vi. 249. 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 65 serious endeavours to have him solicitor," he gratefully ac- knowledges ; but in the same letter complains that his lord- ship does not employ him in his profession in any services of his own.1 In May, 1596, Egerton was made lord keeper, but as he still retained the mastership of the Rolls, no vacancy imme- diately occurred in that office. Neither Bacon nor his friends appear to have applied for it ; but Serjeant Heale seems at one time to have been encouraged by Egerton in his hopes for the place.2 Coke and Fleming, probably, did not aspire to it, as they were common lawyers. They remained in their respective posts during the rest of the reign, so that there was no opportunity for any further intrigue; and Bacon was obliged to content himself with receiving occa- sional employment in the service of the queen. He has been represented as the first who held the office of queen's or king's counsel, distinct from the usual law officers ; but that he had any special warrant for that purpose from Queen Elizabeth, there is no evidence whatever from any existing record. Montagu and Macaulay say that he was so appointed in 1590; but the preceding facts sufficiently prove that it could not have been so early ; and the precise time at which he began to be engaged in the queen's causes still remains in doubt. From his correspondence it seems probable that he was first employed shortly after Coke became attorney-general in April, 1594, during the vacancy in the office of solicitor. There is a mysterious expression in a letter to the queen, dated July 20, 1594, which may probably refer to the royal promise so to use him : " a gracious vail, it pleaded your majesty to give me." 3 The undated letter to Lord Burleigh, already mentioned, appa- rently written about this time, seems also to allude to it. ! Works, xii. \&J. Egerton Papers, 315. :1 Works, xiii. VOL. VI. F 66 FKANCIS BACON. James I. Bacon says in it, that it is an exceeding comfort and en- couragement to him, " putting himself in the way of her majesty's service," and, " seeing it hath pleased her majesty .... to vouchsafe to appropriate me unto her service. " l While engaged in his application for the solicitorship, he writes to Foulk Grevil, " Her Majesty had by set speech more than once assured me of her intention to call me to her service ; which I could not understand but of the place I had been named to." 2 The queen, however, evidently had no such meaning ; and it soon appears that she merely in- tended him to hold some of her briefs ; for Bacon tells his brother Anthony, January 25, 1594-5, that the queen, complaining of his pertinacity, says, " she never deals so with any as with me, she hath pulled me over the bar, she hath used me in her greatest causes." 3 Yet any such regular employment does not seem to be consistent with his ab- senting himself during that term, as he tells Lord Burleigh he did, in a letter dated in the following March, in the latter part of which he adds, " This last request I find it more necessary for me to make, because (though I am glad of her majesty's favour, that I may with more ease practise the law, which, percase, I may use now and then for my counte- nance) ; yet, to speak plainly, though perhaps vainly, I do not think that the ordinary practice of the law, not serving the queen in place, will be admitted for a good account of the poor talent that God hath given me." 4 There is also a letter from Lord Burleigh to Sir Robert Cecil, dated Feb- ruary 14, 1594-5, which plainly proves that Bacon was not then recognised as a queen's counsel. His lordship is ad- vising his son as to some rents to be reserved on the nomina- tion of the new bishops of Winchester and Durham, about which he had spoken to the attorney-general (Coke), who, 1 Works, xii. 7. - Ibid. 160. 3 Ibid. xiii. 83. * Ibid. xii. 475. 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 67 he says, complained of the want of other counsellors, " seeing ther is but one sargeant and no sollicitor ; alledging that ther ar many weighty causes of her majesty to be ordered." l Thus it is clear that the queen had not then bestowed on him any distinct appointment ; and that the occasional em- ployment he had for the government was not of such im- portance as to render his absence inconvenient. It may also be inferred, that his business as a barrister was then so trifling, as to allow him to spend the term in the country. That Bacon was engaged in some crown causes during the vacancy of the solicitorship, there can be no doubt ; but whether as having the independent management of them, or as junior barristers are now employed, in assistance of the attorney-general, it is difficult to say. That he was de- sirous of producing the former impression, is evident from two letters to Lord Keeper Puckering in 1594 and 1595, during the vacancy, in which he uses it for the purpose of being urged in furtherance of his suit. Both of them, curiously enough, are dated the same day in each year, September 25. In the first, he says, " I was minded according to the place of employment, though not of office, wherein I serve, for my better direction, and the advance- ment of the service, to have acquainted your lordship, now before the term, with such of her majesty's causes as are in my hands ; which cause ... I find . . . your lordship of your favour is willing to use for my good, upon that satis- faction you may find in my travels." In the second he says, " I hope your lordship will not be the less sparing in using the argument of my being studied and prepared in the queen's causes."2 From a letter of his to King James, certainly written between July, 1606, and June, 1607, his own opinion as to the time when he was regularly empl 1 Peck's Desid. Cur. B. v. 6. Works, xiii. 53. 58, v 2 6 8 FRANCIS BACON. James I. may be collected ; for in it he urges his " nine years' ser- vice of the crown," l which would not make it earlier than 1597. Whatever was the date, it is clear he was not a sworn adviser, nor had any patent conferring upon him the office of queen's counsel. That he was not so considered when, at the end of the reign, the names of all the existing officers were sent to King James for re -appointment, is manifest from the omission of his. His activity and the interest of his friends, however, soon got this omission remedied, by pro- curing the introduction of his name in a warrant on a totally different subject, dated April 21, 1603, thus, " Where[as] we have perceaved, by a lettre from our councell at Whitehall, that Francis B.icon, Esq., was one of the learned counsell to the late Queen, our sister, by speciall commandment, and that in the warrant granted by us to them for the continewance of their places, he is not named, we have thought good to allow him in such sort as she did." 2 He held this equivocal position for the sixteen following months, for it was not till August 25, 1604, that he obtained a patent formally appointing him (( consiliarium nostrum ad legem, sive unum de consilio nostro erudito in lege," with such precedence as any other learned counsel, or as he had " ratione verbi regii Elizabethse, vel ra- tione warranti nostri ; " and granting a fee of 407. a year.3 He himself confirms this view of his position, by stating in one of his letters to King James, " You formed me of the learned council extraordinary, without warrant or fee, a kind of individuum vayum. You established me and brought me into ordinary; soon after you placed me solicitor."4 This discussion is of more importance than it at first appears, because the judgment to be formed of Bacon's conduct in pleading against the Earl of Essex before the 1 Works, xii. 107. 2 Egerton Papers, 367. 3 Ityiner, xvi. 596. 4 Works, xii. 402. 1G03— 1625. FRANCIS BACON. 69 council, and on his trial in February, 1601, mainly depends on the question, whether the nature of his employment did or did not impose upon him the necessity for such appear- ance. So general was the disapprobation it caused, that he wrote two letters in defence of himself to Sir Robert Cecil and Lord Henry Howard (nearly copies of each other) l ; and so long did the stigma attach to him, that he found it necessary, nearly three years afterwards, to address an elaborate apology for his conduct to the Earl of Devonshire, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.2 His justification is but a lame one, and can have satisfied few ; and in pleading the ne- cessity of his place as one of the queen's counsel, he forgets that, if his duty was absolute and compulsory, his position must have been so notorious, that blame would not have been imputed, nor exculpation needed. He was on the closest terms of friendship with Essex ; the earl had been his most energetic advocate in his aspirations to the offices of attorney and solicitor-general, and had even made his success a personal matter with the queen ; and when Bacon had been disappointed of both the places, Essex generously presented him with an estate worth 1800/. All this Bacon is forced to acknowledge, but with respect to the latter he asserts, in his apology, that he said to the earl, " My Lord, I see that I must be your homager, and hold land of your gift ; but do you know the manner of doing homage in law ? Always it is with a saving of his faith to the king and his other lords ; and, therefore, my Lord, I can be no more yours than I was, and it must be with the antient savings : and if I grow to be a rich man, you will give me leave to give it back again to some of your un- rewarded followers." The reliance that is to be placed on this minute report of a conversation occurring eight years 1 Works, xii. lf;s. 171. - Ibid. vi. 70 FRANCIS BACON. James I. previously, may be estimated by the fact, mentioned in the same letter, that, notwithstanding this flourish about giving the estate back to some of the earl's unrewarded followers, he had already sold it for 18007. to Mr. Keynold Nicholas. In such intimate relations as existed between the earl and him, both gratitude and common decency ought to have prevented him from taking any active part in the prose- cution, unless absolute necessity compelled him. If there was no such necessity, some strong personal object must have prompted him " officiously to intrude himself into the business." To prove a necessity, it would be incumbent on him to show that there was a deficiency of the queen's ordinary legal counsel ; but besides the attorney and solicitor- general and Serjeant Yelverton, all of whom assisted at the trial, there were two other queen's Serjeants, Daniell and Drew, whose services would have fallen within the regular course of their duties. Even if additional aid was required there was the whole bar to choose from, and the name of "Nicholas Kempe, counsellor at law," is actually recorded as taking some of the examinations.1 As to Bacon's services being indispensable, he, according to his own showing, held no office, but a new and extraordinary appointment ; and it is a curious fact, that in a memorandum for the order of the arraignment, in Coke's handwriting, preserved in the State Paper Office, Bacon's name was not proposed in the list of counsel to be retained. There is, however, a note from the lords of the Council, written the day before the trial, ad- dressed to " Mr. Francis Bacon, one of her Majesty's counsel learned."2 The non-introduction of his name in Coke's memorandum is a strong proof that his appearance was not a necessary part of his duty. No precedent could be urged against his refusal, if he had been earnest in his resistance ; s Works, vi. :j78. 380. 2 Jardine's Crim. Trials, i. 385. 1603— 1625. FRANCIS BACON. 71 and if his aid was demanded by the council, with the knowledge of his connection with the earl, he ought to have felt that they sought rather to degrade, than to advance or honour him. The truth, however, peeps out, even in the apology itself, in his avowal that one of his objects was " to uphold himself in credit and strength with the Queen ; " and in another place, that as " she was constant in her favours, and made an end where she began," he was resolved to endure his condition " in expectation of better." The queen was offended at his friendship for Essex, which, he says, he " saw would overthrow " him ; and consequently he pursued a course by which he incurred the contempt of the world, without producing, as the event proved, any advantage for himself. Had he acted a more honourable part, he would have obtained the credit, without incurring the danger, of Sir Henry Yelverton, who refused to plead against his patron Somerset, and Sir John Walter, who indignantly rejected a brief against Sir Edward Coke. This disposition to undertake anything with a view to his own advantage is still more manifest in the * Declaration of the Treasons of the Earl of Essex," published by him soon after the trial.1 Though he says that he wrote it at the queen's command, "her majesty taking a liking to my pen," it is impossible to believe that he might not have avoided the task. In it he vilifies and blackens the earl's character to such an extent, that it is surprising he should so long have associated with him without discovering or suspecting his criminal intentions; and it is curious to observe that in the " Apology," after the queen was dead, and when the enemies of the earl were in rather doubtful odour, all the criminal imputations against him are softened down to " his misfortune," and the designation of traitor converted into u the unfortunate earl." 1 Works, vi. 299. * 4 72 FRANCIS BACON. James I. Another remarkable circumstance connected with this con- spiracy requires explanation. Catesby, afterwards known as a principal in the Gunpowder Plot, was also implicated in this, but succeeded in obtaining his pardon by the payment of a fine of 40007. to the queen. By a letter from the council to Mr. Attorney-General Coke, the queen's orders were conveyed to him to divide the said fine money among " Mr. Francis Bacon, Sir Arthur Gorges, and Captain Car- penter;" and the share appropriated to Bacon was 12007. The date of this warrant is August 6, 1601, and it is signed by eight privy councillors.1 Whatever may have been the motive with the royal donor inducing this extraordinary gift, it is difficult, under all the attendant circumstances, to draw an inference favourable to the courtly recipient. To return. Within ten days after the appointment of Sir Thomas Egerton, Essex wrote to him to have a care of Bacon during his absence in Spain.2 The new lord keeper had always been friendly to him, and, when he was a can- didate for the solicitorship, had supplied him with observa- tions for the exercise of the office.3 Bacon's crown business no doubt would, with such patronage, be materially in- creased, and his personal access to the queen become more frequent. Her Majesty even occasionally honoured him with her presence at his house in Twickenham Park. This advance in favour had the natural effect of making: him think more highly of his position than the actual nature of his employment warranted. That he was inclined to encroach beyond his province is apparent from the scene that occurred in the Court of Exchequer about 1601,4 when, Bacon having moved for the reseizure of certain lands, Coke, probably deeming it an interference with his duties, " kindled at it;" and insulting and scornful words passed between 1 Council Reg. Eliz. xvii. 336. 2 Works, xii. 91. '■' Egertou's Life, 165. i Works, xii. 277. 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 73 them. Among the rest, Coke bade him u not meddle with the queen's business," and said he " was unsworn.1 " He had in 1578 been an unsuccessful rival of Coke for the favours of lady Hatton ; and the Earl of Essex, with his wonted zeal, had been his advocate with both her parents. His disappointment in not obtaining the lady, whose violent temper had not yet been displayed, no doubt increased the feeling of jealousy and dislike which he already indulged against Coke, and which did not diminish as years rolled on. "Whatever reputation Bacon may have acquired among his friends and associates by his private studies, he was not yet known to the public in his literary character ; nor was it till the year 1598 that he made his first appearance as an author. In it he published his " Essays," which, as it was the first, so it was, and still remains, the most popular of his works. He dedicated the book to his brother Anthony, in a letter dated January 30 ; and so highly was it appreciated, that no less than nine editions, the later being greatly en- larged, were issued during his life. Notwithstanding all the professed advantages he enjoyed from his legal engagements, they did not keep him free from pecuniary pressure. His involvements were so great, and his credit so small, that he was taken in execution and detained in a house in Coleman Street, in September, 1598. This fact appears from a letter to lord keeper Egerton, complaining that it was a breach of privilege, as he was coming from the Tower in " a service of no mean impor- tance" for the queen.2 The result of his complaint is not stated ; but his letters to Mr. Michael Hickes and Lord Cecil show that his difficulties were still existing, at least as late as 1603.3 In the last two parliaments of Elizabeth in 1597 and 1601, ' Works, mi. [bid. xii. 275. . ■ [bid. 878. 478, 479. 74 FRANCIS BACON. James I. he was a frequent speaker in support of the queen's mea- sures. No sooner was Queen Elizabeth's death announced than Bacon, instead of waiting with a decent and dignified patience for the king's arrival in London, exerted all his influence among persons high and low, to get himself favourably men- tioned to the new monarch. To Mr. Davis he writes : — "I commend myself to your love and the well-using my name, as well in repressing and answering for me, if there be any biting and nibbling at it in that place, as by imprint- ing a good conceit and opinion of me, chiefly in the king, as otherwise in that court."1 To Mr. Foules he writes two letters, " to further my being known by good note unto the king."2 Dr. Morison, Sir Thomas Challenor, and Lord Kinloss, were addressed in the same degrading style3; and the Earl of Northumberland (to whom he volunteered a proclamation on the king's entry), the Earl of Northampton, and even the Earl of Southampton, were reminded of his services.4 It must have been a severe mortification to h im to find that he had not been even named among the queen's servants to be re-appointed ; but the efforts of his friends were, as already stated, successful in obtaining the warrant issued a month afterwards, allowing him as one of the learned counsel " in such sort " as Queen Elizabeth did. That at first he was not much encouraged, notwithstand- ing a most fulsome letter to the king,5 may be judged from a letter in July to Cecil, who was now raised to the peerage, wherein he says, " I desire to meddle as little as I can in the king's causes, his majesty now abounding in council ; " " my ambition now I shall only put upon my pen, whereby I shall be able to maintain memory and merit of the times succeed- ing." He, however, accepted the " prostituted title of 1 Works, xii. 114. 2 Ibid. 26. 114. { Ibid. 101. 113; xiii. Gil. 4 Ibid. 24- 29. 48. 102. 115 5 Ibid. 99. 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 75 knighthood," as he calls it, with three hundred others, at the coronation on July 23, 1603, and assigns as reasons for doing so, " because of this late disgrace " (probably another arrest) ; u and because I have three new knights in my mess at Gray's Inn commons ; and because I have found out an alderman's daughter, a handsome maid to my liking." l This maid was Alice, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Bene- dict Barnham, an alderman of London, whom he soon after married, his means being much increased by her fortune. Bacon penned another voluntary proclamation touching the king's style, which had the same fate as the former 2 ; and in the session of parliament in that and the following year, being member for Ipswich, he made himself usefully promi- nent, delivering, however, a speech to the king himself ful- somely flattering3, and another with reference to him still more so.4 The only fact which is recorded of him in the second year of James's reign is his redeeming a jewel on August 21, on the security of which Lord Ellesmere had lent him 50/. 5 Four days afterwards he received the patent already men- tioned, appointing him king's counsel with a salary of 407. per annum ; and on the same day he had a grant in addition of a pension of 60/. for services performed by his deceased brother Anthony and himself.6 He was not employed in the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh in November, 1603, though, besides the attorney-general, Serjeants Heale and Phillips were ; nor in any of the crown prosecutions before he was made solicitor-general, the queen's serjeant being the only assistant to the attorney-general. From these omissions of his services some judgment may be formed as to the necessity of his appearing against the Bar] of 1'^sex; the remembrance of which was probably the cause 1 Works, xii. 2* ■ (bid. vii. I7:». 3 Ibid. vi. :*. 1 Pari. Hist. i. 1014. Egertoo Papers, 395. ■ Rymer, xvi. 76 FRANCIS BACON. James I. of bis being now so much in the shade. He occupied the interval in the composition of works, some addressed to the king himself, and others evidently intended for the king's eye, which, however excellent in their matter, contained more of flattery than became a great philosopher. Such were his letter to Lord Ellesmere, suggesting a History of England,1 and his letter to King James, " On the True Greatness of the Kingdom of Britain."2 To these may be added his tract on the union of the two kingdoms, and his speech on the subject.3 His leisure was not wholly devoted to politics, for he published his " Advancement of Learning" in 1605. In spite of his endeavours to force himself forward, Bacon did not obtain the object of his ambition till he had suffered two, or indeed three, more disappointments. He was passed over in October, 1604, when Fleming was appointed chief baron, Sir John Doderidge being made solicitor-general. The death of Sir Edmund Anderson in August, 1605, created another vacancy ; but, instead of Coke, Sir Thomas Gawdy was selected to supply it. On the elevation of Coke to the chief justiceship in June, 1606, Bacon was again set aside, Sir Henry Hobart being called upon to fill Coke's place, and Doderidge remaining solicitor-general. In a letter to Mr. Matthew, at the coming in of the king, he comforts himself that u the canvassing world is gone, and the deserving world is come."4 But he soon altered his opinion, for on this last occasion he renewed his application to Cecil (now Earl of Salisbury), somewhat depreciating the place, but professing to desire it chiefly to increase his practice.5 An expedient was suggested by which Doderidge should vacate the solicitorship on being made king's serjeant. This plan he pressed in letters to the king, recapitulating all his ' Works, xii. 69. - Ibid. v. 311. 3 Ibid. 16. 47. 4 Ibid. xii. 230. s Ibid. 14. 6'3. 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 77 deserts, parliamentary and literary J ; and also to the lord chancellor.2 Chief Justice Popham died in the following year, and Chief Baron Fleming was put in his place ; and instead of either the attorney or solicitor-general succeeding, Judge Tanfield was placed at the head of the Exchequer. The opportunity was, however, taken to effect the plan of making Doderidge king's serjeant; and Bacon, after four- teen years' expectance, obtained at last his desire of entering the king's service by being created solicitor-general on June 25, 1607. His prosperous star was then in the as- cendant, for in the next year his reversion in the Star Chamber fell in by the death of Mr. Mylle, and in July, 1608, he was sworn in.3 One of the first fruits of his leisure in his new office was, " Certain considerations touching the Plantations in Ireland," which he presented to the king as a new year's offering.4 He was employed also in preparing his great work, M Instau- ratio Magna," and sent the draught of various parts of it to different friends and men of learning for their critical censure. The " Cogitata et Visa," he submitted in the beginning of 1608 to Sir Thomas Bodley, the Bishop of Ely (Dr. Heton), and Mr. Toby Matthew5; and in 1609 he published "Do Sapientia Veterum," a collection of Fables of the antients moralised. In 1611 he wa3 appointed joint-judge of the Knight- Marshals' Court. His cousin, the earl of Salisbury, died on May 24, 1612; and within a week Bacon wrote to the king, disparaging his abilities, saying, " that he was a fit man to keep things from growing worse, but no very fit man to reduce things to be much better ; " and, " that he was more in operatione than in opere," Comparing this with his letters to the earl himself, full of professions of gratitude and admi- 1 Works, xii. 94. - Ibid. 105. a Egerton Tapers, 487. ' Works, v. 169; xii. 7:3. B Ibid. xii. 82-92. 78 FRANCIS BACON. James I. ration, either they must be taken as mere flattery, or this must be regarded as false and ungrateful. But neither were without an object. The earl could no longer promote his advancement ; while in this and other letters to the king, de- preciating the earl's powers, he recommends his own "little skill " in the House of Commons, where he " was never one hour out of credit," and asks " leave to meditate and pro- pound some preparative remembrances touching the future parliament." 1 Bacon held the office of solicitor-general rather more than six years, during which several puisne judgeships were filled up, for which it does not appear that he applied. He, how- ever, was not idle. He sent one of his petitionary epistles to the king, begging his promise of the " attorney's place whenever it should be void : " and another when the attorney was ill, indecently reminding his Majesty of the promise he had received.2 The attorney recovered ; but upon the death of Fleming, the chief justice of the King's Bench, in August, 1613, Bacon lost no time in urging upon the king, that no one but the attorney and he should be thought of for the place, and that, if the attorney should refuse, he should not be passed over, intimating that the king would then have ff a Chief Justice which is sure to your Preroga- tive." 3 But before the vacancy was supplied, Bacon, perhaps fearing that he should be overlooked, took another course, and in a paper presented to the king, pointed out " Reasons why it should be exceeding much for his Majesty's service, to remove the Lord Coke from the place he now holdeth to be Chief Justice of England, and the Attorney to succeed him, and the Solicitor the Attorney." 4 In it his ill-feeling toward Coke again shows itself. He says, " It will strengthen the King's causes greatly amongst the judges ; for my Lord Coke 1 Works, xii. 281. 285. 2 Ibid. 96. 121. s Ibid. 28G. 4 Ibid. vii. 340. 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 79 will think himself near a Privy Counsellor's place, and there- upon become obsequious;" and, "the remove of my Lord Coke to a place of less profit, though it be with his will, yet will be thought abroad a kind of discipline to him for opposing himself to the king's causes ; the example whereof will contain others in more awe." After this shameless encouragement to destroy the independency of the Bench, he proceeds in one breath to speak in terms of disparagement of his deceased relative and his present senior, thus : " The attorney-general sorteth not well with his present place, being a man timid and scrupulous, both in parliament and other business, and one that in a word was made fit for the Treasurer (Cecil)'s bent, which was to do little with much formality and protestation." Not forgetting himself, however, he takes care to enhance his peculiar adaptation to the office : adding, " whereas the now Solicitor going more roundly to work, and being of a quicker and more earnest temper, and more effectual in that he dealeth in, is like to recover that strength to the King's prerogative, which it had in times past, and which is due unto it." This cunning plan was adopted. Coke, two months after, was removed to the King's Bench ; Hobart, the attor- ney-general, went to the Common Pleas ; and Bacon obtained, at last, his step of promotion, being made attorney-general on October 27, 1613. In the two parliaments called by James in the first fourteen years of his reign, the one sitting from 1604 to 1610, and the other from April to June 1614, Bacon was of course an active member. So acceptable had he made himself to the House, and so highly were his qualities as an orator appreci- ated, that in the second Parliament, though it was alleged that no attorney-general had ever been elected a member, he was allowed to sit; but this was not to be a precedent for the future. ( )nc of the first cases in which Bacon exercised his office 80 FRANCIS BACON. James I. of attorney-general, was an information in the Star-Chamber against Priest for sending, and Wright for delivering, a chal- lenge, when he exposed the practice of duelling so forcibly, that the j udges, in condemning the defendants to heavy fines, ordered that their decree should be penned by the attorney- general, with all his arguments, and read at the assizes for Surrey, where the offence was committed.1 With less found- ation in reason or justice was his next proceeding against James Whitelocke (afterwards the judge), for giving a verbal opinion, or perhaps for arguing as a barrister on the legality of a commission from the crown.2 The defendant probably owed his pardon as much to the bungling efforts of Bacon to justify the absurd charge, as to the submission which he dis- creetly made. The attorney's speech in the following year against Oliver St. John, for writing a letter showing the unlawfulness of Benevolences (for which he was fined 5000/.), is loaded with flattery to the king, and futile arguments to prove that a Benevolence is not a tax. In reference to the sen- tence on St. John, he adopted the unusual course of corre- sponding with the king3, a novel practice which he introduced, and which he more particularly continued in the cases of Peacham and Owen.4 The charge against Peacham was founded on certain pas- sages contained in a sermon which had never been preached, but which had been discovered in his study. The king was most desirous of proving that the mere writing constituted treason, and Bacon interested himself too much to procure a conviction. He wrote several letters to the king, with ac- counts of his examinations of the prisoner, to whom torture was applied in the course of them ; and he describes his artful management in obtaining the separate opinions of the judges. Coke for some time resisted the " auricular taking of opinions 1 Works, vi. 108-137. 2 State Trials, ii. 766. 4 Ibid. xii. 62. 123-136. 289.; xiii. 108. 1603—1625. FKANCIS BACON. 81 single and apart ; " but eventually was forced to submit to this most unconstitutional mode of prejudging the case. In Owen's business the same course was suggested, but not adopted ; probably on account of Coke's opposition with re- gard to Peacham. In both cases it is difficult to justify Bacon's conduct. Then followed the trials connected with Overbury's murder, in the progress of which the letters of Bacon show his desire to assist the king in his determination to convict, and after- wards to save, the principal offenders.1 When Sir Edward Coke resisted the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, though Bacon made to the king a fair exposition of the controversy, he could not refrain from aiming a blow at his rival, suggesting that, " at this time " he should not be disgraced, though " this great and public affront " to the chancellor, " thought to be dying, winch was barbarous," and to the High Court of Chancery, may not, he says, " pass lightly, nor end only in some formal atonement." His total disregard for the independence of the Bench is further shown in this letter ; for he proceeds to say that "if any of the puisne judges did stir this business, I think that judge is worthy to lose his place: I do not think there is anything, a greater Polycreston ad multa utile to your affairs, than upon a just and fit occasion to make some example against the presump- tion of a judge in cases that concern your Majesty ; whereby the whole body of those magistrates may be contained in better awe ; " and he then recommends, " that the judges should answer it on their knees before your Majesty and your council, and receive a sharp reprimand." 2 In the case of the com- mendamsy or cc Rege inconsulto" he not only took the part of the king, but was the principal instigator in calling the judges to account before the privy council 8 ; a course which has too 1 Works, vi. 219-241. < [bid. sit. 36. :t Ibid. vii. .SOT VOL. VI. G 82 FRANCIS BACON. James 1. much the appearance of being influenced by his inveteracy against Coke, especially when connected with a paper he drew up, enlarging on the various " Innovations into the laws," which Coke, as he alleged, had introduced.1 The chancellor's illness occurring during the progress of these proceedings, Bacon set himself about his usual practice of begging for the reversion of the place. In a letter to the king, dated Feb. 12, 1615-16, he not only boasts of what he would do if he had the Seal, but depreciates those who might be competitors for it ; particularly Coke, of whom he says, * Your Majesty shall put an overruling' nature into an over- ruling place, which may breed an extreme : next you shall blunt his industries in matter of finances which seemeth to aim at another place : and, lastly, popular men are no sure mounters for your Majesty's saddle." 2 He had taken care to secure the affections, or at least the interest, of Sir George Villiers, the new favourite, by a long paper of instructions how to govern himself in the station of prime minister 3 ; con- taining excellent advice, some points of which it would have been better if he himself had practised. One he evidently for- got : " If any one sue to be a judge, for my own part, I should suspect him; " for after having sent a paper to Mr. Murray, of the King's Bedchamber, "concerning my honest and faith- ful services to his Majesty," he applied to Villiers, more than a year before the chancellor's resignation, to get it from him and go on " with my first motion, my swearing privy coun- cillor, not so much to make myself more sure of the other, and to put off competition." Six days later he again urges the suit 4, and repeats it on May 30 ; and when in the following June the king gave him the choice either to be sworn privy councillor, or to have the assurance of succeeding Lord Elles- 1 Works, vii. 401. 3 Ibid. vi. 400. 8 Ibid. xii. 31. 4 Ibid. xii. 143. 148., Feb. 1G15-16. 1603— 162". FRANCIS BACON. 83 mere, he wisely accepted the former *, and accordingly took his seat at the board on the 9th of that month. In the nine months that followed, Bacon kept up a constant correspondence with Villiers, not only on public matters, but with reference also to the favourite's private concerns, — the peerage which was conferred on him in August, and the grants which were made to him to support his title, with the con- trivances adopted for his benefit. Even in these, apparently for no other object than that of flattering Yilliers, he speaks slightingly of " the Cecils, father and son." 2 During this time also the proceedings took place which expelled Coke from his seat in the King's Bench, in which Bacon, so far from attempting to moderate the king's groundless anger, took every means to justify and inflame it. The minute of Council, and the " Remembrances," prepared by him, are evidently composed in this spirit.3 Nor did he show more generosity towards the chief justice, in reference to the absurd direction as to "expurging of his Reports:"4 and if the long letter addressed to Coke, as soon as his disgrace had been rendered certain, was, as it has always been considered, the production of Bacon, it exhibits the mean spirit of triumphing over a fallen adversary, by dwelling, under the pretence of friendly admonition, on all his faults and infirmities, and painting them in colours which, however true to the life, reflect on the writer the imputation of their being dictated by cowardly and malicious feelings.5 Lord Ellesmere's last days were approaching. During the two previous years he had petitioned to be relieved from his office, but could not prevail on the king till March 3, 1616-17. Four days afterwards Bacon attained the object of his late endea- vours, by receiving the Great Seal from the king's hand, with 1 Works, xii. 149, ■ Ibid. 59, 60. 15*. 237. 3 Ibid. vii. 307-338. 349. * Ibid. xii. 304. 5 Ibid. vii. 290. Q 2 84 FRANCIS BACON. James T. the title of lord keeper.1 In another week Lord Ellesmere died ; and on May 7 Bacon took his seat in the Court of Chancery, delivering a long speech, stating his resolutions as to the practice. Even in this speech he could not refrain from giving a sly and contemptuous blow at Sir Edward Coke, by saying, in allusion to complaints against judgments at law, " wherein your Lordships may have heard a great rattle and a noise of praemunire, and I cannot tell what."2 He first removed from Gray's Inn to Dorset House in Fleet Street, and soon afterwards to York House in the Strand, where he was born. On receiving the Seal he immediately wrote to Villiers (now created Earl of Buckingham), in strong terms of grati- tude, stating that he " shall count every day lost," wherein he shall not (C do your name honour in speech, or perform you service in deed."3 The earl made good use of this promise, by writing numerous letters to Bacon in favour of suitors ; and the success of his influence may be judged by the frequency of the applications.4 Herein both the earl and the lord keeper forgot the advice formerly given by the one to the other : — " By no means be you persuaded to interpose yourself, either by word or letter, in any cause depending in any court of justice."5 Within four months, however, his inveteracy against Coke, and his fear lest his old enemy should again triumph, induced him to interfere in a matter which the earl was likely to re- sent. He wrote letters to the king and the earl (then both in Scotland), advising against the projected marriage between the earl's brother, Sir John Villiers, and Coke's daughter by Lady Hatton, and representing the inconvenience to the State " if there be but an opinion of his (Coke's) coming in."6 From 1 Claus. 16 Jac, p. 15. n. 13. 8 Works, vii. 243. ' 3 Ibid. xii. 241. 4 Ibid, passim, from 314 to 411. 5 Ibid. vi. 413. 6 Ibid. xii. 245. 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 85 the former he received a severe letter of rebuke l ; when he not only made an abject submission, but reversed his policy by furthering the match, and altering his carriage towards Sir Edward Coke.2 Buckingham was not so easily appeased, but " professed openly against " him, as reported in a letter from Sir Henry Yelverton, who gave him some sound advice how he should act.3 The earl was, however, soon afterwards apparently reconciled 4 ; and not only was the correspondence between them resumed, but Bacon was so entirely restored to the king's favour, that he received the title of lord chan- cellor on January 4, 1617-18. The king had indeed much reason to be satisfied with Bacon's industry ; for there was scarcely a single business touching the royal interests to which he did not devote himself. His correspondence with the king was incessant, comprehend- ing all subjects — political, judicial, and, what seems out of his province, economical. It would be more satisfactory if it did not contain too many proofs of his endeavours to conciliate favour by occasional symptoms of his inclination to stretch, and even to overstep, the law for James's benefit5, and by perpetual flattery and allusions to the superiority of the king's judgment, which are repeated ad nauseam. In reward for his "many faithful services," the king, on July 11, 1618, created him Baron Verulam6; and Bacon, three months afterwards, applied to Buckingham to obtain for him a grant of the farm of the Alienation, " a little to warm the honour."7 In the following May he received a more substantial favour in the grant of 1200/. a year8; and in writing to Buckingham on Dec. 12, 1619, as to the appropriation of the fines im- posed on the Dutch merchants for exporting gold and silver coin, he says : " And if the king intend any gifts, let them 1 Works, xii. 387. ■ Ibid. 85a 394. :' (bid. 331. * Ibid. 348. [bid 2< Itymer, wii. 17. 7 Works, xii. 260. 8 Ibid (J 3 86 FRANCIS BACON. James I. stay for the second course (for all is not yet done), but nothing out of these, except the king should give me the 20,000/. I owe Peter Yanlore out of his fine, which is the chief debt I owe." He adds : " This I speak merrily." Might he not have said " advisedly " too ? l His efforts in this case of the Dutch merchants, and in se- veral other proceedings which resulted in fines, were dictated, to all appearance, too much by the desire of relieving the king's pecuniary difficulties, and avoiding the necessity of call- ing a parliament. To this, however, it became necessary at last to resort ; and on November 6, 1620, a proclamation, in the preparation of which, both as to the business to be transacted, and the members to be chosen, Bacon took an active part, was issued for one in January, being six years and a half since that assembly had met. Bacon was advanced in the peerage with the title of Viscount St. Albans.2 This addi- tional title, though it made his subsequent fall the greater, was no doubt given in gratitude by the king, who, whatever may be thought of Bacon's services, could not fail to see in them a constant desire to please and assist him, and to whom the blow that was being silently prepared was as sudden and unexpected as it was to Bacon himself. Before the parliament met, Yelverton, the attorney-general, who had incurred Buckingham's enmity, was prosecuted in the Star Chamber for introducing certain clauses in a charter to the city of London not authorised by the king's warrant. Bacon, who had been on friendly and familiar terms with him, seems to have pressed the case too hardly against him ; and his letters bear the mark of his having been influenced in doing so by a desire to curry favour with Buckingham.3 In the preceding October, he published his great work, " Novum Organum," which he dedicated to the king ; to 1 Works, xii. 380. 2 Rymer, xvii. 279. 3 Works, vii. 446-9. 1603— 1025. FRANCIS BACON. 87 whom in a private letter he says, " there be two of your council and one other bishop [Andrews] of this land, that know I have been about some such wTork near thirty years." l The king received it most graciously, promising " to read it thorough with care and attention, though I steal some hours from my sleep, having otherwise as little spare time to read it as you had to write it."2 The parliament assembled on January 30 ; and Bacon, after the king had addressed it, made a short speech in the exagge- rated style of flattery he was in the habit of using : " I am struck with admiration in respect of your profound discourses, with reverence to your royal precepts, and contentment in a number of gracious passages, which have fallen from your Majesty in your speech," &c. The Commons were not so well satisfied with the king nor with his system ; and though they were liberal in their grants and respectful in their language, they resolved to investigate and repress the evils under which the people suffered, and to punish the oppressors. For this purpose they formed a committee of grievances, which pro- ceeded to inquire into the various monopolies, patents, and grants of concealments, which had caused so much suffering and injustice. One of the first objects of their attack was Sir Giles Mompesson, a member of their house, the charge against whom was taken into the House of Lords ; and while Bacon, as chancellor, was assisting in the examination, the committee of the Commons, on March 15, made a report, charging him with corruption in his high office, which was communicated on the 18th to the Lords. Bacon seems to have been wholly taken by surprise at this accusation, which was at first confined to two cases. lie immediately took to his bed, and addressed a letter to Sir James Ley, then acting as speaker in his stead, praying 1 Works, xii. 392. - [bid. 154. 88 FRANCIS BACON. James I. that the house would maintain him in their good opinion till his cause was heard, and for time to advise with his counsel, and to make his answer. On March 22nd, four more charges were brought against him; and on the 26th the parliament adjourned till April 17, three committees of the Lords being authorised to examine witnesses during the recess. On the renewal of the session the lord chamberlain announced that Bacon had had an interview with his Majesty, who had referred him to the Lords ; and on the 24th Bacon sent them a general confession, stating that, though not com- municated formally from the house, he found in the charges " matter sufficient and full " to move him to desert his de- fence. This submission not being deemed satisfactory, the Lords resolved that he should be charged with the several briberies and corruptions, and that he should make a parti- cular answer by the 30th. The charges had been greatly in- creased in number. They consisted of his having in no less than twenty-two instances received bribes and presents amounting to above 1 1,000/., from one or the other, or from both, of the parties in suits before him. On April 30 he sent in his submission, confessing seriatim the receipt of the several sums charged. Some few he ac- knowledged were given while the suit was depending ; but he asserted that others were not presented till after he had pronounced his decree. Some he said were New Year's gifts, and some presents towards the furnishing of his house ; and that there were "few or none that are not almost two years old." On the same day the Great Seal was sequestered, and, three days later, Bacon being excused from attending on account of illness, the Lords pronounced sentence against him — of a fine of 40,000/.; imprisonment in the Tower during plea- sure ; incapacity to hold any office, &c, in the State ; and prohibition against sitting in parliament, or coming within the verge of the court. They negatived the proposition that 1603— 16-25. FBANCI8 BACON. 89 he should be suspended from all his titles of nobility during his life. It has been suggested that Bacon was induced to " desert his defence " at the instigation of the king and Buckingham. What passed at the interview between the former and Bacon cannot of course be known ; but it is not improbable that the king, desirous as he must have been of putting a stop to the investigations of the Commons, lest other persons nearer to him should be implicated, advised him, if he had not a clear defence against all the charges, not to lengthen the proceed- ings. But it is impossible to read the evidence on which the charges were founded, or even the circumstances alleged by Bacon in extenuation of some of them, without feeling that it must have been more the consciousness of guilt than any tenderness towards other parties that dictated the submission that he offered. Indeed, his own letters, both previous and subsequent to this confession, contradict the idea that he sacrificed himself for the sake of others. In his first letter to the king after the charges were made, though he hopes he may not be found to have " a depraved habit of taking bribes to pervert justice," he adds, " howsoever I may be frail, and partake of the abuses of the times."1 In another, petitioning his Majesty to save him from the sentence, he ventures to say, " but because he that hath taken bribes is apt to give bribes, I will go further, and present your majesty with a bribe." And in a third letter pleading for pardon, he in- stances Demosthenes, Titus Livius, and Seneca, as having been restored after being condemned for bribery and corrup- tion.2 To Sir Thomas May also, in acknowledging and qualifying a present he had received from the Apothecaries, he says, " as it may not be defended, so I would be glad it were not raked up more than needs. I doubt only the chair, because 1 hear he useth names sharply."3 The language in 1 Works, xii. 66. - [bid. *iii ' Ibid, xii 90 FRANCIS BACON. James I. these and other letters cannot by any interpretation be read as that of an innocent man. When he signed his submission, his advice to Buckingham must have risen up as a witness against him : " Judges must be chaste as Caesar's wife, neither to be, nor to be suspected to be, unjust 1 ; " and one of the features in the picture of a good judge, which he painted in his address to Judge Hutton, could not but be painfully brought to his mind : " That your hands, and the hands of your hands, I mean those about you, be clean and uncorrupt from gifts, from meddling in titles, and from serving of turns, be they of great ones or small ones."2 After his sentence^ he expresses in his letters no compunc- tion for his offence, nor exhibits any shame at his exposure. How little he felt his disgrace appears in a letter to the Bishop of Winchester, in which he talks of his consolation being in the examples of Demosthenes, Cicero, and Seneca, — "all three ruined, not by war, or by any other disaster, but by justice and sentence as delinquent criminals ; all three famous writers, insomuch as the remembrance of their calamity is now as to posterity but as a little picture of night- work, remaining amongst the fair and excellent tables of their acts and works."3 In a letter also to Buckingham he says, " I confess it is my fault, though it may be some happiness to me withal that I do most times forget my ad- versity."4 Neither was it any impediment to his wit, for when Sir Henry Montagu, Earl of Manchester, who had been chief justice, and was lately removed from the office of lord treasurer to the less important one of lord president of the Council, expressed to the fallen chancellor how sorry he was to see him made such an example, Bacon replied, " It did not trouble him, since his lordship was made a precedent."5 1 Works, vi. 413. 2 Ibid. vii. 271. 3 Ibid. 113. 1 Ibid. xii. 424. 3 Aubrev, 225. 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 91 Camden says his imprisonment lasted but two days l, and his letters prove that one of them was the 31st of May, and that the next day he was at Sir John Vaughan's at Parson's Green.2 From this retirement he was allowed at the end of the month to remove to Gorhambury.3 In the following September he pressed his suit for some assistance in his fallen fortunes ; and on October 8 he thanked the king for the remission of his fine, and offered his history of Henry VII. for correction.4 The fine was pardoned, and, at the same time, assigned to trustees to prevent the importunity of his creditors ; to the passing of which Lord Keeper Williams at first made some objections, the proposed assignment being, as he said, " full of knavery and a wicked precedent." From a letter addressed to him by John Selden in February 1621-2, he seems to have at one time contemplated overturning the judgment against him, on account of a doubt he raised whether that meeting of parliament was a legal session ; but he received no encouragement.5 He continued his importu- nities till his friends succeeded in March in obtaining a release from his confinement at Gorhambury, and a permis- sion to go to Highgate.6 Subsequently he tells the Lord Trea- surer Cranfield, who was negotiating with him for the purchase of York house, that he had taken a house at Chiswick7; and at the end of 1 622 Buckingham obtained for him an interview with the king.8 He continued, by means of friends and letters, his correspondence with Buckingham till the marquis in February, 1623, accompanied the prince on his romantic pil- grimage to Spain, when, as he says, " the better to hold out,"9 he retired to his chambers in Gray's Inn. He never returned to York house, which became Buckingham's in 1624. During the marquis's absence in Spain, Bacon appealed to 1 Camden in Kennett, ii. 657. ' Works, xii. 490., \iii. M. » Ibid. xii. 408. * Ibid. 410. [bid. 421. ■ Ibid. 425, 7 Ibid. 43 ' Ibid. xiii. 37. » Ibid. I 92 FRANCIS BACON. James T. the king himself in a long letter, which would have been pathetic but that it is over-laboured, praying his Majesty to pity him so far as that he " that hath borne a bag be not now in his age forced in effect to bear a wallet, nor he that desired to live by study, may not be driven to study to live."1 So reduced does he appear to be, by all his letters, that upon a vacancy in May, 1623, he applied to the king, but unsuccessfully, for the provostship of Eton, u a cell to retire unto."2 To Buckingham, while abroad (then created duke), his letters were frequent and flattering ; and to Mr. Toby Mat- thew, who was also in Spain, his desires to keep him in the prince's and the duke's remembrance show his anxiety to be again received into favour. On their return in October he offered the duke counsel for his conduct, advising him to " do some remarkable act to fix " his reputation, and remind- ing him of an old Spanish proverb, " he that tieth not a knot upon his thread loseth the stitch."3 In January, 1624, he tells the duke that he is " almost at last cast for means 4 ; " but it was not till November that he succeeded in getting " three years advance," to relieve him of his necessities.5 Shortly before this he had received a full pardon of his whole sentence.6 King James died on March 27, 1625, and King Charles immediately calling a parliament, Bacon had the firstfruits of his full pardon by receiving a writ of summons. Ill health, which had begun to make inroads upon him, pre- vented him from taking his seat, and for the whole of that year his correspondence was much curtailed. Such letters as remain show a continuance of straightened means. He writes to Sir Robert Pye " to dispatch that warrant of a 1 Works, xii. 49. » Ibid. 440. s Ibid. 450. 452. 4 Ibid. 455. 6 Ibid. xiii. 7. G Ibid. 70. 1603—1625. FRANCIS BACON. 93 petty sum, that it may help to bear my charge of coming up to London ; *l and at the end of the year he tells the Duke of Buckingham that "his wants are great."2 Even as late as January, 18, 1626, he shows that his hopes of court favour are not exhausted, by requesting the French ambassador, the Marquis d'Effiat, to procure for him some mark of the queen's good will, and to take occasion to whisper something to his advantage in the Duke of Buckingham's ear.3 Indeed a great part of the industry which he displayed during the five years that intervened between his disgrace and his death seems to have been employed in attempts to regain his lost consequence, and to forward his personal advantage. He sent his History of Henry VII. to the king for correction ; he dedicated it to the prince ; he requested his majesty " to appoint me some task to write, and that I should take for an oracle," — and "to give me a theme to dedicate to my lord of Buckingham, whom I have so much reason to honour."4 The rest of his time was consecrated to higher and better purposes. No moment seems to have been unoccupied ; and his industry is manifested in the number of his original productions during that period, and in the publication of translations of his i 104 THOMAS C^ESAK. James I. But whatever was his position, he did not long retain it. His patent as baron of the Exchequer is dated May 26, 1610; he was knighted on June 25, at Whitehall; and he died on the 18th of the following month. Lodge, in his memoirs of the Caesar family, states his death to have occurred on June 9, 1621; but that he was in error is sufficiently proved, first, by a letter from the Rev. D. Crawshawe of Chancery Lane, who attended him in his last illness, which, though undated, is indorsed and indexed by his brother, Sir Julius, to whom it was addressed, with the date of July 18, 1610, and the addition, "Mr. D. Crawshawe's testimony of my brother Sir Thomas Caasar's godly disposition that morn- ing he died ; " 1 and next, by the appointment of a cursitor baron in his place in the October following. He was buried in the church of Great St. Helens, Bishopsgate. His first wife died in 1590, leaving three children who did not live to grow up. He married, secondly, Anne, the daughter of George Lynn, of Southwilk, Northampton, Esq., and widow of Nicholas Beaston, Esq. ; but she dying early without children, he took for his third wife, in January, 1592-3, Susan, daughter and co-heir of Sir William Ryther, knight, an opulent alderman of London. The Mote near Maidstone, now the seat of the Earl of Romney, with various other estates in the county of Kent, fell to her share. After his death, she took for her second husband Thomas, second son of Sir John Philpot, knight, of Compton Wascelin, Hants. Sir Thomas had by her three sons, — Thomas, Augustus, and Ferdinando, — and five daughters. Some of his descend- ants were eminent in the profession which first introduced his father to notoriety. 2 ' Add. MSS. 12,497., No. 406'. 2 Memoirs of the Cajsars, 39-41. 1603—1625. ROBERT CLARKE. 105 CHAMBERLAYNE, THOMAS. Just. K. B. 1620. See under the Reign of Charles I. CLARKE, ROBERT. B. E. 1603. See under the Reign of Elizabeth. Of the progenitors of Robert Clarke, or Clerke, no account has been discovered. That his family lived in the county of Essex can be only surmised from the fact that he purchased the Mansion-house of Newarks, or Newlands-fee, in the parish of Good Estre, and made it his residence ; and that he also possessed the manor of Gibbecrake, in Purley in that county.1 He was admitted of Lincoln's Inn on February 15, 1562, was called to the bar in 1568 2, and is recorded as a reader in autumn, 1582.3 Notwithstanding the irregular entries in pp. 96 and 97 of Dugdale's Chronica Series, by which he is constituted a baron of the Exchequer in June, 1588, 30 Eliz., it would seem that he was separately called to the degree of the coif on June 12, 1587, 29 Eliz., for the purpose of being invested with the judicial ermine on the 22nd of the tame month; inasmuch as in Coke's 3rd Report, p. 16, his name clearly appears as baron, and one of the judges of Assize at Hertford in the summer of that year. In the summer of 1590 he was the judge of Assize at Croydon, before whom John Udall, the Puritan, was tried for the publication of the alleged libel called " The Demonstration," — a trial which, notwithstanding the evident wish of the judge to be lenient with him if he would have submitted, is a curious instance of the shameful and absurd manner in which criminal proceed- ings were then conducted.4 On the accession of King Janice, 1 ftforant'a Essex, i. 345., ii. 459. Black Hook, iv. :577., v. 75. Dugdale'i Orig. - 4 State Trials, i. 1277. 106 ROBERT CLARKE. James I. his patent was renewed, and on July 23, 1603, he was knighted. He sat on the bench for nearly twenty years ; and a few months before his death the information against Bates, raising the great constitutional question whether a duty could be imposed on the subject by the mere act of the king, was heard in the Exchequer. The baron's argument in Michael- mas Term, 1606, in which he gave judgment for the Crown, is fully stated in Lane's Reports, p. 22. He manifestly felt the weakness of the case, for never was there a more feeble production. He died on January 1, 1606-7, and directed by his will, dated on December 4th preceding, that no more than 20/. should be expended on his funeral, but that 40/. should be distributed among the poor. He was buried at Good Estre. Morant says that he had only two wives ; but to these one, or perhaps two more, must be added, and all of them were widows. In his will he charges his son Jeremie to pay 17/. a year to the Merchant Taylors' Company, in discharge of his bond for Garson Hills for his life, which charge he says he had by his marriage with his mother. He also gives to his son-in-law, Edmond Chapman, his leases in Southwark, which he states he had by marriage with his mother. Now Garson Hills and Edmond Chapman might possibly be the sons of one mother, who might have been twice a widow before she married the baron ; but they could not have been the sons of either of the wives whose names are recorded. The first of these was Margaret, the daughter of John Maynard, M. P. for St. Albans, and grandfather of the first Lord Maynard. Her first husband (to whom she was second wife) was Sir Edward Osborne, Lord Mayor of London in 1582, and ancestor of the first Duke of Leeds. He died in 1591, leaving no issue by her; and she then married Baron Clarke, and died in 1602. The baron records these facts on 1603—1625. ItOBERT CLAKKE. 107 a monument he erected to her and her first husband in the church of St. Dionys Backchurch, London.1 The name of the baron's second recorded wife was Joice (Jocosa), whose monument, still remaining in the church of St. Saviour's, Southwark, describes her as having been twenty-two years the wife of James Austin, and then for four years the wife of Sir Robert Clarke, and to have died in 1626 at the age of sixty-six, after having been twenty years a widow. The baron must therefore have married Joice Austin very soon after the death of his wife Margaret ; but as he could not have married the latter before 1591, four years after he ascended the bench, there is no difficulty in supposing that he was previously united to one or two widows, the mothers of Garson Hills and Edmond Chapman, especially as at the date of his will five of his daughters were already married. The parish register of Good Estre settles the question, for there it is recorded that " Mary Clarke, the wife of Robert Clarke, Esq., was buryed the 26 daie of February, 1585 ; " and that u Catheran Clarke, the wife of Mr. Baron Clarke, was buryed ye 16th daie of January, 1590." These, there- fore, were the baron's first two wives, and the same register shows that by the second of these he had two of his children, Esther, born in 1587, and Jeremiah, born in 1589. His eldest son, Robert, and his five married daughters, were therefore the issue of his first wife. He had two more daughters by his wife Margaret. Robert, who was afterwards knighted, succeeded to the manor of Newarks ; that of Gibbecrake was bequeathed to Jeremiah.1 1 Collins's Peerage, i. '2IM., vi. 282. In the latter she is called Dorothy. ■ Morant, ut supra. T have gratefully to acknowledge the kindness of George R. Corner, Esq., F.S.A., in furnishing me with the wills and inscriptions and other particulars of the family. 108 EDWARD COKE. James I. COKE, EDWARD. Ch. C. P. 1606. Ch. K. B. 1613. The ancestors of Sir Edward Coke are traced as far back as the twelfth century; Henry Coke, of Doddington, in Norfolk, bearing arms and being mentioned in a deed dated 8 John.1 In direct descent came Robert Coke, Sir Edward's father, of Mileham in the same county, who was a lawyer, and, ac- cording to the evidence of his son, a bencher of Lincoln's Inn, though Dugdale does not include him in his list of governors. He married Winifred, daughter and coheiress of William Knightley, of Morgrave Knightley in Norfolk, and dying at his chambers in Lincoln's Inn on November 15, 1561 2, he was buried in St. Andrew's Church, Holborn. There Sir Edward erected a monument to his memory, as he did also, in the church of Tittleshall, to that of his mother, who, after marrying Robert Bosanne and having by him a son named John, died in January, 1569. Edward Coke, who was the only son out of eight children, was born at Mileham on February 1, 1551-2; so that he was ten years old when his father died, and near eighteen at the decease of his mother. He received the rudiments of his education at the grammar school at Norwich, and was thence removed in September, 1567, to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained three years and a half. On the 21st of January, 1571, he was admitted a student of Clifford's Inn3 and after going through the usual elementary course of law, 1 Hasted's Kent, ii. 479. 8 This and many of the subsequent dates and facts are taken from notes in Coke's handwriting in an interleaved copy of Littleton's Tenures, preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, No. 6687., part i. They were used by the able writer of Coke's Life in the Penny Cyclopccdia, and have been since extracted and arranged chronologically by John Bruce, Esq., in the Collectanea Topogruphica et Genealogica. Coke is said to have called it his Fade Mecum; and under that name it is afterwards quoted. 1603—1625. EDWARD COKE. 109 was in the following year, on April 24, entered of the Inner Temple. In the six years that he spent there he distinguished himself by his studious application, and at the end of them, on April 20, 1578, he was called to the bar.1 In the very next term he held his first brief in the Court of King's Bench, and was successful in defending Mr. Denny, a clergy- man of his native county, in an action brought against him by Lord Cromwell for scandalum magnatum? His reputation for learning was already so great, that within a year after his call the benchers of his house selected him as reader at Lyon's Inn3, — an honour usually conferred on an older barrister, — where his lectures fully confirmed the character he had acquired. On August 13, 1582, he married his first wife, Bridget, the daughter and heir of John Paston, Esq., deceased, of Huntingfield, in Suffolk4, a descendant of Judge Paston. At this time his name was pronounced Cooke, and is so spelled in the registry of his marriage, as also in a special commission ten years later, when solicitor-general.5 His ac- quisition of a fortune of 30,000/. with his wife, in addition to his paternal inheritance, did not diminish his industry ; for from this date he seems to have been engaged in almost every prominent case noticed by the different reporters. About 1585, he was chosen recorder of Coventry; in the next year the same office was given to him by the citizens of Norwich ; and in January, 1591-2, the corporation of London called him to the distinguished post of recorder of the metropolis. The latter office he retained for six months only, resigning it on being selected by Lord Burleigh as solicitor-general in the room of Sir Thomas Egerton, on June 16, 1592. In the previous Easter Term he had been nomi- nated autumn reader of the Inner Temple ; and accordingly 1 Vade Mecum, to. 13. ■ 4 Reports, 14. ■ Vade Mecum, fo. 17. 4 Ibid. fo. 10. 8 Api». cV l Report Tub. Ree. 884. 110 EDWARD COKE. James I. composed seven lectures on the Statute of Uses, five of which he delivered to 160 auditors in August, when, on the appear- ance of the plague, he was compelled to withdraw from London. In his progress to his seat at Huntingfield, he says that " nine of the benchers, forty of the bar, and other fellows of the Inner Temple," accompanied him as far as Romford.1 Hitherto he had confined himself to his legal avocations : he was now to enter on his political career. Before the parliament of 1593 was assembled, and even before Coke had been elected a member of it, the queen and council, on January 28, named him as the speaker.2 On the 5th of February he was returned as representative of his native county, " nullo contradicente ; " and he proudly adds that it was a free election, "sine ambitu, seu aliqua requisitione, ex parte mea." On the meeting of the house he was elected speaker, as had been previously arranged. The parliament lasted only seven weeks ; and his speeches in it have the same ponderous verbosity for which they were ever remarkable, and too much of sycophantic subserviency, ill according with the boldness of his later years. But he was then a seeker after advancement, and he felt he had a mistress with whose power no one dared to trifle. Exactly one year after his speakership terminated, on April 10, 1594, he became attorney-general, again succeed- ing Sir Thomas Egerton, who was appointed on the same day master of the Rolls. This latter office had been vacant for more than a year by the death of Sir Gilbert Gerard, and the interval was occupied by the intrigues of Bacon to obtain it for himself. These intrigues were continued for another year and seven months for the solicitorship, during which Coke had the double labour of performing the duties of both offices.3 The interest of Essex was exerted on Bacon's behalf on each oc- casion ; and he was also assisted by Egerton, who supplied 1 Vade Mecum, fo. 13. s Ibid. 3 Ibid. fo. 14. 1603—1625. EDWARD COKE. Ill him with instructions for the exercise of the latter office ] ; but other influences prevailed, and, to Bacon's second dis- appointment, Sir Thomas Fleming was at last nominated solicitor-general. In 1596 Coke was elected treasurer of the Inner Temple.2 Coke had lived happily with his first wife for sixteen years, when he lost her on June 27, 1598. Within five months after this event he entered into another matrimonial speculation, which began inauspiciously, and was fatal to his future peace. His second wife was Elizabeth, relict of Sir William Hatton, and daughter of Thomas Cecil, who had just succeeded his father as Lord Burleigh, and the marriage took place at her house in Holborn on November 6, 1598 3, without either banns or licence. Even his friend, Arch- bishop Whitgift, could not overlook this irregularity, and it was only by a humble submission, and the extraordinary plea of ignorance of the law, that Coke and all the parties concerned escaped excommunication. Within a fortnight after the marriage the archbishop issued a pastoral letter to the bishops of his province, dated November 19, requiring them to warn all ministers of the consequence of offending against the canons of the church.4 The powerful connections and the large fortune of the lady had also attracted Bacon, who had previously become a suitor for her hand ; and the success of his great rival did not tend to diminish the hostile feelings between the parties. Coke continued attorney-general during the remainder of Elizabeth's reign, no vacancy having occurred in the chief seats of the Common Law Courts during the nine years that it lasted. The only important State Trial which is reported in the interval, was that of the Earls of Essex and Southampton in February, 1601. Here he gave the first specimen of that 1 Egerton's Life, 165. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 170. 3 Vade Mecum, fo. 12. * Strype's Whitgift, p. 522. 112 EDWARD COKE. James I. objurgatory and coarse style, which makes his oratory so pain- fully remembered. He designates the prisoners as "a Catiline, popish, dissolute, and desperate company ; " he calls the Earl of Essex ec treason-bird ; " and uses these harsh and indecent expressions : " But now, in God's Judgment, he of his Earl- dom shall he Robert the last, that of the Kingdom thought to be Robert the first ; " and, " Well, my Lord, we shall prove anon what you are, and what your pride of heart and aspiring mind have brought you unto."1 That this kind of language was not the mere result of professional excitement is manifest from the arrogance and ill-temper he displayed in 1601, when Bacon, in the Court of Exchequer, made some motion which Coke thought trenched upon his duties, Kindling at it, he said, " Mr. Bacon, if you have any tooth against me, pluck it out, for it will do you more hurt than all the teeth in your head will do you good." Bacon's sneering answer, " Mr. Attorney, I respect you ; I fear you not ; and the less you speak of your own greatness, the more I will think of it," drew this reply from Coke : " I think scorn to stand upon terms of greatness towards you, who are less than little, less than the least ; " with other insulting language. " Herewith stirred," Bacon proceeds, " yet I said no more but this : Mr. Attorney, do not depress me too far ; for I have been your better and may be again, when it please the queen " — a truth that was sub- sequently realised. After many more disgraceful words, the scene ended by Coke's threatening to "clap a cap. utlegatum" on his back. 2 On the commencement of the new reign, Coke, who had cordially cooperated in the arrangements for the peaceable accession of James, was not only confirmed in his office, but received the honour of knighthood. He soon had ample op- portunity of exhibiting his zeal in the prosecution of State ' Jardine's Crim. Trials, i. 318—329. 2 Bacon's Works, vii. 338. 603—1625. EDWARD COKE. 113 offenders. On Sir Walter Raleigh's trial, his heartless and unmanly behaviour forms an appropriate introduction to the shameful mode in which the proceedings were conducted, and the disgraceful verdict given by the jury; and his fulsome adulation of the king's wisdom and innocence has an awkward illustration, in the absurd farce which the monarch caused to be performed at the intended execution of the lords implicated in the same treason, and in the cruel tragedy which, thirteen years after, he perpetrated in Raleigh's death on that condem- nation. Of this king he says, " I shall not need speak any- thing ; " and then, with a well prepared exception, adds, " nor of the bounty and sweetness of his nature ; whose thoughts are innocent, whose words are full of wisdom and learning, and whose works are full of honour ; although it be a true saying, Nunquam nimis quod nunquam satis." To Raleigh, a prisoner on trial for his life, he brutally says, " Thou art a monster ; thou hast an English face, but a Spanish heart ; " — " Thou viper, for I thou thee, thou traitor ! " — " Thou art thyself a spider of Hell ; " — " Oh damnable atheist ! " &c. Even Chief Justice Popham felt it necessary to apologise; " Sir Walter," said he, " Mr. Attorney speaks out of the zeal of his duty for the service of the king ; and you for your life ; be patient on both sides : " and Secretary Cecil endeavoured to soften him ; " Be not so impatient, good Mr. Attorney, give him leave to speak." On which Coke angrily exclaimed, " I am the King's sworn servant, and must speak ; if I may not be patiently heard, you discourage the King's Counsel, and encourage Traitors ; " — and sat down in a chafe. l A more disgusting scene had never been witnessed in court. The death of Sir Edmund Anderson in August, 1605, seemed to offer a favourable opportunity for Coke's advance- ment. Whether he preferred his present post as the more 1 Jardine's (Mm. Trials, i. 407. 410. 428. 44S. 446. ; State Trials, ii. 7 VOL. VI. I 114 EDWARD COKE. James I. profitable, or that the Court could not then dispense with his services, or that Sir Francis Gawdy, as was reported, offered a greater temptation, Coke was passed over, and Sir Francis was raised to the chiefship of the Court of Common Pleas. During the ten months that he survived, the trials of the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot occurred, in which Coke repeated his gross flattery of the king, and his cruel language to the prisoners. Their termination was almost im- mediately followed by his elevation to the bench as chief justice of the Common Pleas. He succeeded Sir Francis Gawdy on June 30, 1606, having been on the same clay made a serjeant, and taken for his motto, u Lex est tutissima cassis." l On ascending the judicial seat, he discarded all appearance of subserviency, and boldly asserted the independence of the judge. He did not hesitate to oppose James in his attempts to extend his prerogative ; and in the very next year after his appointment he told the king, in the case of Prohibitions, that his Majesty had not power to adjudge any case, either criminal or between party and party ; but that it ought to be deter- mined in some court of justice ; and upon the king's saying that he thought the law was founded on reason, and that he and others had reason as well as the judges, Coke answered that, " true it was that God had endowed his Majesty with excellent science and great endowments of nature, but his Majesty was not learned in the laws of the realm of England ; " with which the king was greatly offended.2 In another case, in 1608, when he and the other judges were summoned before the council to account for a judgment they had given, he said to the lords, " We do hope that where[as] the Judges of this realm have been more often called before your Lordships than in former times they have been, which is much observed, and gives much emboldening to the vulgar, that after this day we 1 Vade Mecum, fo. 14. 2 12 Reports, 64. 1603—1625. EDWARD COKE. 115 shall not be so often, upon such complaints, your Lordships being truly informed of our proceedings, hereafter called be- fore you." l In 1610 he gave an opinion, in opposition to the council, that the king could not, by his proclamation, create any offence which was not an offence before.2 In the next year, he and the other judges of the Common Pleas discharged Sir William Chancey, brought before them by Habeas Corpus, who had been imprisoned by warrant from the High Commis- sion in Causes Ecclesiastical, and afterwards justified their decision before the council. When a new Commission was issued, in which he was named, he refused to sit upon it.3 His old enemy, Bacon, did not fail to take advantage of Coke's resistance. On the death of Sir Thomas Fleming, he re- commended the king to remove Coke from the Common Pleas to the King's Bench ; and, among others, he gave the following reasons for this measure : " It will strengthen the King's causes amongst the Judges, for my Lord Coke will think himself near a Privy Counsellor's place, and thereupon turn obsequious." " The remove of my Lord Coke to a place of less profit . . . wTill be thought abroad a kind of discipline to him for opposing himself in the King's causes ; the example whereof will contain others in more awe." 4 His craft suc- ceeded: Coke was promoted to the office of chief justice of the King's Bench on October 25, 1613; and was sworn of the Privy Council on November 4. He received a sincerer and more welcome compliment in the following June, by his unanimous and unsought election as steward of the University of Cambridge. " Sit Deo gratias," he writes at the conclu- sion of this entry.5 At the beginning of the reign he had obtained for the University the privilege of sending two members to parliament/* 1 12 Reports, 51. 2 Ibid. 74. 8 Ibid. 82. 84. 88. 4 Bacon's Works (Montagu), vii s Vade Mccum, fo. 12. 15. * Seward's Anecdotes, iii. 996. I 2 116 EDWARD COKE. James I. Coke was not more "obsequious" in his new office than he had been in his old. Some portion of his uncomplying conduct may perhaps be attributable to his being brought frequently into collision with Bacon, now attorney-general, whom he despised, and whom he could not but consider as a watchful spy on his conduct, and a delighted tale-bearer of his supposed lapses. In Bacon V letters to the king, his offences are carefully reported. The infamous case of Peacham was the first of these. The king having desired to have the private opinion of the judges, whether Peacham could be convicted of treason, Bacon undertook to procure it. Coke, however, told him, " that this auricular taking of opinions, single and apart, was new and dangerous ; " but on being pressed that the other judges had given theirs, he con- sented ; and, to Bacon's disappointment, it was in writing, and was apparently against the prosecution.1 Notwithstanding the infinite pains he took in regard to the murderers of Sir Thomas Overbury, he offended also on those trials by some mysterious and indiscreet expressions he used in the course of them. In their progress he not only repeated his flattery of the king, but resumed the coarse invectives in which he had formerly indulged; degrading the seat of justice by telling Mrs. Turner, before the verdict was given, that t( she had the seven deadly sins, viz., a whore, a bawd, a sorcerer, a witch, a papist, a felon, and a murderer." Guilty as the parties undoubtedly were, Coke conducted the trials most unfairly ; and the daily letters that passed between James and him on the subject of them are in strong contrast with his former protest against giving auricular opinions.2 But the immediate causes that appeared to determine the court to remove him, were his independent refusal to submit to its interference in the case of Commendams, and his more « Johnson's Life of Coke, i. 246. 8 Great Case of Poisoning, 360—420. 1603— 1625. EDWARD COKE. 117 doubtful denial of the power of the Court of Chancery. In the first case, the legality of Commendams having been inci- dentally disputed by a counsel in his argument in a private cause, the king's pleasure was signified to the judges that they should not go on with the case till they had first con- sulted his Majesty. But the judges thought it their duty, this being only a dispute between party and party, to proceed, notwithstanding the king's mandate ; and all the twelve signed a letter to the king, stating their reasons and justifying their conduct. They were immediately summoned before the council, and, being reprimanded by the king, they all fell down on their knees, and acknowledged their error, except Coke, who defended the letter; and upon further interro- gation, whether they would stay their proceedings on a future command, Coke said, " When the case should be, he would do that which should be fit for a judge to do."1 In the other case, Coke had not only resisted the power of the Court of Chancery to touch any cause which had been decided in the Courts of Common Law, but had encouraged indictments being presented against all who had been con- cerned in a case where relief in equity had been applied for, including the counsel and solicitor to the parties, and even the mnster in Chancery to whom it had been referred. The question was taken up by the king, whose decision, confirm- ing the Court of Chancery in all the powers which it claimed, is acted on to this day. On both of these occasions Bacon's hand is visible. In the case of the Commendams, he enlarges, in his letter to the king, on Coke's contempt; and in the Chancery question, he dwells on the time chosen for pressing the indictments, u that which all men condemn — the supposed last day of my lord chancellor's life:" as if that was in the power of the chief ' Bacon's Works (Montagu) vii. 907—338. I 3 118 EDWARD COKE. James I. justice to select. The result of all this "turbulent carriage/' as the king called it, was, that on June 30, 1616, he was se- questered from the council table, and ordered to " forbear to ride the summer circuit." This was soon followed by his re- moval from office, his discharge from which, on November 15, he is stated to have u received with dejection and tears." A private job is said to have hastened his supersedeas. Buck- ingham wished to have the lucrative post of chief clerk of the Court of King's Bench, the profits of which, when it became vacant, Coke intended to apply to the augmentation of the salaries of the judges. As the place was in his gift, the only means of obtaining it was by removing him, and by pledging his successor, as the condition of appointment, to transfer it to the favourite. No sooner was Sir Henry Montagu sworn into office than the admission of Buckingham's trustees to the disputed place showed the success of the negotiation. On Coke's receiving a hint that his compliance would prevent his dismissal, he refused the temptation, saying, " A judge must not pay a bribe or take a bribe." Montagu sent him an offer to purchase the collar of SS ; but Coke answered that " he would not part with it, but leave it to his posterity, that they might one day know that they had a chief justice to their ancestor." Bacon, while this was in agitation, had the meanness to address a letter to Coke, in which, with an ungenerous and malicious pen, he describes the character of the chief justice. He says, " In discourse you delight to speak too much, not to hear other men. This, some say, becomes a pleader, not a judge; for by this sometimes your affections are entangled with a love of your own arguments, though they be the weaker, and rejecting of those which, when your affections were settled, your own judgment would allow for strongest. Thus while you speak in your own element, the law, no man ordinarily equals you ; but when you wander, as you often 1603—1625. EDWAKD COKE. 119 delight to do, you wander indeed, and give never such satis- faction as the curious time requires." — " You cloy your audi- tory when you would be observed : speech must be either sweet or short." — <( You converse with books, not men, and books especially human ; and have no excellent choice with men, who are the best books : for a man of action and em- ployment you seldom converse with, and then but with your underlings ; not freely, but as a schoolmaster with his scholars, ever to teach, never to learn. . . . As in your pleadings you were wont to insult over misery, and to inveigh bitterly at the persons, which bred you many enemies, whose poison yet swelleth, and the effects now appear, so you are still wont to be a little careless in this point, to praise or disgrace upon slight grounds, and that sometimes untruly, so that your re- proofs or commendations are for the most part neglected and contemned : when the censure of a judge, coming slow but sure, should be a brand to the guilty, and a crown to the vir- tuous. You will jest at any man in public, without respect of the person's dignity or your own : this disgraceth your gravity more than it can advance the opinion of your wit. You make the law to lean too much to your opinion, whereby you show yourself to be a legal tyrant, striking with that weapon where you please, since you are able to turn the edge any way. . . . Having the living of a thousand, you relieve few or none." l Whatever truth there is in this delineation, who must not wish it painted by another hand, and at another time ? Ben Jonson's epigram upon him, written between 1613 and 1616, is a better proof of the estimation in which Coke was then held by his contemporaries, as a lawyer and a judge, and affords some evidence that players were not inimical to him, nor he to them. 1 Hacon's Works (Montagu), vii. 293. I 4 120 EDWAltD COKE. James I. " He that should search all glories of the gown, And steps of all rais'd servants of the crown, He could not find than thee, of all that store, Whom Fortune aided less, or Virtue more. Such, Coke, were thy beginnings, when thy good In others' evil best was understood : When, being the stranger's help, the poor man's aid, Thy just defences made th' oppressor afraid. Such was thy process, when integrity, And skill in thee now grew authority, That clients strove in question of the laws, More for thy patronage, than for their cause, And that thy strong and manly eloquence Stood up thy nation's fame, her crown's defence ; And now, such is thy stand, while thou dost deal Desir'd justice to the public weal, Like Solon's self, explat'st the knotty laws With endless labours, while the leaning draws No less of praise than readers, in all kinds Of worthiest knowledge, that can take men's minds. Such is thy all, that as I sung before, None Fortune aided less, and Virtue more : Or if Chance must to each man that doth rise Needs lend an aid, to thine she had her eyes."1 Milton also thus speaks of him, in a sonnet addressed to his grandson, Cyriac Skinner : — " Cyriac, whose grandsire on the royal bench Of British Themis, with no mean applause, Pronounc'd and in his volumes taught our laws, Which others at their bar so often wrench." 2 Coke, at the time of his dismissal, was commanded to ex- punge and retract " such novelties and errors and offensive conceits as were dispersed in his ( Reports.' " But he showed that there were no more errors in his 500 cases than in a few cases of Plowden ; and delivered in a paper explaining other points. This frivolous inquiry, however, soon ceased; and though he was not replaced in his judicial seat, he was re- 1 B. Jonson's Works (Giffbrd), viii. 430. 2 Milton's Works (1762), ii. 218. 1603—1625. EDWARD COKE. 121 ceivcd into a certain degree of favour. Bacon also, who had become lord keeper, was sharply rebuked by the king on Coke's account, and was nearly losing the friendship of Buck- ingham for opposing the marriage of Coke's daughter by Lady Hatton with the earl's brother, Sir John Villiers, after- wards Lord Purbeck. This marriage Coke had evidently negotiated for the purpose of securing the interest of Buck- ingham, and thus furthering his return to court. In this he was partially successful, being restored to the council table in September, 1617, and appointed, on July 21, 1618, one of the commissioners for executing the office of lord high trea- surer.1 During three years he was employed in various com- missions, and his assistance was required in the Star Chamber in all cases of difficulty ; but he received no substantial proof of the renewal of the royal confidence ; and when the office of lord high treasurer, to which he had aspired, was given or sold to Sir Henry Montagu in December, 1620, and Sir James Ley, in the following month, was appointed lord chief justice of the King's Bench, he saw at once that he must give up all expectation of future preferment. He had not been in parliament since 1593, the office of attorney-general disqualifying him from sitting in the House of Commons in 1597, 1601, and 1604 ; and during the short parliament of 1614 he was chief justice. But when James summoned that of 1621, Coke, dismissed from his judicial seat, was again eligible, and was accordingly returned for the borough of Liskeard in Cornwall. His parliamentary career may be truly said to have then commenced, his mouth being no longer stopped by the silence imposed upon him by his former office of speaker. He at once distinguished himself by taking a prominent part against monopolies, patents, and other grievances ; and was one of the principal movers against Sir Giles Mompesson. In the impeachment of his 1 Pell ItccorcU, 211. 122 EDWARD COKE. James I. old enemy, Bacon, he did not, though one of the managers, actively interfere, nor in the other trials which then took place ; but on the adjournment in June, he is said to have stood up " with tears in his eyes," and to have " recited the collect for the king and his issue, adding only to it, 'and defend them from their cruel enemies.' " When the house met again in November, it immediately proceeded on the Spanish match and the supply for the palatinate, and Coke was made chairman of a committee to consider these and other subjects. A remonstrance and petition to the king being resolved on, Coke spoke strongly in their support. He made a bold stand also for the privileges of the house ; and the protestation, which was then carried, so offended the king, that with his own hand he tore it out of the journals. The parliament was again adjourned on December 18 ; and on January 6, 1621-2, was dissolved by a proclamation en- larging on the "cunning diversions" of " some ill-tempered spirits who sowed tares among the corn." In the interim between the adjournment and the dissolution, several of these "ill-tempered spirits" were visited with the vengeance of the court. Coke had made himself a special mark for the royal indignation. The council debated on the means of excluding him from the general pardon at the end of the year ; he was sent to the Tower on December 27 ; his papers were seized ; and prosecutions were commenced against him on trumped-up and frivolous charges.1 His incarceration lasted seven months, at first without intercourse with his family or friends ; and even when he obtained his discharge in August, 1622, the king said "he was the fittest instru- ment for a tyrant that ever was in the realm of England," and ordered him to confine himself to his mansion at Stoke Pogis. i "July, 1622. The great cause concerning the Lord Coke, for 50,000J. followed in the king's behalf in the Court of Wards, is adjudged for my Lord Coke by the three chief judges and Justice Dodderidge." — Yonge's Diary, p. 62. 1603—1625. EDWARD COKE. 123 From the new parliament which necessity compelled James to call in February, 1623-4, attempts were made to exclude Coke by sending him into honourable exile. He was joined in commission with Sir William Jones and others to inquire into the church establishment in Ireland, and his passport was actually granted; but the commission not being acted on, he took his seat as member for Coventry. The questions on which he seemed mostly to interest himself were the Spanish match, the means of recovering the palatinate, and the impeachment of the Earl of Middlesex, on each of which he managed the conferences with the House of Lords. The session closed on May 29, and King James died on the 27th of the following March. In the first parliament of Charles, Coke, who was chosen by his native county, at first dissuaded the house from renewing the committee for grievances, advising a petition for the king's answer to the former application ; but afterwards he opposed the grant of a supply without a redress of grievances. This demand, and an evident preparation to bring charges against the Duke of Buckingham, led to a hasty dissolution on August 12, 1625, and to an endeavour to prevent the most unruly members from sitting in the next parliament, which Charles was necessitated to call in the month of February following, by nominating them sheriffs of the counties in which they resided. Coke was made sheriff of Buckinghamshire, but was elected member for Norfolk ; and, notwithstanding a message from the king, no new writ was issued, though, in consequence of the parliament being dissolved before his sheriffalty expired, he did not take his seat. Two years elapsed before the third parliament was called ; when Coke was returned for two counties, Buckingham and Suffolk, choosing the former because he redded there. It met on March 17, 1628; and in the first session, which ended on June 26, and was the last in which he took any part in 124 EDWARD COKE. James I. public affairs, he advocated the liberty of the subject with an energy that was surprising in a man who had attained the age of seventy-eight. He suggested, and succeeded in car- rying, the famous Petition of Right ; in the conferences with the Lords being one of the principal managers, and over- corning, by his arguments and perseverance, all the objections and impediments raised against it. In the violent proceed- ings of the second session of this parliament he took no part : but retiring to his seat at Stoke Pogis, he occupied the five remaining years of his life in publishing that celebrated work on which his fame is permanently established, "The First Institute, or Commentary on Littleton," and in preparing for the press the three other volumes of the Institutes, treating respectively on Magna Charta, on Criminal Law, and on the Jurisdiction of the Courts. These, with his Will and fifty- one other manuscripts, were seized while he was on his death-bed, by an unaccountable order of the privy council, under the pretence of searching for seditious papers ; and were not published till seven years afterwards, when, by a vote of parliament, they were delivered up to his son. Four years before his decease, one Nicholas Jeoffes was indicted and fined in the King's Bench for writing a petition wherein he said that Lord Chief Justice Coke was a traitor.1 He died on September 3, 1633, being then nearly eighty- two years of age, and was buried in the church of Tittleshall, in Norfolk, in which a marble monument, bearing his effigy at full length, is erected to his memory. Besides the four books of Institutes, he published eleven volumes of Reports, to which two other volumes were added many years after his death, but not finished or prepared by him for publication. The first part came out in 1600, when he was in the height of his professional fame, and attorney- general to Queen Elizabeth. The others followed in quick 1 State Trials, iii. 1375. 1603—1625. EDWARD CORK. 125 succession till the eleventh, published in 1615, about a year before he was deprived of his office of chief justice of the King's Bench by James ; an example of perseverance and indefatigable industry, which no one occupied as he was with judicial and political duties, and harassed by domestic broils, could have exhibited, had not a cold-blooded temperament made him indifferent to the one, and a habit of early rising enabled him to overcome the other. They are distinguished in Westminster Hall by the name of " The Reports," and his jealous enemy, Bacon, is obliged to say of them, " Had it not been for Sir Edward Coke's reports ... the law by this time had been almost like a ship without ballast, for that the cases of modern experience are fled from those that are adjudged and ruled in former time." For some law tracts, also, of minor importance, but of great learning, the profession was indebted to him. They were not published till after his death, and are now from the alterations in practice become obsolete. The early portion of Coke's life was not distinguished from that of any other advocate, except by his deeper studies and a more extensive and successful practice. The reputation he attained for legal knowledge pointed him out without a rival for the office of solicitor-general, which he filled at the age of forty. In less than two years he succeeded as attorney- general, and during the twelve years that he held that office he raised it to an importance it had never before acquired, and which it has ever since preserved. The coarseness and brutality of his language, both at the bar and on the bench, will ever leave a stigma on his memory ; but it may be ob- served, that no such ebullitions occurred till his rivalry with Bacon began, whose underhand endeavours to supplant and annoy him evidently tended to exacerbate his temper, which was not naturally good ; and some of his violent and indecent exhibitions — towards Essex, for instance, who was supposed 126 EDWARD COKE. James I. to be Bacon's friend, — may, perhaps, be traced to that influ- ence. His pride and arrogance, however, cannot be doubted, and to them it may be attributed, together with the coldness of his nature and his retired habits, that his biographers record no friendly intimacies, and that fewer sayings of his are repeated than of any person who held so prominent a position in public life. In his station as a judge, which he occupied for ten years, he shone with the brightest lustre; and, making some allowance for his equivocal conduct with regard to Overbury's murderers, he deserves great praise for his resistance of royal interference, and for upholding the independence of the bench; though sometimes, perhaps, he exaggerated his opposition for the purpose of thwarting Bacon, whom he knew to be the encourager, if not the insti- gator, of the king's arbitrary views. Judge Whitelocke gives testimony of his freedom from the prevailing vice of the time. " Never was man," he says, " so just, so upright, so free from corrupt solicitations of great men and friends, as he was. Never put counsellors that practised before him to annual pensions of money or plate to have his favour. In all causes before him the counsel might assure his client from the danger of bribery."1 By his subsequent career in parliament, and his energetic advocacy of liberal measures, he would have gained the admiration and applause of the world, was it not for the opinion, by some entertained, that his opposition to the court savoured too much of personal discontent and disappointed ambition. This mixed feeling has prevented him from being a popular character, and has led men to doubt his judgment, and to deny his authority in matters unconnected with his profession ; so that many who allow his merit as a great lawyer and an incorrupt judge, refuse to acknowledge his claims as a disinterested patriot, or as an estimable man. 1 Whitelocke's " Liber Famelicus;" a MS. Diary quoted in Bacon's Works by Montagu (vol. xvi. p. cccxvi. note), who omits to state where it is. 1603—1625. EDWARD COKE. 127 Against his private character even his enemies could bring no charge ; but the contentions with his second wife, which did not terminate till his death, do not speak well for the temper of either. If his division of the hours of the day, (( Quatuor orabis," was the rule of his life, he must be al- lowed to have been a pious man. Of his friendship to the church he gave many proofs in his settlement of ecclesias- tical property, and in his careful selection in the distribu- tion of the patronage attached to his estates. With regard to the first, he threatened a nobleman, who was applying for some lands belonging to the see of Norwich, to put on his cap and gown again and plead in support of its rights ; and as to the last he was wont to say, that " he would have church livings pass by livery and seisin, not by bargain and sale." He was liberal in his entertainments, but moderate in his household ; and when a great man came to dinner with- out previously informing him, his common saying was, " Sir, since you have sent me no notice of your coming, you must dine with me ; but if I had known it in due time, I would have dined with you." His eagerness for territorial acquisi- tion was so great, that, though inheriting little more than two manors from his father, he possessed at his death upwards of sixty manors in Norfolk and Suffolk alone, besides others in no less than eight different counties. When he was in treaty for the noble domain of Castle- A ere Priory, in Nor- folk, King James is said to have told him that he had already as much land as it was proper for a subject to possess. " Then, please your Majesty," replied Coke, u I will only add one acre more to the estate." Holkham, the present seat of the family, is said to have been added to the property, by Sir Edward artfully inserting in the marriage settlement of his fourth son, John, with the daughter and heir of Anthony Wheatly, its former possessor, a limitation, in default of heirs male of the marriage, to his own right heirs, to the 128 THOMAS COVENTRY. James I. exclusion of the heirs female ; and that it was not discovered till 1671, when John's only surviving son having died child- less, the estate, instead of devolving on John's seven daughters, fell to Robert, the heir of Henry, Sir Edward's fifth son. Sir Edward, by his first wife, Bridget Paston, had seven sons and three daughters. The succession to the family estates fell finally on Robert, the grandson of Henry, his fifth son. Robert's grandson, Thomas, was created Baron Lovel in 1728, and Viscount Coke and Earl of Leicester in 1744; but the earl leaving no surviving issue, the titles became extinct in 1759. The estates then devolving on Wenman Roberts, Esq., the son of the earl's sister, Anne, that gentle- man assumed the name of Coke, and his son, Thomas William Coke, for many years the representative of Norfolk in parlia- ment, was at last, in 1837, created Viscount Coke and Earl of Leicester ; titles which are now borne by his eldest son. Clement, the sixth son of the chief justice, was the father of Edward Coke of Longford, who obtained a baronetcy in 1641, which became extinct on the death of the third pos- sessor in 1727. The marriage of Sir Edward Coke's daughter by Lady Hatton proved unfortunate, the lady disgracing herself, and leaving no legitimate issue. COVENTRY, THOMAS. Just. C. P. 1606. With John Coventry, lord mayor of London in the reign of Henry VI., and one of the executors of the renowned Richard Whittington, began the prosperity of this family, which derived its surname from the city of Coventry, where it was originally established. One of his descendants, Richard Coventry, was settled at Cassington in Oxfordshire, and by his wife, a daughter of Turner, had two sons, the 1603—1025. THOMAS COVENTRY. 129 younger of whom was Thomas the future judge. He was born in 1547, and received his education in the university of Oxford, where he took the degree of M.A. on June 2, 1565, and afterwards was elected fellow of Balliol College.1 He then pursued the study of the law in the Inner Temple, of which society he became reader in autumn, 1593 ; but, in consequence of the Plague, his reading was deferred to the following Lent, when he gave way to John Heale, newly appointed a serjeant, and at last performed the duty in the autumn of 1594. His name first occurs as an advocate in Coke's Reports in Michaelmas, 1589, and thence frequently till the end of Elizabeth's reign. He was one of those named on Sir Edward Coke's preferment to succeed him in the soli- citor's place ; and Bacon tells Sir Robert Cecil, though with a profession of disbelief, that it was asserted that Coventry has bought his interest for 2000 angels.2 Neither of them ob- tained the promotion ; and it was not till two months before the queen's death that Coventry received a writ to take upon him the degree of the coif in the following Easter. Before that time James had ascended the throne, rendering a new writ necessary, which had the same return. On January 13, 1606, he was appointed one of King James's Serjeants, that he might with greater honour be elevated to the bench, to which he was immediately called as a judge of the Common Pleas. The register of the Inner Temple enlarges on the error in the order of his procession to Westminster on the occasion, in which he was made to go " formost," instead of "last of all" — an error which, we are solemnly told, was reformed on the next day, when Mr. Justice Tanfield was accompanied with the same ceremony. The dignity of knight- hood was conferred on the new judge, who, however, enjoyed his place for less than a year. The last fine levied before 1 Wood's Fasti Oton. S. \G7. - Bacon's Works (Montagu), \ii. i.-vr. VOL. VI. ft ] 30 JOHN CROKE. James I. him was in the following Michaelmas term 1 ; and dying on December 12 (1606), he was buried at Croome d'Abitot in Worcestershire. His estate, called Earles Croome, in that parish, he had acquired by his marriage with Margaret, the daughter and heir of Jeffreys, of that place, and it still is the chief seat of his family. The judge left three sons — Thomas, William, and Walter. Thomas was the lord keeper who will be noticed in the next reign. His male descendants failing in 1719, the barony, which had been granted to him in 1628, became extinct ; but the Earldom of Coventry, to which one of his successors had been raised in 1697, devolved, according to a special limita- tion in the patent, on the grandson of the judge's third son, Walter, from whom the present earl is the fifth in descent.2 CREWE, RANULPHE. Ch. K. B. 1625. See under the Reign of Charles I. CROKE, GEORGE. Just. C. P. 1624. See under the Reign of Charles I. CROKE, JOHN. Just. K. B. 1607. The original name of the Croke family was Le Blount. Two brothers, Robert and William Le Blount, younger sons of the Count de Guisnes, held high military commands in the army of William of Normandy on his descent upon England. After the Conquest they were rewarded by extensive grants of lands — the former in Suffolk, the latter in Lincolnshire. 1 Dugdale's Orig. 48. 97. 166. ; Chron. Ser. 8 Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 459. ; Collins's Peerage, iii. 744, 1603—1625. JOHN CROKE. 131 The elder branch failed by the death of the sixth baron at the battle of Lewes in 1264 ; and of the younger branch, Sir Robert Blount, who was deeply implicated in the conspiracy to restore Richard II. to the throne after his deposition by Henry IV., was beheaded at Oxford in 1400. Nicholas, his kinsman, being engaged in the same conspiracy, was outlawed, and took service under the Duke of Milan ; but four years afterwards he ventured into England, and escaped observation by changing his name to Croke. On the death of Henry IV., he came out of his retirement, and bought lands in Bucking- hamshire, where he resided at a place called Easington, in the parish of Chilton. His great-grandson, John Croke, first one of the six clerks, then a master, in Chancery from the reign of Henry VIII. to that of Mary l, besides purchasing Studley Priory in Oxfordshire, increased his possessions at Chilton, and built a mansion-house there, which became the principal seat of the family. He died in 1554, and by his wife, Pru- dentia Cave, left a son, who succeeded to his ample inherit- ance. His name was also John, and he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth when he was sheriff of Buckinghamshire ; which county he also represented in Parliament. Marrying Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Alexander Unton, of Chequers, in that county, he had by her a numerous family, the eldest of whom, John, he lived to see on the judicial bench, and the third, George, advancing rapidly towards it. The fifth son, William, is the only one whose male representatives have continued to the present time. One of them, Sir Alexander Croke, judge of the Vice- Admiralty Court in America, has commemorated his family in an elaborate " Genealogical His- tory," of which full advantage has been taken in the present sketch, and also in the memoir of Sir George in the following reign. 1 See his report upon the Ordinances in Chancery, vol. v. p. 341. K 2 132 JOHN CROKE. Jamks I. John Croke, the eldest son, was born in 1553, and received his legal education at the Inner Temple, where he became a student on April 13, 1570, and having been in due course called to the bar, was admitted a bencher on January 30, 1591. He was appointed Lent reader in 1596, and treasurer in 1598. At a very early period he had acquired so great a reputation for his professional attainments that he was con- sulted by Sir Christopher Hatton, who gave him as his fee " for his counsell in lawe, a silver gilt bole and cover." It does not appear whether this was before or after Hatton be- came chancellor in 1587. In 1592 Lord Chief Justice Pop- ham recommended him to be placed in the commission of the peace for Buckinghamshire. Three years after he was elected recorder of London ; and his biographer gives a copy of one of his speeches on presenting the lord mayor to the Court of Exchequer, which, in its elaboration, puts to shame the cur- tailed addresses of the present day. The same city chose him for their representative in the parliaments of 1597 and 1601 ; he having before, in 1585, been returned for the borough of Windsor. Of the parliament that met in October, 1601, he was unani- mously chosen speaker ; and in his speech on presentation, he offered up his solemn prayers to heaven to continue the prosper- ous estate and peace of the kingdom, which, he said, had been defended by the mighty arm of our dread and sacred queen. Elizabeth, interrupting him, cried out, " No ; but by the mighty hand of God, Mr. Speaker." The Court of Alder- men ordered the chamberlain to present him as speaker, with forty marks as their free gift.1 Early in the session Serjeant Heale, on the question of a subsidy, marvelled much that the house should stand upon granting it, or the time of payment, when all we had, he said, was her majesty's, and she may law- 1 City List of Recorders. 1603—1625. JOHN CROKE. 133 fully at her pleasure take it ; " yea," added he, u she hath as much right to all our lands and goods as to any revenue of the crown." At which all the house laughing and hemming, the speaker was obliged to call them to order, saying that " he that is speaking should be suffered to deliver his mind without interruption." The grievance of monopolies occa- sioned great debates in this parliament, and the queen having politically anticipated the decision of the Commons, the speaker had the gratification of announcing to the house her resolution to revoke the patents that existed, and not to grant any other. On the division upon the bill for enforcing attendance at church, the ayes being 105, and the noes 106, it was con- tended that the speaker had a vote which would make the votes even ; but Croke said, " He was foreclosed of his voice by taking that place which it had pleased them to impose upon him, and that he was to be indifferent to both parties." At the close of the session on December 19, the lord keeper concluded his speech by saying, " For yourself, Mr. Speaker, her majesty commanded me to say that you have proceeded with such wisdom and discretion that it is much to your com- mendations; and that none before you have deserved more."1 About a year after this Croke received a summons to take upon him the degree of the coif on a day which occurred after the queen's death. The writ in consequence abated ; but a new one was issued returnable the same day, the second return of Easter term, 1603 ; previous to which he was knighted by King James, an honour which it was decided by the judges did not give him precedence over his seniors. lie was made one of the king's Serjeants on May 29, and judge of the counties of Brecknock, lladnor, and Glamorgan ; where- upon he resigned the recordership. On the 25th of June, 1607, he was created a judge of the 1 Pari. Hist i. !" 134 -JOHN CROKE. James I. King's Bench, and fully sustained the character he had ac- quired as an advocate. In 1616 he became in some degree implicated in the controversy between Lord Chancellor Eger- ton and Chief Justice Coke as to the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, by introducing into his charge to the grand jury at Westminster the article under the statute of 27 Edw. III. c. 1, "if any man, after a judgment given, had drawn the said judgment to a new examination in any other court." He might, however, very innocently do this, knowing that some indictments under that statute were about to be presented ; and, as Bacon says, " it was not solemnly dwelt on," and still more as the bills were ignored, he escaped any public censure, and the prime mover, Coke, only suffered.1 After performing his judicial duties for nearly thirteen years he died at his house in Holborn, on January 23, 1620, aged sixty-six. His body was removed to Chilton, and buried there with his ancestors. His wife was Catherine, daughter of Sir Michael Blount, of Maple Durham in Oxfordshire, lieutenant of the Tower, by whom he had five sons : — 1. John, who was knighted, and was succeeded at Chilton by his son John, said to have been created a baronet, who, rendering himself infamous by conspiring against the life of one Hawkins a clergyman, falsely accusing him of felony, sold the family estate. His son, Sir Dodsworth Croke, died in poverty in 1728, without issue. 2. Sir Henry Croke, clerk of the pipe, whose male de- scendants failed by the death of all his grandsons before their father. 3. Dr. Charles Croke, professor of rhetoric in Gresham College, and fellow of Eton College, was obliged for his zeal in the cause of Charles I. to retire to Ireland, where he died. 2 Bacon's Works (Montagu), xii. 38 2603—1625. WILLIAN DANIEL. 135 4. Unton Croke was a serjeant at law (luring the Common- wealth ; and his sons, Richard, also a serjeant at law, favoured by Cromwell, and Unton Croke, who held a command in the protector's army, outlived the rebellion, but left no traceable descendants. 5. The fifth son, Edward, died young, without issue.1 DANIEL, WILLIAM. Just. C. P. 1604. Phillips, in his " Grandeur of the Law " (1684), says that this judge was a younger son of the ancient family of Daniels of Over-Tabley in Cheshire. The name was originally D'Anyers, and is to be found in the list of those who entered England with the Conqueror. Little is known of William Daniel, except that he was entered at Gray's Inn in 1556, and became reader there in autumn, 1579, when his reading was on "Jointures, 2 Henry VIL, c. 20." He held the office of treasurer in 1580 and 1587. 2 In 1584 he was admitted deputy-recorder of London to Serjeant Eleetwoode 3 ; and his name appears in Coke's Reports in Hilary, 1591. When about to be advanced to the degree of serjeant at law in 1594, his name was struck out" of the list upon an information to his prejudice relative to one Hacket, but was restored at the request of Lord Burleigh, who contradicted the report, and testified to his being "a vearie honest, learned, and discreat man." The same nobleman recommended him as a baron of the Exche- quer in 1598 4, but another was chosen. In the beginning of the year 1603-4 he was the first of four Serjeants named in Chief Justice Popham's letter to Lord Ellesmere, out of 1 Alex. Croke's Genealogical Hist, of the Croke Family. - Dugdale's Orig. 294. 298.; Pearce'a Inns of Court, 67. City List oi' Recorders. ' Peck's Desid. Cur. l>.v. ;). 24, K 4 136 THOMAS EGERTON. James I. whom King James was to select the two new judges he had determined to add to the judicial staff1 ; and he was ac- cordingly constituted a judge of the Common Pleas on February 3, 1604. There is no record of his argument in the great case of the Post-nati, but he joined the majority in the affirmative view of the question.2 The last fine levied before him was on the morrow of the Ascension, 1610, in which year he died.3 DENHAM, JOHN. B. E. 1617. See under the Reign of Charles 1. DODERIDGE, JOHN. Just. K. B. 1612. See under the Reign of Charles I. EGERTON, THOMAS, Baron Ellesmere, Viscount Brackley. M. R. 1603. Lord Keeper, 1603. Lord Chanc. 1603. See under the Reign of Elizabeth. The surname of Egerton was assumed from a manor so called, as early as the reign of Edward I., by the second son of David, Baron of Malpas, whose ancestors possessed that and many other lordships in Cheshire when Doomsday Book was compiled. In lineal descent came Sir Ralph Egerton, 3tandard-bearer of England under Henry VIII., whose son, Sir Richard Egerton of Ridley in the same county, besides leaving issue by his wife Mary, the daughter of Richard Grosvenor, Esq., of Eaton, was the father of Thomas Egerton, the future lord chancellor, by a young woman named Alice Sparke. 1 Egerton Papers, 388. * State Trials, ii. 576, Dugdale's Oiig. 48. j Woolrych's List. 1603—1625. THOMAS EGERTON. 137 He was born in the year 1540, and about 1556 was admitted a commoner at Brazennose College, Oxford, where he remained for three years. At the close of his classical education he commenced the study of the law at Lincoln's Inn on October 31, 1560, by which society he was called to the bar on February 2, 1572. Raised to its bench as a governor in 1580, he was named as Lent reader in 1582, and appointed treasurer in 1587. ! His principal practice as a barrister being in the Court of Chancery accounts for the absence of his name from all the Reports during his early career. It was not till 1583 that he is mentioned in Saville's Reports, being two years after he was raised to the office of solicitor-general ; his elevation to which took place on June 28, 1581, when Sir John Popham was made attorney-general. As the practitioners in Chan- cery did not, as now, confine themselves to that court, but occasionally attended the trials at common law, — indeed, so late as the reign of George III. many of them went the circuit, — it is possible that the following story told of Egerton may be true, although it is also related of Attorney- General Noy, and others. Three graziers deposited with a woman in Smithfield a sum of money, which she was not to give up till all the three came together to demand it. One of them afterwards applied to her in an apparent hurry, and pretending to be authorised by his partners induced her to give him the money, with which he immediately absconded. The other two, on hearing this, proceeded against her for the amount ; and on the trial of the action her counsel was about to give up the cause, when Egerton, at his request, obtained permission to speak as amicus curia. He then pointed out to the court that the two plaintiffs had no legal claim against the woman ; that she had promised to deliver back the money Black Hook, iv. 367. j v. 149. ; Dugdale'a Orig-. 253. 861. 138 THOMAS EGERTON. James I. to all three; and that, until they all three came and de- manded it of her, she was entitled to retain it. The poor woman was accordingly saved from a verdict, and the young barrister's character for shrewdness was established. It would be scarcely fair to test these traditionary stories by the practice of the present time ; but, making allowance for unprofessional embellishment, it is not at all improbable that some such incident occurred. Another anecdote of less like- lihood is related, that his appointment as solicitor-general arose from the admiration of Queen Elizabeth on hearing him argue in a cause against the crown, when she is said to have exclaimed, " In my troth, he shall never plead against me again." J During the intervals of his laborious avocations his chief relaxation was in the sports of the field. Lord Paget, in May, 1583, gave him a license to " hunt and kill" in any of his parks in Staffordshire, with a supply of "somer and winter deare " at his pleasure. In August of the same year Henry Earl of Derby appointed him master of the game in the park of Bidstone, in Cheshire, with the fee of a buck of season in summer, and a doe in winter, together with a nominal annuity of five marks. And in December, 1591, Lord Paget's license was renewed by the then possessor, with the allowance of a buck and a doe. No doubt all these parties were clients of the solicitor-general, with whom the Earl of Derby appears to have kept up a correspondence2, which was continued at his death by his brother Ferdinand, the next earl, who, in 1593, nominated Egerton's son Thomas steward of several of his manors.3 The two families were 1 Life of Egerton, 8. There is no authority for Lord Campbell's assertion that the Queen, before he became Solicitor-General, " made him one of her counsel ; " nor any appearance in history that such an office then existed " whereby he was entitled to wear a silk gown and have precedence." - Egerton Papers, 95, 96. 131. 157. 3 Life, 175. 1603—1625. THOMAS EGERTON. 139 afterwards more closely united by Ferdinand's widow be- coming the chancellor's third wife. Egerton held the office of solicitor-general for the space of eleven years, till Popham's elevation to the chief justiceship, when he became attorney-general on June 2, 1592, and so remained for nearly two years. During this long period of office he was of course engaged in all the prosecutions for high treason and offences against the state. His name appears in those against Campion and others in 1581; against Abingdon and others in 1586 ; against Secretary Davison in 1587 ; against Philip Earl of Arundel, and against Sir Richard Knightly in 1589; and against Sir John Perrot in 1592.1 If these criminal proceedings were to be judged according to the present enlightened views with regard to the administration of the law, not one of the persons engaged in them would escape condemnation. But this would be palpably unjust. With whatever abhorrence the iniquitous principles on wThich these trials were conducted may be now regarded, the only fair inquiry which can be raised with respect to the advocates employed in them, is whether they exceeded their duty according to the practice which then prevailed. Looking through the Reports from this point of view, Egerton must receive a full acquittal from all impu- tation of harshness towards the prisoners. Indeed, if a judgment may be formed from an observation made by John Udall, in the account of his examination about the publication of an alleged libel against the queen, the solicitor-general seems to have had the reputation of being an enemy to perse- cution. Chief Justice Anderson having called upon him to explain the law, Mr. Udall proceeds thus : " Then Mr, Solicitor (who had sitten all the while very soberly), noting what parsed (and if a man's mind may be known by his 1 State Trials, i. 1051. 1145. 1231. 1250. 1269. 1322. 140 THOMAS EGERTON. James I. countenance, seeming to mislike the course holden against me), upon my Lord Anderson's commandment stood up, and putting off his hat unto me, said," &c. l While he was attorney-general the office of Chamberlain of Chester became vacant, and was conferred upon him be- tween December 22, 1593, — the date of a letter from Lord Burleigh to him on the subject — and February, 1594, when Lord Burleigh inserts in his Diary, " Mr. Egerton, his ma- jesty's attorney, allowed to make his deputy at Chester."2 It must have been after this date that he was knighted, for in the above letter he is styled " Esquire," and in the entry he is called " Mr." But he received this honour very soon afterwards, as it is attached to his name when he was pro- moted to the mastership of the Rolls on the 10th of April following. This office had been vacant since February 4, 1593, the date of Sir Gilbert Gerard's death, and no expla- nation is given for its not having been previously filled up. It is not unlikely to have arisen from Egerton's wish that Sir Francis Bacon should succeed as solicitor-general on the advance of Sir Edward Coke to the post of attorney, and, therefore, that he deferred his own resignation while the negociation held out any promise of success. A letter from Sir Robert Cecil to Egerton, dated March 27, 1594, thanks him for the interest he took in Bacon's promotion by arming him " with your observations for the exercise of the solicitor- ship."3 That office was, however, kept open for one year and seven months, and then Bacon's hopes were disappointed by the nomination of Sir Thomas Fleming. So active and efficient did Egerton prove himself in the office of master of the Rolls, that the queen at once constituted him lord keeper on the death of Sir John Puckering, deliver- ing the Great Seal to him on May 6, 1596.4 It is univer- 1 State Trials, i. 1275. s Egerton Papers, 192. 21:3. 3 Egerton's Life, 165. ' Rot. Claws. 38 Eliz. p. 14. 603— 1G25. THOMAS EGERTON. 141 sully acknowledged that his appointment arose entirely from the high reputation he had attained for his legal knowledge and integrity, and not only without the intervention of any courtly interest, but even, it is said, in opposition to the wishes and endeavours of Lord Burleigh, and his son Sir Robert Cecil. Fuller says, that " all Christendom afforded not a person which carried more gravity in his countenance and behaviour .... so much that many have gone to the Chancery on purpose truly to see his venerable garb (happy they who had no other business), and were highly pleased with so acceptable a spectacle;" adding, that i( his outward case was nothing in comparison with his inward abilities, quick wit, solid judgment, ready utterance."1 He still re- tained the place of master of the Rolls, and executed during the rest of the reign the whole business of the Court of Chancery in his double capacity. The intrigues of the lawyers, who aspired to the second place, were counteracted by his influence with the queen, and her conviction that he needed no assistance. On Serjeant Heale being recommended to her towards the end of the reign, she applied to the lord keeper for his character ; and among the Egerton Papers is the draft of a letter in answer, in which he describes the Ser- jeant as " a grypinge and excessive usurer," "a gredye and insatiable taker of excessive fees," " a notorious and common ambodexter, takyng fee on both sides," and " a great drunk- arde ; " to prove which he has preserved minutes of evidence. The serjeant, it seems, had grown enormously rich, and Egerton himself had borrowed 400/. i'rom him. This, how- ever, failed to influence the lord keeper's report, and the serjeant called in the debt.2 1 Fuller's Worthies (1811), i. 186. * Egerton MSS. before acknowledged, and not included in Mr. Collier's valuable selection published by the Camden Society ; in which are other inter- esting particular* about this redoubted serjeant. See pp. 315. 391 142 THOMAS EGERTON. James I. In the foolish emeute raised by the Earl of Essex in Febru- ary, 1600, so fatal to himself, the grave lord keeper was placed in a position of some danger. In all the previous imprudences of this generous but headstrong nobleman, Eger- ton had shown himself a sincere and considerate friend, check- ing his indignation by salutary counsel when the queen had boxed his ears ; procuring his reconciliation at court ; acting the part of a polite and liberal host, rather than that of a strict gaoler, when he was committed to the lord keeper's custody at York House for his contempt in returning from Ireland without orders ; and eventually mitigating the cen- sure which was pronounced against him for this breach of discipline. Though relieved from the imprisonment to which he was subjected, and in some measure restored to the queen's good graces, his discontent again broke out, and a project was formed by him to seize her person, and revenge himself against those to whose enmity he attributed his various dis- graces. To this end he collected at Essex House a band of men of very equivocal character, and was joined there by the Earls of Rutland and Southampton, and by other persons of the better sort. On the queen's being informed of this, she sent the lord keeper, accompanied by the lord chief jus- tice and other lords of the council, to the earl's house, u to understand the cause of this their assembly, and to let them know that if they had any particular cause of grief against any persons whatever, it should be heard, and they should have justice.'* On being admitted they found the court-yard crowded with armed men, who, after the lord keeper had delivered the queen's message, cried out, " Kill them ! " — " Cast the Great Seal out of the window ! " &c. The earl, under pretence of conferring privately with them, took the lords into his back chamber, and, telling them that he was going to the lord mayor and sheriffs of London, and would be back in half an hour, left them under lock and key, 1603—1625. THOMAS EGERTON. 143 " guarded by Sir John Davis and others with musket-shot." There they were detained from ten o'clock in the morning till four in the afternoon, when Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who had joined Essex in his progress through the city, and found that he received no encouragement, hastened back and re- leased them. Considering how much the earl was indebted to Egerton, it is to be hoped that his allegation that he locked up the counsellors for their security against his irritated par- tisans was founded in truth ; but the Earl of Rutland in his examination acknowledged that it was purposed to take the lord keeper with them to the court, which they intended to surprise.1 During Queen Elizabeth's life Egerton enjoyed her utmost confidence and favour. She employed him in various treaties with the Dutch and the Danes, in the management of which he showed himself a good diplomatist ; and she entrusted him with great powers under several special Commissions, which he exercised with mildness and moderation. Within eight months of her death she paid him the honourable but burden- some compliment of a three days' visit to his mansion at Harefield, in Middlesex, recently purchased of Chief Justice Anderson ; the enormous expense attending which may well account for her majesty's subjects dreading such visitations.2 He was present during the last hours of Elizabeth's life, when she intimated her wishes as to her successor ; and no sooner did King James hear of his peaceful accession to the throne, than he issued a mandate from Holyrood House, dated April 5, 1603, appointing Egerton keeper of the Seal during his pleasure. The letter which he wrote seven days after- wards to Sir Thomas Chaloner, and which he knew would 1 See the Lord Keeper's Declaration, State Trials, i. 1340.; and the Examinations of the other parties, 1:544-1347 2 Egerton Papers, 340-347. 144 THOMAS EGERTON. James I. be shown to the king, deserves to be recorded as an evidence of his honourable and ingenuous character. He says : — " Yf I have bene taxed of hautenes, insolencye, or pryde, in my place (as I partely hear relation), I hope it is by theym that have not learned to speake well ; and against this poyson I have two precious antidotes: — 1. The religious wissdome, royall justice, and princelye vertues of the king my sove- raigne, which wyll soon disperse such foggy e mystes. 2. The innocencye and cleernes of myne owne conscience, which is more than mille testes. I must confesse that, in the place of justice which I have helde, I was never so servile as to regarde parasites, calumniators, and sycophantes, but always contemned them, and therfore have often fealte the malice of theyr thoughtes and the venym of their tonges. I have learned no waye but the kingis hyghe waye ; and travelling in that, the better to guyde me I have fastened myne eyes on this marke, Judicem nee de obtinendo jure orari oportet, nee de injuria exorari. Yf this have offended any, I will never excuse yt, for I take [it] to be incident to the place by severe examynyng of manie mens actions to offende many, and so to be hateful to many, but those alwayes of the worst sorte, agaynst whom I wyll say no more, but with Ecclesiasticus, Beatus qui tectus est a lingua nequam." l Egerton met King James on his arrival at Broxborne in Hertfordshire, on May 3, when, in the house of Sir Henry Cook, the cofferer, his appointment was confirmed. He was also continued in the office of master of the Rolls till the 19th of the same month, Edward Bruce Lord Kinloss being then named as his successor. Previous to the coronation a new seal was engraven with the king's own image, arms, and titles, which he delivered to the lord keeper on July 1 9, at the same time creating him Baron of Ellesmere in Shrop- 1 Egerton Papers, 359. 1603—1625. THOMAS EGERTON. 145 shire ; and on the 24th he was constituted lord chancellor.1 He held this high position for nearly fourteen years under King James, which, in addition to the seven years under Elizabeth, makes his term of service as the head of the law extend to the long period of twenty-one years. Few have filled so prominent a station with so much honour and so few enemies. Looking at the character of the two monarchs whom he served, he must have been endowed with more than ordinary wisdom, prudence, and learning, to suffer no alienation from the caprices of either, and to preserve such continued ascendancy in their councils, without degrading himself by that abject and humiliating flattery to which they were both too much accustomed. His merits were not only recognised by his sovereigns, but they were acknowledged by the University in which he was educated. On the death of Archbishop Bancroft, he was elected chancellor of Oxford on November 3, 1610, and his presidency lasted till within two months of his death, when he resigned it on January 24, 1617. The best mode of judging of the character of an individual is to see the reputation which he held among his contem- poraries of various grades. That of Egerton will stand the ordeal. Camden records an anagram on his name, " Gestat iionorem," which would not have been discovered if it had not been applicable ; and he himself repeats the eulogy. Ben Jonson wrote three epigrams in his praise, one of them the last time he sat as chancellor.2 Bishop Racket, who might have seen him in his youth, and must have known the estimation with which his memory was regarded, de- scribes him as one "qui nihil in vita nisi laudandum, aut fecit, aux dixit, aut sensit." Among the writers of the nexl generation, Fuller gives the testimony already recorded, ' Rot. Claw. 1 Jm. n. 12. - Bon Jonsoifs Works by Gifford, viii. l!t! VOL. VI. L 146 THOMAS EGERTON. James I. adding that Camden, had he published a second edition of his work, would have afforded him a full-faced commenda- tion when this lord had turned his expectation into per- formance ; and Anthony Wood says, " his memory was much celebrated by epigrams while he was living, and after his death all of the long robe lamented his loss." One of the most eminent of these — Sir John Davies, the poet, statesman, and lawyer, who, after filling the post of attorney-general in Ireland, was designated, at the hour of his death in 1626, for the office of Lord Chief Justice of England — after summing up the characteristics of a good chancellor in the following sentences, gracefully applies them to Lord Ellesmere : — " If, then, the greatest honours do of right belong to the greatest vertues (for what is honour but a reflexion and re- ward qfvertue?), how vertuous a person must he be, — with what gifts and graces, with what abilities and ornaments, both of art and nature, must he be endowed, — who can worthily supply that great and honourable office ? " Assuredly, besides the naturall faculties and powers of his mind, which he ought to have in great perfection, and besides the outward comeliness and dignity of his person (for Gratior est pulchro veniens e corpore virtus, et sapientia kominis lucet in vulto ejus, saith Solomon), he must be furnished with all learning that hath any relation to the publick good, divinity, law, policy, morality, and especial eloquence, to impart and communicate all the rest. He must withal have a long and universal experience in all the affairs of the commonwealth ; he must be accomplished and absolute in all points of gravity, constancy, wisedome, temperance, courage, justice, piety, in- tegrity, and all other vertues fit for magistracy and govern- ment ; yet so as the same be seasoned and tempered with affability, gentleness, humanity, courtesy ; howbeit without descending or diminishing himself, but still retaining his 1603—1625. THOMAS EGERTON. 147 dignity, state, and honour. Briefly, he must be a person of such vertue and worthiness, as his life may be a censure, and his example a mirrour, for all other magistrates. These are the excellences and perfections wherewith that great officer must be qualified and adorned. And this idea have I con- ceived of him, not out of mine own imagination, or weak discourse of reason, but out of an humble observation of your lordship, in whom not only those abilities and vertues before expressed, but many other graces and ornaments, do shine so brightly, as the weakest judgement may collect out of the same a most excellent pattern of a most excellent chan- cellor."1 He is said to have been the first law chancellor since the Reformation who entertained a chaplain in his family. This was Dr. John Williams, whose merits he discovered, and whose interests he advanced, so that the chaplain subse- quently filled the same office as his patron, and became also Archbishop of York. Another eminent man, Dr. Donne, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, spent many years under Lord Ellesmere's roof, as his secretary, and there formed that secret connection with his wife Anne Moore, the niece of the chancellor's second marriage, which had so fatal an influence on his earlier fortunes. Few of his judicial decisions are reported; but, in the case of the Post-nati, being the question whether persons born in Scotland after the accession of King James to the throne of England were aliens in the latter country, and therefore dis- abled from holding lands there, he delivered an elaborate judgment that they were entitled to all the rights of natural- born subjects ; which by the king's command he published in 1609. Twelve out of the fourteen judges concurring in his opinion, his remarks on the doubts of the other two afford a 1 Preface to Sir John Davies's " Reports of Cases adjudged in the King's Courts in Ireland," published in 1615. L 2 148 THOMAS EGERTON. James 1. curious specimen of the extraordinary manner in which Scripture allusions were introduced into the oratory of the period. He said, " The Apostle Thomas doubted of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, when all the rest of the Apostles did firmly beleeve it : but this his doubting con- firmed, in the whole Church, the faith of the resurrection. The two worthy and learned judges that have doubted in this case, as they beare his name, so I doubt not but their doubt- ing hath given occasion to clear e the doubt in others ; and so to confirme in both the kingdomes, both for the present and the future, the truth of the judgement in this case." He does not name the two dissentients, and it is uncertain which they were, as three of the judges who pronounced their opinion were named Thomas, viz. Sir Thomas Fleming, Sir Thomas Walmesley, and Sir Thomas Foster, all of the Common Pleas.1 In the latter part of this speech, he says in reference to the Ante-nati, "You shall find no such confluence hither; but some few that have done long and worthy service to hia Majesty, have and still do attend him, which I trust no man mislikes : for there can be none so simple or childish (if they have but common sense) as to think that his Majesty should have come hither alone amongst us, and have left behind him in Scotland, and as it were cast off, all his old and worthy servants."2 At the same time, when he saw the king's pro- fusion to his fellow-countrymen, he cautioned his sovereign not to remunerate them by the alienation of the Crown lands^ but to preserve these for his own support, seeing that he and his successors might meet with parliaments unwilling to supply his occasions, but on such conditions as would not be very acceptable.3 Besides the publication of this judgment, he printed no 1 State Trials, ii. 669. Lord Campbell names the two last. - State Trials, i. 695. s Fuller's Worthies, i. 1 86. 1603—1625. THOMAS EGERTON. 149 other work during his life; but he left several valuable manuscripts ; and some tracts appeared after his death with his name, on the privileges of the Court of Chancery ; on the office of lord chancellor ; and on Coke's Reports ; the genuineness of some of which has been doubted. He objected strongly to the Statute of Wills, passed in the reign of Henry VIII., saying that it u was not only the ruin of ancient families, but the nurse of forgeries; for by colour of making men's wills, men's lands were conveyed in the extremity of their sickness, when they had no power of dis- posing of them." He was wont to tell the following merry story as an illustration of its evils: — (S A friar coining to visit a great man in his sickness, and finding him past memory, took opportunity, according to the custom of the times, to make provision for the monastery whereof he was ; and finding that the sick man could only speak some one syllable, which was for the most part • yea,' or ' nay,' in an imperfect voice, forthwith took upon him to make his will; and demanding of him, ' Will you give such a piece of land to our house to pray for your soul?' The dying man sounded ' Yea.' Then he asked him s Will you give such land to the maintenance of lights to our Lady ?' The sound was again * Yea.' Whereupon he boldly asked him many such questions. The son and heir standing by, and hearing his land going away so fast by his father's word * yea,' thought fit to ask one question as well as the friar, which was : ' Shall I take a cudgel and beat this friar out of the chamber?' The sick man's answer was again, 'Yea;' which the son quickly performed, and saved unto himself his father's lands."1 In the latter part of his judicial career, he was annoyed by Sir Edward Coke's attempt to restrain the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, and by the proceedings which were taken, 1 Archccologia, xxv. :>84. quoted by Mr. Bruce from Hurl. MS. No. 1226. L 3 150 THOMAS EGERTON. James I. not only against certain suitors there, but against the counsel who were engaged in the causes, and even the masters in Chancery to whom they were referred, to subject them to the penalties of praemunire, to which, under an old statute, all per- sons were subject who impeached the judgments of any of the king's courts. The inquiry resulted in the complete triumph of Lord Ellesmere, by the confirmation of the powers of his court ; and it had no little effect in disgracing Coke, its in- stigator. In swearing in Sir Henry Montagu, his successor, the chancellor seems to have lost his wonted moderation, indulging in unbecoming sarcasms upon his fallen enemy. Referring to Sir Henry's grandfather, who had been also chief justice, as an example for him, he said, M You shall not find he ever said vauntingly, that he would make latitats latitare. When he did sit chief justice in this place, he contained himself within the word of the writ to be chief justice, as the king called him, ad placita coram nobis tenenda, but did not arrogate or aspire to the high title of capitalis justiciarius Angliae. He desired not any new construction of laws against commissioners and judges of sewers, nor to draw them into the danger of praemunire. . . He never strained the statute 27 Edw. III. c. 1., to reach to the Chancery, and to bring that court and the ministers thereof, and the subjects that sought justice there, to be in danger of praemunire, an absurd and inapt construction of that old statute ; " and so on with other allusions to the faults which were imputed to Sir Edward Coke.1 On November 7, 1616, the king rewarded his long services, by advancing him in the peerage to the title of Viscount Brackley, which the wits of Westminster Hall, who objected to his interference with the judgments of the common law courts, converted into Viscount Break-law. Pie had several times before this, requested the king to allow him to retire 1 Moore's Reports, 826. 1 603— 1625. THOMAS EGERTON. 151 from his arduous post, the duties of which he felt were too heavy for his increasing age and infirmities. Sickness at last compelled him to press his resignation, and the Close Roll records, that on March 3, 1617, being ill at his residence, York House, he was visited by the king himself, who then freed him from the custody of the Great Seal, according to his petition ; but limited his retirement to two years. Within two weeks from this time, however, his earthly career was closed. He died on March 15 ; and his body being removed to Doddleston in Cheshire, was there buried. The king, who appears to have regarded him with great affection, is said to have parted from him with tears of grati- tude and respect ; and to have signified his intention to raise him to an earldom. Though death prevented the chancellor from receiving this last mark of his sovereign's favour, little more than two months elapsed before his Majesty proved his sincerity by creating the heir Earl of Bridge water in Somer- setshire on May 27, 1617. The chancellor was thrice married, but had issue by his first wife only. She was Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Ravens- croft, Esq., of Bretton in Flintshire. His second wife was Elizabeth, sister to Sir George More, knight, of Loseley Farm, Surrey, Lieutenant of the Tower, and widow, first of Richard Polstead, Esq., of Abury, and then of Sir John Wolley, knight, of Pitford, both in the same county. His third wife, whom he married in 1600, was Alice, daughter of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe, knight, and widow of Ferdinando, fifth earl of Derby. She survived him nearly nineteen years, dying on January 26, 1636. His eldest son by his first wife, Sir Thomas, who distin- guished himself in the wars under the Earl of Essex, and whose death in Ireland was celebrated in verses, Latin, En- glish and Greek, having died in his father's lifetime, the suc- cession fell upon John, the second son. The Earldom of L 4 152 EDWARD FENNER. James I. Bridge water, which he received as before stated, was raised in the person of his great grandson, Scroop, the fourth earl, on June 18, 1720, to a dukedom of the same place. This title was enjoyed by his two sons, John and Francis, in suc- cession ; the latter of whom acquired not only a boundless fortune, but a deathless name, as the founder of inland navi- gation in England. On his death without issue, in 1803, the dukedom became extinct ; but the earldom devolved on John William, the grandson of Henry, bishop of Hereford, the younger brother of the first duke. He and his brother, Francis Henry (the author of a Life of his ancestor, the lord chancellor l), successively enjoyed it ; but on the death of the latter in 1829, the earldom also expired. The last duke bequeathed the greatest part of his immense possessions to his nephew, Earl Gower (afterwards the first Duke of Sutherland), the son of his sister, Lady Louisa, with remainder to that nobleman's second son, Lord Francis Leveson Gower, who on his father's death assumed the name of Egerton, and was raised to the peerage in 1846 by the titles of Viscount Brackley and Earl of Ellesmere, which have since devolved on his son. ELLESMERE, LORD. See Thomas Egerton. FENNER, EDWARD. Just. K. B. 1603. See under the Reign of Elizabeth. Edward Fenner was the son of John Fenner, of Crawley in the county of Surrey, by Ellen his wife, the daughter of Sir William Goring of Burton. Dallaway traces the family for five generations higher, the earliest of which he calls 1 Lil'c by the last Earl; Collins's Peerage, iii. 170.; Manning and Dray's Surrey, i. Do. j Wood's Athena? Oxon. ii. 198. 1C03— 1625. THOMAS FLEMING. 153 John atte Fenne.1 He took his leg.il degrees in the Middle Temple, to which society he became reader in Autumn, 1576. In Michaelmas in the following year he was made a Serjeant at law, and so remained for thirteen years without further advance, but enjoying a considerable share of professional practice. On May 26, 1590, he was constituted one of the judges of the Court of King's Bench, in which he sat for one and twenty years, under Elizabeth and her successor.2 In the January before his appointment he, being a justice of the peace for Surrey, sat on the bench at the assizes when John Udall was brought up to receive sentence, and in kind and considerate language assisted the judges in urging the prisoner to submit himself to her Majesty.3 He does not appear to have taken any prominent part in the State trials on which he sat as a commissioner. As one of the executors of Lady Dacres, he was defendant in Chancery, Lord Buck- hurst being the plaintiff, in the first case in Sir Edward Coke's first Book of Reports. He died on January 23, 1611-2, and was buried at Hayes in Middlesex. Rayner, in his catalogue of Blackstonc's works (p. 83), notices a curious error in the inscription on his monument in that church, his name appearing there as "Jenner" instead of " Fenner." He had only one son, Edward, who died three years after him, leaving no issue. FLEMING, THOMAS. Ch. B. E. 1604. Ch. K. B. 1607. The family of Fleming may be presumed to have originally come from Flanders. It was long settled in Hampshire, and many of its members, from the early part of the thirteenth century, held high office in the town of Southampton. John 1 Parochial Topography of Rape of Chichester, i. 16. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 218. ; Chron. Ser. 3 State Trials, i. 1J«J7. 154 THOMAS FLEMING. James I. Fleming, established at Newport in the Isle of Wight, was, by his wife Dorothy Harris, the father of Thomas the future judge, who was born there in April 1644. He does not appear to have been educated at either university, but on May 12, 1567, became a member of Lincoln's Inn ; and having been called to the bar on June 24, 1574, he arrived at the bench of that society in 1587, and was elected reader in Lent 1590, and double reader in Lent 1594. In the Michaelmas Term before the last date, he had received his summons to take on him the degree of the coif, and the readership was a complimentary duty not unfrequently imposed on a member previous to his leaving the society. Before the end of the following year he was designated as the successor of Sir Edward Coke in the office of solicitor-general, and even Bacon, who was intriguing for it, acknowledged that he was an able man for the place. In order to hold it, however, it was then deemed necessary to vacate the degree of Serjeant, and accordingly he had a writ exonerating him from it on November 5, 1595, and another appointing him solicitor- general on the next day. He was then replaced as a go- vernor of Lincoln's Inn, and so continued till he became lord chief baron.1 His name is first mentioned in Croke's Reports in Hilary Term, 1591. He soon had attained sufficient eminence in his profession to be brought forward as a candidate for the recordership of London ; a post to which, though he then missed it, he was elected in 1594. He resigned it in 1595 on being made solicitor-general.2 The only state trial in which he is named as acting, is that of those who partici- pated in the Earl of Essex's plot in 1600. In 1601 and in 1604 he was returned member for Southampton; being the 1 Dugdale's Orig. 254. 261, 262. ; Chron. Series; Bacon's Works (Montagu), xvi. App. LL. ; Line. Inn Black Book, v. 64. 183. - Maitland's London, 1206". 1603—1625. THOMAS FLEMING. 155 last parliament of Queen Elizabeth and the first of King James. The latter sat till July 7, and again met after seve- ral adjournments in November, 1605, a period memorable for the grand discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. During the interval Fleming had received the order of knighthood, and on the death of Sir William Peryam, the king had raised him on October 27, 1604, to the office of chief baron of the Exchequer. Such was the reputation for integrity he had acquired in the House of Commons, that on the meeting after their adjournment it was resolved, that not- withstanding his elevation to the bench, he should still con- tinue a member.1 When advanced on June 25, 1607, to the chief justiceship of the King's Bench he vacated his seat, and his son was elected for Southampton in his place. One of the first duties as chief baron was to sit on the trial of the gunpowder conspirators, but he appears to have been quite a silent commissioner. Not so, however, on the great case of Impositions by royal authority, which, so im- portant in its ultimate consequence, was tried in Michaelmas 1606. There, after expressing something like indignation, that a subject should presume to plead that an act of the king was, " indebite, injuste, et contra leges Angliae impo- sita," he concluded a long argument which, though certainly most learned and ingenious, was anything but conclusive in favour of the crown. The question of the Post-nati did not arise till after he became chief justice. His argument is not preserved, but his decision was with the majority in support of the claim. The only other important case in which he is recorded to have been engaged, is that in which the refusal of the Countess of Shrewsbury to answer interrogatories relative to the marriage of Sir William Seymour with Lady Arabella Stuart, and her connivance in their subsequent escape, were considered before the Privy Council. It was 1 Duthy'i Hants, SSSi 156 THOMAS FLEMING. James I. a preliminary inquiry as to this being an offence in law, and whether it was cognizable in the Star Chamber, and the chief justice's speech, in favour of the affirmative, is curious as con- taining a recital of the privileges attached to the nobility, and the consequent duties which they are therefore peculiarly called upon to perform.1 After presiding over the court of King's Bench for six years, he died suddenly, in the 69th year of his age, on August 7, 1613. He had retired to bed in perfect health on the previous evening after dispensing his customary hospitali- ties in " a rearing day " to his tenants at Stoneham Park, which he had purchased of the Earl of Southampton. He was buried in the church of that parish, under a stately monument, on which he is represented in his official costume, with an inscription that he had fifteen children, of whom eight were then living, by his wife, Dorothy, otherwise Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Cromwell of Hitchinbroke, who was the aunt of the Protector.2 A prejudiced account of him is given by Lord Campbell, who calls him a "poor creature: "3 but Sir Edward Coke, who knew him somewhat better, describes him as discharging all his places " with great judgement, integrity and discre- tion ; " adding, that " he well deserved the good will of all that knew him, because he was of a sociable and placable nature and disposition."4 The male branch of the family failed in the early part of the last century, when the Hampshire property, including the Stoneham estate, devolved on the descendants of the great antiquary Browne Willis, who had married a daughter of the house. These assumed the name of Fleming, and the present possessor long represented the county in parliament. 1 State Trials, ii. 159. 217. 387. 609. 770. 2 Duthy's Hants, 385. ■ Lord Campbell's Chief Justices, i. 237. * 10 Coke's Reports, 34. 1603—1625. TnOMAS FOSTER. 137 FOSTER, THOMAS. Just. C. P. 1607. Thomas Foster was born about the year 1569. He be- longed to the family of Foster in Northumberland, one of whom was gentleman usher to Queen Mary ; and another, Sir John Foster, his second cousin, was made a knight-ban- neret at Musselburg for his valour in defeating the Scots.1 The earliest notice of Thomas's name is as a barrister in 1587, when he appears both in Coke's and Croke's Reports. He became reader of the society of the Inner Temple in autumn 1596 ; and was one of the persons designated by Queen Elizabeth to be Serjeants two months before her death. The writ being renewed by King James, he assumed the coif in Easter Term 1603, and was afterwards counsel to Queen Anne and Prince Henry. On the 24th of November, 1607, he was called to the bench as a judge of the Common Pleas2 ; and sat in that court for four years and a half, performing his duties in such a manner as to acquire the character of " a grave and reverend judge, and of great judgment, constancy, and integrity." He was nominated by Thomas Sutton to be one of the first governors of his hospital — the Charter House.3 He died on May 18, 1612, and was buried at Hunsdon in Herefordshire under a massive arched monument of varie- gated marble, with an effigy of the judge in his robes.4 His town residence was in St. John Street. Robert, the youngest of his sons became chief justice of the King's Bench in the reign of Charles II. 1 Gent. Mag. lxxxiv. pt. i. 341. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 161.1 Chron. Scr. 8 10 Coke's Reports, 235. 4 I am indebted to the Rev. T. M. Thackeray, the Rector, for an account of it. and a copy of the inscription. 158 FRANCIS GAWDY. James I. GAWDY, FRANCIS. Just. K. B. 1603. Ch. C. P. 1605. See under the Reign of Elizabeth. Francis Gawdy was the half brother of his predecessor Sir Thomas Gawdy, being the third son of Serjeant Thomas Gawdy, of Harleston in Norfolk, by his third wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas or Oliver Shyres. He presents an instance as well of the same name being given to two sons, as of a christian name being altered at confirmation. At his baptism he was called Thomas, which at his confirmation was changed to Francis, and the latter name, " by the advice of all the judges in anno 36 Henry VIII. (1544), he did beare, and after used in all his purchases and grants." l Like his brother he was a member of the Inner Temple, being admitted there in 1549, and six years after him, filled the same office of Lent reader, viz. in 1566. In Lent 1571, he was appointed duplex reader, and also treasurer to the society. No further mention is made of him till he was called to take the degree of the coif, which he assumed in Michaelmas Term, 1577. He was made one of the Queen's Serjeants on May 17, 1582 2; and in this character he was present at Fotheringay on the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, but no duty appears to have devolved upon him. On the arraignment of Secretary Davison in 1587, for forwarding the warrant for that unfortunate lady's execution, he joined in the solemn farce with as serious a face as any of the rest of the actors.3 His turn for promotion came in the following year. On the death of his brother Sir Thomas Gawdy, he was nomi- nated his successor as a judge of the Queen's Bench on November 25, 1588. In none of the criminal trials on which 1 Coke Litt. 3a. 3 State Trials, 3. 1173. 1233. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 165. 170.; Chron. Ser. 1603—1625. FRANCIS GAWDY. 159 he was a commissioner, either in the reign of Queen Eliza- beth or of King James (by whom he was continued in his place and knighted), is he represented as taking any part except in that of Sir Walter Raleigh, when he is made to say, "The Statute you speak of concerning two witnesses in case of Treason, is found to be inconvenient, therefore by an- other law it was taken away." l He was named as one of the commissioners to hear causes in Chancery on the death of Sir Christopher Hatton in 1591. It seems not improbable that he owed his elevation to the bench to Elizabeth's favoured chancellor, whose nephew, Sir William Newport, alias Hatton, about six months after it took place, married the judge's only daughter Elizabeth. The ceremony was performed in June, 1589, at Holdenby, the mansion of Sir Christopher, who is stated to have i( danced the measures at the solemnity, and left the gown in the chair, saying, ' Lie thou there, chancellor.' " The judge perhaps was also indebted for his next promotion to the marriage of his granddaughter Frances, the only issue of the above union, to Robert Rich, second Earl of Warwick. These nuptials took place in February, 1605 2: and on the 26th of the fol- lowing August, Sir Francis was raised to the post of chief justice of the Common Pleas, in the room of Sir Thomas Anderson, deceased. He enjoyed this high position, for which he is said to have paid at a dear rate, less than a year. He was stricken with apoplexy at his chambers in Serjeants' Inn about Whitsuntide 1606, and was taken to his mansion at Eston Hall, Wallington, in Norfolk; but having converted the parish church into a hay-house or dog- kennel, his body was obliged to be buried in the neighbouring church of Rungton. His wife was Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Christo- pher Coningsby, the son of William Coningsby the judge. By her he acquired the estate of Wallington, and having in- 1 State Trials, ii. 18. 2 Nicolas' Hatton, 478. 502. 160 EDWARD HERON. James I. duced her to acknowledge a fine thereof, she is said to have thereupon become distracted, and to have continued so during the rest of her life. He had no other child than Elizabeth, the wife of Sir William Hatton.1 HARVEY, FRANCIS. Just. C. P. 1624. See under the Reign of Charles I. HERON, EDWARD. B. E. 1607. The grandfather of Edward Heron was John Heron, a physician at Barming in Kent, the son of Sir John Heron of Hackney. The judge was the son of Richard Heron, settled at Harsted or Hastings-Hall in Birdbroke, Essex. He pur- sued his legal studies at Lincoln's Inn, where he was admitted on February 12, 1564 ; and, having been called to the bar on February 7, 1574, was elected a governor in 1586, and autumn reader in the following year.2 In 1594, he was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law, which he held for fourteen years before he was advanced to the bench of the Exchequer on November 25, 1607, having been previously knighted. He did not long enjoy his position ; his successor, Sir Edward Bromley, being appointed on February 6, 1610.3 He was twice married. His first wife was Anne, daughter of David Vincent, Esq., of Bernake in Northamptonshire, the ancestor of the present baronet of that name. By her he had three sons, Edward, John, and William. His second wife was Dorothy, daughter of Anthony Maxey, Esq., of Bradwell near Coggleshall, who brought him a son, named James, settled at Pantfield.4 1 Spelman's Icenia Rel. 140. ; Blomefield's Norfolk, vii. 412. 2 Line. Inn Black Bk. v. 27. 178. ; Dugdale's Orig. 253. 261. 3 Croke, Jac. 197. 4 Morant's Essex, ii. 345. 1603—1625. ROBERT HOUGHTON. 161 HOBART, HENRY. Ch. C. P. 1613. See under the Reign of Charles I. HOUGHTON, ROBERT. Just. K. B. 1613. Eobert Houghton was born at Gunthorpe in Norfolk on August 3, 1548, and entering himself of Lincoln's Inn on March 1, 1569, was called to the bar on February 10, 1577, became one of the governors in 1587, and was appointed reader in Lent, 1591, and again in Lenty 1600. He was one of several who were nominated by Queen Elizabeth to be Serjeants ; but in consequence of her death were re-sum- moned by James, and took the degree in Easter Term, 1603.1 He represented the city of Norwich in the parliament of 1593, and was chosen its recorder in 1603 ; an office which he held till he attained a judicial seat in Westminster Hall. This occurred on April 21, 1613, when he was made a judge of the King's Bench and knighted.2 In Peacham's case, who was tried in 1615 for divers treasonable passages contained in a sermon which was never preached nor intended to be preached, but only set down in writing and found in his study, King James by the advice of Bacon commenced the uncon- stitutional practice of obtaining the opinion of the judges before trial ; and it was arranged that each of the judges of the King's Bench should be applied to separately. Sir Ed- ward Coke for some time resisted " this taking of auricular opinions single and apart," as new and dangerous, and Sir Robert Houghton evidently had the same doubts ; for Bacon in his report to the king says, " he is a soft man, and seemeth desirous to confer; alleging that the other three judges had 1 Black Book, v. 97. 224. ; Dugdale's Orig. 254. 261.; Chron. Ser. ■ Hlomefield's Norwich, i. '359, 360. VOL. VI. M 162 ROBERT HOUGHTON. James 1. all served the crown before they were judges ; but that he had not been much acquainted with business of this nature." Doderidge and Gr. Croke were the other two judges, and did not hesitate to comply. The trial took place, and though the poor man was found guilty, yet, notwithstanding all Bacon's endeavours, he was not executed ; many of the judges being of opinion, as every reasonable man must be, that the offence was not treason.1 Sir Robert Houghton died at his chambers in Serjeants' Inn, Chancery Lane, on February 6, 1623-4, and was buried at the church of St. Dunstan's in the West. Croke calls him " a most reverend, prudent, learned, and temperate judge, and inferior to none in his time." His wife was Mary, the daughter of Robert Rychers, Esq., of Wrotham in Kent ; by whom he had three sons and three daughters, one of each of whom died in his life-time.2 His sister Cecilia married Richard Thurlow of Burnham Ulp in Norfolk, the direct ancestor of Lord Thurlow. The judge held the manors of Threxton, Hemenhales, Curies, Ferthings, and Pensthorpe in Norfolk, which went to his eldest son Francis, and were enjoyed for several generations by his de- scendants.3 HUTTON, RICHARD. Just. C. P. 1617. See under the Reign of Charles I. JONES, WILLIAM. Just. C. P, 1621. Just. K. B. 1624. See under the Reign of Charles 1. KIMBOLTON, LORD. See Henry Montagu. 1 State Trials, ii. 869. 2 Maitland's London, 1096. 3 Blomefield's Norfolk, i. 625. 1603—1625. GEORGE K1NGSMILL. 163 KINGSMILL, GEORGE. Just. C. P. 1603. See under the Reign of Elizabeth. This judge was the grandson of John Kingsmill, who held the same office in the reign of Henry VII. ; and the second son of Sir John Kingsmill of Sidmanton in Hampshire, by Constance, the daughter of John Goring of Burton in Sussex. He passed through the grades of legal study at Lincoln's Inn, where he was admitted on March 16, 1560, and called to the bar on June 15, 1567. ' He became reader in autumn, 1578, but the pestilence obliged him to defer his reading till the ensuing Lent. Having been previously ap- pointed one of the governors of the society, he held that posi- tion from 1575 till he removed from the inn on being made a Serjeant. This degree was conferred upon him in 1594, with the additional honour of queen's serjeant on March 19 in the following year.2 Lord Burleigh recommended him for advancement as a man " well able to bear the burden of service;"3 and soon after that minister's death, he was elevated to the bench as a judge of the Common Pleas, on February 8, 1599. After the accession of King James, who knighted him, he retained his post till Hilary, 1606, when he resigned, and in the April following he died. He married Sarah, daughter of Sir James Harington, of Exton, and widow of Francis Lord Hastings. After the judge's death, she took Edward Lord Zouch, of Harring- worth, as her third husband.4 KINLOSS, LORD. See Edward Bruce. 1 Black Book, iv. 356., v. 61. Dugdale'a Orig. 253. 261.; Chron. Peek'i Desid. Cur. B. s i Collini 658. 1(54 JAMES LEY. James I. LEY, JAMES, Baron Ley, and Earl of Marlborough. Ch. K. B. 1621. In the parish of Teffont-Evias, in the county of Wilts, the residence of his father Henry Ley, Esq., James, the future chief justice, first saw the light. He was the sixth son of a numerous family, and was born about the year 1552. At the age of seventeen he became a commoner of Brazenose College in the University of Oxford, and having taken a degree in arts, he entered on his legal studies at Lincoln's Inn on February 18, 1577. Being called to the bar on October 11, 1584, he worked his way up to the bench of that society in 1600, and was chosen Lent reader in 1602.1 On November 22, 1603, he had a separate call to the degree of the coif, probably in preparation for holding the office of lord chief justice of the King's Bench in Ireland, to which he was appointed in the following year, when he was also knighted. While filling that position he was one of the commissioners of the Great Seal of that country from April 6, to November 8, 1605. He presided in the Irish King's Bench about four years, resigning in December, 1608 2; and Bacon speaks of his " gravity, temper and discretion " in that office.3 Returning to England he received the profitable place of at- torney of the Court of Wards and Liveries, at the same time establishing the right of that office to take precedence in that court of the king's attorney-general; for which he had a Privy Seal dated May 15, 1609. He must then have resigned his rank as Serjeant ; for in that and the twelve succeeding years he is recorded as one of the governors of Lincoln's Inn. In 1610 he was named as a commissioner for the better ex- pedition of the plantation in the lands escheated in the pro- i Dugdale's Orig. 254. 262. 2 Smyth's Law Off. of Ireland, 26. 28. 3 Bacon's Works (Montagu), vii. 263. 1603—1625. JAMES LEY. 165 vince of Ulster.1 On the elevation of Sir Francis Bacon to the Great Seal in 1617, Sir James was a candidate for the attorney-generalship, and the Duke of Buckingham told Sir Henry Yelverton that he offered 10,000/. for the office.2 Not succeeding in this, he was created a baronet as of Westbury in Wiltshire, on July 20, 1619. On the resignation of Sir Henry Montagu, Sir James Ley was elevated from the attorneyship of the Court of Wards to be lord chief justice of the King's Bench; his patent being dated January 29, 1621. He was then about sixty-nine years of age, and in that year 3 married his third wife Jane, daughter of John Lord Butler, by Elizabeth, the sister of the favourite, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, to whose patronage he probably owed his future advance. Within two months after his appointment he was called upon, in consequence of the proceedings against Bacon, to take the place of speaker of the House of Lords ; and in that character he had to pronounce their judgment, first, in the cases of Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Michell, and then against the chancellor him- self and Sir Henry Yelverton.4 Sir James, after performing the duties of his judicial office for nearly four years, imitated the example of his predecessor by retiring from it, and accepting the profitable place of lord treasurer on December 20, 1624. On the 31st of the same month, he was created Lord Ley of Ley in the county of Devon, the ancient seat of his family. He was more fortu- nate, however, than Sir Henry Montagu ; for he retained the royal purse for the remainder of James's reign, and for more than three years in that of Charles I. ; who in the May fol- lowing his accession created him Earl of Marlborough. He was removed in July, 1628, to make way for Sir Richard 1 Pdl Records, Jac. I„ 113. 142. 1 Bacon's Works, xvi. cccix. note ; quoting Judge Wliitelocke's Diary. ■ W. Yonge's Diary, 40. ' Pari. Hist. i. 1207. 1229. 12J0. 1258. M 3 166 JAMES LEY. James I. Weston ; and retrograded to the almost empty title of presi- dent of the Council, which he held for the few remaining months of his life. He died at Lincoln's Inn on March 14, 1629, and was re- moved for interment to Westbury, Wilts, in the parish church of which a magnificent monument is erected to his memory. In the midst of corruption among lawyers and statesmen, and holding the highest offices on the bench and in the council, " He liv'd in both unstained by gold or fee." To his character for integrity, was added that of ability, tem- perance, and erudition ; the latter not confined to his legal studies, but extending over subjects of general interest. His professional attainments and industry were exhibited by his " Reports," and by his treatise on the king's right of wardship, &c. ; and he contributed various papers to the Society of Anti- quaries, of which he was an early member. He was three times married, a common practice among the lawyers of this period. His first wife was Mary, daugh- ter of John Pettey, of Stoke Talmage in Oxfordshire; his second was Mary, the widow of Sir William Bower, knight ; and the third was Jane, daughter of John Lord Butler. By the first he had a large family, but the other two brought him no issue. His eldest son Henry, and then his grandson James, in turn succeeded to his honours ; but the latter being killed in a sea- fight in 1665, they reverted to the chief justice's third son William, who died without issue in 1679.1 LINCOLN, Bishop of. See J. Williams. MANCHESTER, Earl of, MANDEV1L, Viscount. See H. Montagu. MARLBOROUGH, Earl of. See J. Ley. ! Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 451..; Wood's Athen. Oxon. ii. 441, 1603—1625. IIENKY MONTAGU, 167 MONTAGU, HENRY, Baron Kimbolton, Viscount Mande- vil, and Earl of Manchester. Ch. K. B. 1616. The father of Henry Montagu was Edward, the eldest son of Sir Edward Montagu, chief justice of the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. He was seated at Boughton in Northampton- shire, was sheriff of that county, and its representative in parliament, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth, and died in 1602. By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Ha- rington of Exton in the county of Rutland, he had several children, of whom some account has been already given.1 Henry was his third son, and was born at Boughton about the year 1563. He showed so much intelligence that even at school it was prognosticated " that he would raise himself above the rest of his family." After well employing his time at Christ's College, Cambridge, he became a member of his grandfather's Inn of Court, the Middle Temple, where he attained the rank of reader in autumn, 1606.2 He had been knighted previous to the coronation of King James, and had already acquired distinction as a lawyer by being elected recorder of London in the year of that king's accession. In this office he was present at the ceremony of opening the New River on Michaelmas day, 1613, and is afterwards named in the patent incorporating the company.3 As early as 1601, when he was returned for the borough of Higham Ferrers, he distinguished himself in parliament. In answer to the absurd assertion made by Serjeant Heale, the aspirant for the office of master of the Rolls, " that all we have is her Majesty's, and she may lawfully at her pleasure take it from us," which he " could prove by precedent in the times of Henry III., King John, King Stephen, &c.,"hehad 1 See Vol. V. p. 313. " Dugdale'a Orig. 219. ■ Stow'* London. 31 4 168 HENRY MONTAGU. James I. the courage to declare, " That there were no such precedents, and if all preambles of subsidies were looked upon, he should find they were of free gift." In the first parliament of King James, which lasted from March 19, 1604, to February 11, 1611, he was elected one of the representatives of the City of London, and took an active part in its important discus- sions, particularly in that relating to tenures.1 The degree of the coif was conferred upon him in February, 1611, and he was immediately constituted king's serjeant.2 In this character he is only noticed as a commissioner to try the murderers of Sir Thomas Overbury, and as one of the counsel engaged in the prosecution of the great delinquents.3 In his private practice he had an action brought against him by one Brook, for words charging the plaintiff with having been convicted of felony. He pleaded that they were spoken by him on a trial in which he was engaged as counsel against the plaintiff, and the court decided that the justifi- cation was good ; for a counsel has a privilege to enforce any- thing pertinent to the issue that is informed him by his client, and not to examine whether it be true or false.4 On being selected on November 16, 1616, to succeed Sir Edward Coke as chief justice of the King's Bench, he of course resigned his recordership, when the corporation pre- sented him with 200 double sovereigns as a thankful re- membrance for his many careful endeavours for the city.5 He is described as proceeding three days afterwards in great state to Westminster, arrayed in his robes, and mounted on horseback, with the Earl of Huntingdon on his right hand, and the Lord Willoughby d'Eresby on his left, and above fifty knights and gentlemen of quality accompanying him. The Lord Chancellor Lord Ellesmere, in his speech when Montagu J Pari. Hist. i. 921. 1125. 2 Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 3 State Trials, ii. 911. 952. 4 Croke, Jac. 90. * City List of Recorders, 1603—1625. HENRY MONTAGU. 169 was sworn in, gives him a significant hint of the tenure by which he holds his place, by reminding him of the " amotion and disposing " of his predecessor " in the peaceable and happy reign of great King James, the great King of Great Britain, wherein you see the prophet David's words true, He putteth down one and setteth up another ; a lesson to be learned of all, and to be remembered and feared of all that sit injudicial places." He recommends him to follow the example of his grandfather, Sir Edward Montagu, of whose name he takes advantage to introduce those allusions to the imputed faults of Sir Edward Coke which have been noticed in a previous page.1 He is said to have procured the place by consenting to give to the Duke of Buckingham's nominee the clerkship of the Court of King's Bench, worth 4000Z. a year, which Coke, in whose gift it was, refused to part with, although by doing so he might have retained his office. Sir Henry Montagu's judgments are reported by Croke ; and his style of giving them may be seen in that which he delivered in the case of Wraynham for slandering Lord Chancellor Bacon. The method is sufficiently fair and neat, but the language is disfigured by the vice of the age, flattery of the king ; of whom he says, " We all know that we have a sovereign of those high and excellent gifts that it is not rhetoric or eloquence that can cast dust in the king's eyes, or cause him anyways to turn aside from justice." It was Sir Henry's fortune to be called on to award execution against Sir Walter Raleigh upon the sentence of death which had been pronounced fifteen years before. His address to the unfortunate prisoner evidently showed his regret in being compelled to the performance of this duty, and its terms do credit to his humanity.2 Montagu did not long rest satisfied with the place of chief justice. lie aimed still higher, and after sitting in the judi- 1 Moore's Report ^ec- ante, p. 1.50. - State Trials, ii. 35. 1080, 170 HENRY MONTAGU. James I. cial seat for four years he succeeded in obtaining the more elevated and lucrative post of lord treasurer on December 14, 1 620. Nearly two years before he had offered the Duke of Buckingham 10,000Z. for the place, which, it seems, was not sufficient ; for eventually he was obliged to pay 20,0007. One of the charges against Buckingham on his impeachment was the receipt of this money; but his answer alleged that it was a voluntary loan to the king, and that he had not a penny of it. The correspondence at the time seems to con- firm this x : but this view of the fact does not remove the venality of the transaction, nor account for Montagu being deprived of the office on the 13th of the following October, when the unfortunate Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex, was by the duke's interest named as his successor. While he held it, one of the courtiers ill-naturedly inquired of him whether wood was not extremely dear at Newmarket, for there the king had given him the white staff. It was ever considered a place of great charge and profit, and when Mon- tagu was asked what it might be worth per annum, he answered, i( Some thousands of pounds to him who after death would go instantly to heaven ; twice as much to him who would go to purgatory ; and a nemo scit to him who would venture to a worse place." 2 While treasurer he was one of the com- missioners of the Great Seal from the abdication of the chan- cellorship by Bacon till July 10, 1621, when Dean Williams received the Seal.3 On his appointment to the treasurership he was ennobled with the titles of Baron Montagu of Kimbolton and Viscount Mandevil, and on his removal he was but poorly compensated for his loss by being made lord president of the Council. In this office he remained for the rest of James's reign and 1 Tanner's MSS. in Oxford, quoted in Bacon's Works (Montagu), xvi. cexxvii. 2 Lloyd's Slate Worthies, 1028. 3 Dugdale's Chron. Series. 1603—1625. HENRY MONTAGU. 171 for the first three years of Charles's, when he exchanged it for that of lord privy seal, which he enjoyed for the rest of his life. King Charles also in the first year of his reign, on February 5, 1626, advanced him a step in the peerage, creat- ing him Earl of Manchester. During the sixteen years that he lived in Charles's reign, lie was an active minister of the crown and a faithful adhe- rent to the king ; maintaining a good reputation and credit with the whole nation. He did not live to witness the fatal termination of Charles's career, but died on November 7, 1642, shortly after the commencement of the hostilities be- tween the royalists and the parliamentary forces. He had nearly attained his eightieth year, and showed as much activity and sagacity in business at that age as at any former period of his life. Fuller says, "When lord privy seal, he brought the Court of Requests into such repute that what formerly was called the alms-basket of the Chancery, had in his time well nigh as much meat in and guests about it (I mean suits and clients) as the Chancery itself." In his last years he published a book entitled u Manchester al Mondo, Contemplatio Mortis et Immortalitatis ; or Meditations on Life and Death; "] which conveys a most favourable impres- sion of the wisdom and piety of the writer. He was buried at Kimbolton under a noble monument. Like his grandfather, Sir Edward, he married three wives. The first was Catherine, daughter to Sir William Spencer of Yarnton in Oxfordshire, who, after bringing him four sons and three daughters, died in 1612. By his second wife Anne, daughter and heir of William Wincott of Langham in Suffolk, Esq., and widow of Sir Leonard Haliday, Knt, Lord Mayor of London, he had no issue. His third wife, Margaret, daughter of John Crouch of Cornbury, Herts, Esq., and widow of John Hare of Totteridge, whom he married on April 26, 1 Walpole'i U. and N. Authori ( Park), ii. 172 AUGUSTINE NICHOLS. James 1. 1620, produced him two sons and two daughters. She sur- vived her husband and died in 1653. His eldest son and successor, Edward Earl of Manchester, was twice lord commissioner of the Great Seal, and will be hereafter noticed. The second son, Walter, became a Eoman Catholic, and was made Abbot of St. Martin's Abbey near Pontoise. George, the eldest of Lord Manchester's sons by his third wife, was father of Charles, who in 1694 was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1700 was created Baron Halifax, and in 1714 was advanced to the Earldom of Halifax. These titles at his death went by a special limitation to his nephew, but became extinct in 1772 by the death of the next possessor without issue.1 NICHOLS, AUGUSTINE. Just. C. P. 1612. Of an old and respectable Northamptonshire family, Augustine Nichols was the second son of Thomas Nichols, Esq., of Hard- wick in that county, a lawyer in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, and Anne, the daughter of John Pell, Esq., of Eltington. He was born at Ecton in April, 1559, and being designed for his father's profession, was entered as a student of the Middle Temple, in which he became reader in autumn, 1602. In the following January he received a writ summoning him to take the degree of the coif, which in consequence of the death of Queen Elizabeth, was renewed by King James, by whom he was knighted. He was elected recorder of Leicester on December 14, 1603 ; and his arguments in Westminster Hall are reported both by Coke and Croke for the next nine years, till in November 26, 1612, he was elevated to the bench as a judge of the Common Pleas. Three years after- wards, on being appointed chancellor to Charles, Prince of J Clarendon's Rebellion, i. 96. ; Bridges' Collins's Peerage, ii. 51 1603—1625. WILLIAM PERYAM. 173 Wales, it became necessary for him to have a renewal of his patent, in order that he might " take fee and livery of the prince ; " the usual oath prohibiting a judge from being paid by any but the king himself.1 He occupied his judicial seat for little more than four years, dying at Kendal in August, 1616, while on the summer circuit : u judex mortuus est, jura dans,'' as Fuller describes him. He was buried there, and has a fair monument in the church. King James commonly called him " The judge that would give no money; " and Fuller, with a neighbourly prepossession, being born in the same county, speaks glowingly of his cha- racter. He says, " He was renownied for his special judicial endowments ; patience to hear both parties, a happy memory ^ a singular sagacity to search into the material circumstances, exemplary integrity, even to the rejection of gratuities after judgment given." 2 He married Mary, the widow of Edward Bagshaw, Esq., but having no children by her, his estate at Foxton in North- amptonshire, which he had purchased, devolved on his brother's eldest son, Francis, who was created a baronet in 1641. The title failed on the death of his grandson, the third baronet, in 1717, without issue. PERYAM, WILLIAM. Ch. B. E. 1603. See under the Reign of Elizabeth. The father of this judge was John Peryam, an opulent citizen and twice mayor of Exeter ; and his mother was Margaret, one of the daughters and coheirs of Robert Hone, Esq., of Ottery St. Mary. They had two sons, William and John, the latter of whom was an alderman of Exeter and a knight, 1 Dugdale's Orig. 219. ; Chron. Series; Croke Jac. Prom. 2 Fuller's Worthies, ii. 1G8. 174 WILLIAM PERYAM. James 1. and was a considerable benefactor to Exeter College, Oxford.1 At this college, William, the elder brother, who was born at Exeter in 1534, is said to have been educated ; but Anthony- Wood does not mention him ; and the Inn of Court at which he pursued his legal studies, is only to be surmised from the fact tli at his arms are placed in one of the windows of Middle Temple hall. It is curious also that his arguments as counsel are not recorded by any of the contemporary reporters ; that the first mention made of him is his receiving the Serjeant's coif in Michaelmas Term, 1579, and that the next is his elevation to the bench as a judge of the Common Pleas on February 13, 1581, 23 Eliz.2 For the twelve years during which he retained this seat his judgments are reported by Dyer and Coke ; and the repu- tation he enjoyed may be estimated as well by his being named as one of the commissioners to hear causes in Chancery on the death of Sir Christopher Hatton, as by the number of commissions into which his name was introduced for the trial of state offenders. Among these were Mary Queen of Scots, the Earls of Arundel and Essex, Sir John Perrot, and others of less note.3 The last fine levied before him as a judge of the Common Pleas was on the morrow of the Puri- fication, 1593 ; and in the course of the same Hilary Term he was promoted to the office of chief baron of the Exchequer, vacant by the death of Sir Roger Manwood. On this occa- sion he was knighted; and he continued to preside in that court during the ten remaining years of Elizabeth's reign, and for eighteen months under King James I.4 After a judicial life of nearly twenty-four years, he died on October 9, 1604, at his mansion at Little Fulford near 1 Chalmers' Oxford, 68. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 225. ; Chron. Ser. 3 App. 4 Report Pub. Rec. 272—296.; State Trials, i. 1167. 1251. 1315. 1333. * Dugdale's Orig. 48. ; Chron. Ser. 1603-1625. EDWARD PHELLIP8. 175 Creditor), in the church of which he was buried under a stately monument. He married three wives. The first was Margery, daughter and heir of John Holcot, of Berkshire, Esq. ; the second was Anne, the daughter of John Parker, of North Molton, Devon, Esq. ; and the third was Elizabeth, one of Sir Nicholas Bacon the lord keeper's daughters, to whom he was also the third husband, she having been previously married to Sir Robert D'Oyly and Sir Henry Nevill. She survived the chief baron for sixteen years, and founded a fellowship and two scholar- ships at Balliol College, Oxford.1 Leaving no son, his four daughters, whom he had by his second wife, shared his property. They married respectively Sir William Pole, an eminent lawyer, Sir Robert Basset, Sir Robert Pointz, and William Williams, Esq.2 PHELLIPS, EDWARD. M. R. 1611. Edward Phellips, or Phillips, was descended from an ancient Welsh family, which migrated into the county of Somerset, where they long resided at Barrington, a few miles from Montacute. He was the fourth son of Thomas Phel- lips, Esq., of that place, by Elizabeth, the daughter of Smith, Esq., whose second son was father of Sir Thomas Phellips, raised to a baronetcy in 1620, which became ex- tinct in the third generation in 1690. It is not improbable that Edward studied at Broadgate's Hall (now Pembroke College), Oxford, as Wood notices one of his name taking the degree of B.A. in 1579, and of M. A. in 1582. He kept his legal terms at the Middle Temple, and attained to the rank of reader in autumn, 1596.3 His 1 Chalmers' Oxford, 50. 2 Prince's Worthies of Devon; Diary of Walter Yotlge, 8. * Dugdale's Orig. 218. 176 EDWARD PHELLIPS. James I. name does not appear in any law reports, except in those of the State Trials after he became a serjeant, to which degree he was called at the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, but did not assume it, on account of her death intervening, till the beginning of King James's. He was appointed king's Serjeant on the 18th of May following, and was knighted at Whitehall on July 23, 1603. In November he assisted in the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, but took no part in the brutal manner with which Sir Edward Coke conducted the prose- cution. In January, 1 606, he opened the indictment against Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot, and his speech on the occasion is a curious specimen of ora- tory. He commences : " The matter that is now to be offered to you, my lords the commissioners, and to the trial of you the knights and gentlemen of the jury, is matter of treason ; but of such horror and monstrous nature that be- fore now the tongue of man never delivered, the ear of man never heard, the heart of man never conceited, nor the malice of hellish and earthly devil ever practised : for if it be abominable to murder at least ; if to touch God's anointed be to oppose themselves to God ; if (by blood) to subvert princes, states, and kingdoms, be hateful to God and man, as all true Christians must acknowledge : then, how much more than too monstrous shall all Christian hearts judge the horror of this treason ; to murder and subvert such a king ; such a queen ; such a prince ; such a progeny ; such a state ; such a government, so complete and absolute, that God approves, the world admires, all true English hearts honour and rever- ence ; the pope and his disciples only envies and maligns." l It would almost seem that he intended to turn into ridicule this most atrocious conspiracy. But the good man was per- fectly sincere, and no doubt thought himself very eloquent, 1 State Trials, ii. 164. 1603—1625. EDWARD PHELLIPS. 177 as there are some other similar specimens of his taste as a rhetorician. In the first parliament of King James, which met on March 19, 1604, Sir Edward Phellips, being returned for his native county, was elected speaker. His address to the king is in the same ponderous style ; and he apparently vied with his majesty which should most fatigue the audience by the length of their orations. The reporter, however, was out of patience and leaves his harangue unfinished. On the close of the session in July, his speech is full of the most fulsome absurdities; beginning with solemn pomposity, " His- tory, most high and mighty sovereign, is truly approved to be the Treasure of Times past, the Light of Truth, the Memory of Life, the Guide and Image of Man's present Estate, Pattern of Things to come, and the true Work- Mis- tress of Experience, the Mother of Knowledge," &C.1 This parliament continued till February, 1611, during which period there were four more sessions, in all of which Sir Edward acted as speaker ; having in the interim been rewarded for his flattery by the reversion of the office of master of the Rolls, granted to him on December 2, 1608.2 As the death of Lord Bruce of Kinloss, the possessor, did not occur till January 14, 1611, and the parliament, which was prorogued till the 9 th of February, was dissolved on that day by com- mission, Sir Edward's only act in his double character was hearing that commission read. He was also made chancellor to Henry, Prince of Wales. Of Sir Edward's proceedings in Chancery little more is known than appears incidentally in the report of Wraynham's case, against whom proceedings were instituted for slandering Lord Bacon. A cause in which Wraynham was concerned had been referred to the master of the Rolls, who had made a report adverse to his interests, on which Lord Chancellor 1 Pari. Hist. i. 989. 1045. 2 Rot. Pat. 6 Jac, p. 27. n. 1. VOL. VI. N 178 EDWARD PHELLIPS. James I. Bacon had afterwards founded his decree ; and Wraynham had thereupon conveyed the slander in a petition to the king. Without entering into the merits of the case, which do not touch Sir Edward Phellips, it will be enough to state the character given to him by the attorney-general Yelverton, by Sir Edward Coke, who, though out of office, was one of the commissioners to try it, and by Chief Justice Montagu. Yelverton says that he " was a man of great understanding, great pains, great experience, great dexterity, and great in- tegrity." Coke says, " As for this master of the Rolls never man in England was more excellent in Chancery than that man ; and for ought I heard (that had reason to hear some- thing of him) I never heard him taxed with corruption, being a man of excellent dexterity, diligent, early in the morning, ready to do justice." Chief Justice Montagu in speaking of him, however, lets us into a little bit of his real character as a judge ; for after declaring that " whoever knew that man, knows him to be a true reporter and a judicious collector of proofs, as ever was, " he adds, " I will not dissemble what others thought a fault in him, to be over swift in judging : but this was the error of his greater experience and riper judgment than others had." l He had left the scene long before this trial took place ; having died on September 11, 1614. He built the large and noble mansion still standing at Montacute, which is thus noticed by Thomas Coryat : " For besides many other Eng- lish Palaces that do surpasse that of the Archbishop of Colen, there is one in mine owne country of Somersetshire, even the magnificent house of my most worthy and right worship- ful neighbour and Mecasnas, Sir Edward Philippes, now master of the Holies (whom I name honoris causa) in the town of Montacute, so stately adorned with the statues of the Nine Worthies that they bee at the least equally ranked wdth this of Bonna, if not something preferred before it." 2 1 State Trials, ii. 1062. 1073. 1079. 2 Coryat's Crudities, ii. 483. 1603—1625. JOHN POPHAM. 179 He married, first, Margaret, the daughter of New- digate, Esq., and, secondly, Elizabeth, the daughter of Thomas Pigott, Esq. of Bucks. By the former he left a family, and the representatives of his eldest son still enjoy the paternal estate.1 POPHAM, JOHN. Ch. K. B. 1603. See under the Reign of Elizabeth. POPHAM is a hamlet in Hampshire, where the family from which the chief justice descended were settled early in the twelfth century. One of its most eminent members, also named Sir John Popham, after holding several high employ- ments, was elected speaker of the House of Commons in 28 Henry VI., but was excused on account of his age and infirmities.2 The estate of Huntworth in Somersetshire was acquired in marriage by a younger son in the reign of Edward L, and remained in that branch of the family till the time of Charles I. There John, the future chief justice, was born about the year 1531, being the second son of Alexander (or as some say, Edward) Popham of that place, by his wife Jane, the daughter of Sir Edward Stradling of St. Donat's Castle, Glamorganshire. He received his education at Balliol College, Oxford, whence he removed to the Middle Temple to pursue the study of the law. Instead of doing this, tradition charges him with en- tering into wild courses, and even with being wont to take a purse with his profligate companions. However this may be, he must have soon reformed, and, as Fuller says, u applied himself to a more profitable fencing"; 3 for he does not seem to have been delayed in obtaining the usual honours of his 1 Collinson's Somerset, iii. 314.; Burke. 2 Stow's London (Thoms's Ed.), 143.; Pari. Hist. i. S06. 8 Aubrey, ii. 492. ; Fuller's Worthies, ii. 284. N 2 180 JOHN POPHAM. James I. society. His nomination as reader took place in autumn, 1568, when he was thirty-seven years old: and he became treasurer twelve years afterwards.1 In the interval between these two dates, he had obtained, as member for Bristol, a seat in parliament, where in 1571, when the subsidy was under discussion, he joined with Mr. Bell (the future chief baron) in calling for the correction of some abuses, and pointed out the evil of allowing the treasurers of the crown to retain in their hands " great masses of money," of which, becoming bankrupt, they only repaid an instalment. In the next year he was one of the committee appointed to confer with the lords on the subject of the Queen of Scots.2 Though he is not named by any reporter till Michaelmas, 1576, he must have acquired considerable legal celebrity, as he and Mr. Francis Rodes were specially called to the degree of the coif on January 28, 1578. The entry in the Middle Temple books, that they " non dederunt aurum," arose probably from their being added as a rider to the great call of Serjeants which took place in the preceding Michaelmas Term, and their not therefore being required to give a sepa- rate feast. In the following year he was offered the place of solicitor-general. This office being inferior in rank to that of a Serjeant at law, it became necessary for him to choose between them ; and as he considered that the former more certainly led to judicial honours, he obtained a patent exone- rating him from the latter degree, and was thereupon ap- pointed solicitor-general on June 26, 1579.3 While holding that office he was elected speaker of the House of Commons in January 1581, in the place of Sir Robert Bell, who had died during the prorogation. Some idea may be formed not only of the speaker's wit, but also of the lightness of the par- liamentary labours during that session, by his reply to Queen 1 Dugdale's Orig. 217. 221. 2 Pari. Hist. i. 735. 779. 3 Dugdale's Orig. 127.; Chron. Ser. 1603—1625. JOHN POPIIAM. 181 Elizabeth, when, on his attending her on some occasion, she said, " Well, Mr. Speaker, what hath passed in the Lower House ? " he answered, " If it please your Majesty, seven weeks." l His last and, indeed, principal duty in this capacity, was the making the customary speech to the queen on pre- senting the subsidy voted at the end of the session. This was on March 18, after which that parliament never again met.2 On the elevation of the attorney-general, Sir Gilbert Gerard, to the mastership of the Rolls, Popham succeeded to the former office on June 1, 1581. He held it for eleven years, during which he took part in all those criminal trials, the perusal of which, even where the guilt of the prisoners is most apparent, cannot but excite feelings of indignation at the gross injustice of the proceedings. His conduct in them, however, is not chargeable with any unnecessary harshness ; and, even in the opening of the unwarrantable charge against Secretary Davison, he performed the difficult duty without any words of aggravation.3 When Sir Christopher Wray's death left a vacancy in the King's Bench, little time was lost in supplying it. In about three weeks, Mr. Popham received his patent as lord chief justice, dated June 2, 1592, and was immediately knighted. He presided in that court for the fifteen remaining years of his life, eleven under Queen Elizabeth, and four under King James. He accompanied Lord Keeper Egerton in February 1600, to the Earl of Essex's house, as before related 4 ; and when Sir Ferdinando Gorges offered to deliver him from his forced detention there, he refused to depart without his companions in confinement, saying that " as they came together, so would they go together, or die together." This fact is not mcn- 1 Bacon's Apophthegms (1G2G) 7 amounted to 61. 15s. Besides what they thus received, they had themselves to furnish a plentiful supply of food, so that their joint expenses of one circuit amounted to 47/. 18s. lOd. To Judge Walmesley's half of this, 23/. 19s. 5d.y are added his private charges, for horse-meat, &c, servants, and 20d. at each place " to the poore," amounting to 23/. 2s. 5d.} making the whole circuit cost him 47/. Is. lOd.1 He retained his seat above twenty-three years, and died on November 26, 1612, aged seventy-five. He was buried at Blackburn in Lancashire, where his magnificent monument, the exact counterpart of that of Anne, Duchess of Somerset, in Westminster Abbey, was demolished by the parliamentary soldiers in 1642. On it were inscribed the following quaint lines : — " Tombs have their period, monuments decay, And rust and age wear Epitaphs away. But neither rust nor age nor time shall wear Judge Walmesley's name that lies entombed here, 1 I have been favoured with an extract from this account, for the Autumn Circuit of ] 596, by my friend W. Durrant Cooper, Esq., P.S.A. VOL. VI. O 194 THOMAS WALMESLEY. James I. Who never did for favour nor for awe Of great men's frowns quit or forsake the lawe. His inside was his outside, he never sought To make fair showes of what he never thought : For well appear'd by his bold opinion In that great case styl'd of the Union, Deliver'd openly in Parliament, How free his heart and tongue together went, When against all the judges he alone Stood singular in his opinion. And well King James his bounty likewise there His Justice, Greatness, Goodness did appeare ; For though that his opinion seem'd to bring Some crosse to th' Union wish't for by the King, Yet as he thought he freely spoke his minde, Neither with favour nor with feare inclin'd, He did withdraw no grace he show'd before, But rather of his bounty added more ; For when as old age creeping on apace Made him unable to supply his place, Yet he continued by the King's permission A Judge until his death still in commission ; And still received by his special grace His fee as full as when he serv'd the place."/ He had the repute of having amassed considerable wealth by great rapacity in his practice of the law ; but no evidence is given of the charge. He became possessed of the estate of Dunkenhalgh in the parish of Whalley, a few miles from Blackburn, on which he built a fine mansion. By his wife Anne, the rich heiress of Robert Shuttleworth, Esq. of Hack- inge in the same county, he left an only son, whose male de- scendants failed at the beginning of the last century, and the large property passed into the families of Lord Petre and Lord Stourton, who were the first and second husbands of the last possessor's sister and heir.2 1 Lansdowne MSS. No. 973. fo. 88. 2 Shuttleworth Accounts, Chetham Soc. 1856, part 2. App. 265. 1603—162). PETER WAKBURTON. 195 WARBURTON, PETER. Just. C. P. 1603. See under the Reign of Elizabeth. Peter Warburton was descended, indirectly, from the ancient Cheshire family of Warburton and Arley ; his father, Thomas Warburton, being an illegitimate son of John War- burton of Northwich in that county, one of the sons of Sir Peter Warburton, knight, an elder of the family. His mother was Anne, the daughter of Richard Maisterson of Winnington.1 He was born at Northwich, and, adopting the law as his profession, he began his legal studies at Staple Inn (where his arms are in the south window of the hall), and finished them at Lincoln's Inn. He was admitted a member of the latter on May 2, 1561, was called to the bar February 2, 1572, became one of the governors of the house in 1581, and was elected Lent reader in 1584.2 He was then, and for some time after, resident in a mansion called the Black Hall, Watergate Street, Chester, formerly the house of the Grey Friars ; and in this year he was recommended by Henry, Earl of Derby, to the mayor of Chester, to be an alderman of that city.3 Though it is evident from the large purchases he made in the county that he had a considerable practice as a barrister, it was, probably, chiefly in the provinces ; for his name does not occur in the Reports of Westminster till 1589, four years before he took the degree of the coif, for which he was summoned on November 29, 1593.4 In September, 1593, soon after the death of the Earl of Derby, who was Chamber- 1 From a Cheshire Pedigree compiled by the late Mr. Hadfield, with which the present representative of the family has kindly furnished me. Wotton's Baronetage, iii. 87., gives an incorrect account, making Sir Peter the Judge, eldest son of Sir John Warburton of Arley, Kent, by Mary, daughter of Sir William Brereton. 2 Line. Inn Black Bk. iv. 377., v. 149.; Dugdale's Orig. 253. 261. ■ llarleian MSS. 2173. * Dugdak'i Cbron. Ser. o 2 196 PETER WARBURTON. James I. lain of Chester, Warburton had been appointed to exercise the office of vice-chamberlain, in which he was confirmed in the following March, when Sir Thomas Egerton became chamberlain.1 In November, 1599, he appears as one of the commissioners " de schismate supprimendo." 2 His elevation to the bench at Westminster soon followed, his patent as a judge of the Common Pleas being dated No- vember 24, 1600. King James renewed it on his accession3, and soon after knighted him. In none of the State trials at which he was present does he seem to have taken a prominent part, and no record remains of his argument in the great case of the Post-nati.4 The last fine levied before him is dated three weeks of Trinity, 19 James I., 1621 5, only a few weeks before his death on September 7, in that year. This event occurred at Grafton Hall in Cheshire, a stately building exhi- biting a fine specimen of the domestic architecture of the seventeenth century, erected by Sir Peter on a manor pur- chased by him after he became a judge. He was buried in the church of Tilston, the parish in which the manor is situate.6 He wTas thrice married. His first wife was Margaret, daughter and sole heir of George Barlow of Dronfield- Woodhouse in Derbyshire ; his second was Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Sir Thomas Butler of Bewsey in Lancashire ; and his third was Alice, daughter and coheir of Sir Peter Warburton of Arley Hall. By the first only he had issue. His son John died in infancy, and his only surviving daughter, Elizabeth, inherited all his rich possessions. She married Sir Thomas Stanley of Wever and Alderley, knight, who had a son by her created a baronet in 1660, and whose lineal descendant now graces the peerage by the title of Lord Stanley of Alderley, to which he was raised in May, 1839.7 1 Peck's Desid. Cur. bk. v. 1.; Egerton Papers, 192, 193. 2 Rymer, xvi. 386. 3 Dugdale's Chron. Ser. * State Trials, i. 1334., ii. 1. 62. 159. 604. s Dugdale's Orig. 48. 6 Ormerod's Cheshire, ii. 386. 7 MSS. Pedigree, ut supra. 1603—1625. DAVID WILLIAMS. 197 Sir Thomas Butler, the grandfather of Sir Peter's second wife, had founded the Grammar School of Warrington, and settled ample endowments on it, of which it was nearly de- prived by the husband of another granddaughter obtaining a grant of them as concealed lands. But by the judge's strenuous exertions they were compelled to be restored; and the school exists to this day a flourishing foundation.1 WESTMINSTER, Dean of. See J. Williams. WHITELOCKE, JAMES. Just. K. B. 1624. See under the Reign of Charles I. WILLIAMS, DAVID. Just. K. B. 1604. It was not till the reign of Henry VIII. that the Welsh began to abandon the practice of changing their names at each generation. The son had previously assumed the Chris- tian name of his father, uniting it to his own Christian name by the word "ap" (signifying "son of"); in the same manner that the word " Fitz " was used by the English in earlier times before surnames were generally introduced among them.2 Thus the judge of whom an account is now to be given wTas originally called David ap William, his father's name being William ap Ychan ; and it was not till he removed into England that he adopted the simpler ap- pellation of David Williams. The father, descended, it is said, from Bleddin ap Maenyrch, Lord of Brecknock in 1091, was a substantial yeoman, whose property was situate in the parish of Ystradvelte in that county. By his wife Margaret, daughter of Rhys Griffith Ex inf. W. Beamont, Es8\., quoting Peck's Desid. Curiosa, j>. 182. - Egerton Papers, 388. Dugdale. * State Trials, ii 1 Kgcrlon Tapers, 117, I I o 4 200 DAVID WILLIAMS, James I. taincd the following curious legacy, which shows the friendly terms on which he lived with his brethren on the bench. "And whereas it hath been heretofore agreed between my good and kind brother Warburton and myself that the sur- vivor of us twayne should have the other's best scarlet robes, now I do will that my said good brother Warburton shall have the choice of either of my scarlet robes, and he to take that shall best like him, praying him that as he hath been a good and kind brother unto me, so he will be a good and kind friend to my children." He likewise gives to the lord chancellor (Ellesmere) a great gilt standing cup with a cover, in token of his love and affection, and begs him to be over- seer of his will.1 A tablet in old Kingston church records that his bowels were interred there; but his body was removed for burial to the church of St. John the Evangelist at Brecon, where there is a sumptuous monument to his memory, presenting his effigy in judicial habiliments. The inscription, by himself, states that out of nine sons and two daughters only four sons and two daughters remained, and concludes with these lines : — "Nuper eram judex, nunc judicis ante tribunal Subsistens paveo ; judicor ipse modo." These children were all by his first wife, Margaret, a daughter of John Games of Aberbran in the county of Brecon, Esq., by a daughter of Sir William Vaughan of Porthaml. His second wife was Dorothy, daughter and co- heiress of Oliver Wellsborn of East Hanney, Berks, Esq., and widow of John Latton of Kingston in that county, Esq., by whom he had no children. Henry, the eldest of Sir David's surviving sons, received in 1644 the dignity of baronet. He was described of Guernevet, where he enter- tained King Charles when he was a fugitive after the battle 1 Jones's Brecknock, ii. 38 i. 1603—1625. IIUMFREY WINCH. 201 of Naseby. This title, after being enjoyed for more than 150 years, expired in 1798, on the death of the eighth baronet.1 WILLIAMS, JOHN, Dean of Salisbury and Westminster, Bishop of Lincoln, Archbishop of York. Lord Keeper, 1621. See under the Reign of Charles I. WINCH, HUMFREY. Just. C. P. 1611. Humfrey Winch was seated at Everton in the county of Bedford. He was born about 1545, and having received his legal education at Lincoln's Inn, of which he was admitted a member on July 19, 1573, and was called to the bar on November 26, 1581, became a bencher there in 1596, and Autumn reader in 1598. 2 Though he is not mentioned in the Reports till the following Michaelmas, nor frequently after that, he had apparently acquired some character as a lawyer; for he sat in the last three of Elizabeth's parlia- ments for the town of Bedford 3, and was invested with the degree of the coif in Trinity Term, 1606, for the purpose of taking upon him the office of chief baron of the Exchequer in Ireland, to which he was appointed on November 8. He was then knighted ; and two years afterwards he succeeded Sir James Ley as lord chief justice of the King's Bench in that country, with a salary of 300/. a year. He only re- tained that appointment from December 8, 1608, till Novem- ber 7, 1611 4, during which his character for "quickness, 1 Ashmole's Berks, iii. 341.; Wotton's Baronet, ii. 404. To Benjamin Williams, Esq., F.S.A., of Cote in Oxfordshire, I am greatly indebted for his kindness in supplying many particulars in this sketch. Black Bunk, Line. Inn, v. 170. 335.J Dugdale's Orig. 254. 268. 1 O'Byrne's Represent. Hist, i.7 i. ' Smyth's Law Oil. of Ireland, • 202 HUMFREY WINCH. James I. industry, and dispatch" is recommended for imitation by Bacon, in his speech to Sir William Jones, on taking the same place.1 Sir Humfrey was immediately translated into England, and constituted a judge of the Common Pleas, where he sat for the next fifteen years. In August, 1613, he was sent into Ireland with three other commissioners to examine into the complaints of the people.2 Three years after, he fell deservedly into some disgrace, in consequence of condemning and executing, at the Summer assizes at Leices- ter, no less than nine women as witches, on the evidence of a boy, who pretended that he had been bewitched and tor- mented by them. The king, on a visit to the town a month after the trial, personally examining the boy, discovered and exposed the imposture ; but too late to save the unfortunate victims of this absurd superstition.3 He died on February 4, 1625, and was buried in the cloisters of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. His reports of u Choice Cases " in his own court, during two of the latter years of his life, were published in 1657 ; and Croke, his colleague on the bench, calls him a "learned and religious judge."4 By his wife Cecily, daughter of Eichard Onslow, Esq., Recorder of London and Speaker of the House of Commons in 8 Eliz., he left, besides other issue, a son named Onslow Winch, who was sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1633 ; but his male representatives terminated with Humfrey Winch of Havvnes, in that county, who was created a baronet in 1660, and died without male issue in 1703.5 1 Bacon's Works (Montagu), vii. 264. 2 Pell Records, Jac. I„ 169. 8 Borough MSS. Leicester, for extracts from which I am indebted to the kindness of William Kelly, Esq. 4 Croke, Jac. 700. 5 Collins's Peerage, v. 466.; Wotton's Baronet, iv. 475. 1603—1625. CHRISTOPHER YELVERTON. 203 YELVERTON, CHRISTOPHER. Just. K. B. 1603. See under the Reign of Elizabeth. In direct descent from Sir William Yelverton, the judge of the King's Bench in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., came, with four generations between them, William Yelverton, who still enjoyed the same property in Norfolk, and pursued the same profession. He held the office of reader in Gray's Inn in Lent, 1535, and Lent, 1542 l ; and it was probably he whose name appears in the debates in the parliaments of 1571 and 1572. 2 He died in 1585, leaving, by his marriage with Anne, daughter and heir of Sir Henry Fermor of East Barsham in Norfolk, a large family. Henry, his eldest son, succeeded to the estates, and was father to Sir William, who obtained a baronetcy (of Rougham) in 1620, which expired on the death of his son in 1649. The third son, Christopher, ar- rived at the same judicial distinction as his ancestor, and is the subject of the present sketch.3 Entering himself in 1552 at Gray's Inn, the inn of Court to which his progenitors had been attached, he relieved his legal studies there by an occasional offering to the Muses. When " Jocasta," a tragedy translated from Euripides by George Gascoigne and Francis Kynwelmersh, was performed at Gray's Inn in 1566, the Epilogue was supplied by Yelver- ton4 ; and he assisted in other devices and shows of the society. He became reader in Lent, 1574, and again in Lent, 15 S3, but in consequence of the pestilence then raging, his duties were deferred till the following year, at the end of which he was re-elected treasurer, having before held that office in 1573. In Trinity Term, 1589, he was called to the degree of the coif; and Dugdale gives two dates for his appointment as 1 Dugdale's Orig. 293, * Pari. Hist. i. 747. 762. 77!). ;| Collins's Peerage, vL * Wood's Allien. Oxoo. i. 204 CHRISTOPHER YELVERTON. James 1. queen's serjeant, May 10, 1589, and May 11, 1598 l, the latter being obviously the correct one ; as he was first recommended for the place by Lord Burleigh in February, 15 94-5. 2 In the parliament of October, 1597, he was elected speaker on the nomination of the court. His disabling speech on that occasion gives so minute a description of his person and position, that part of it is worth extracting : — " Whence your unexpected choice of me to be your mouth or speaker should proceed, I am utterly ignorant. If from my merits, strange it were that so few deserts should purchase, suddenly, so great an honour. Nor from my ability doth this your choice proceed ; for well known it is to a great number in this place now assembled, that my estate is nothing corre- spondent for the maintenance of this dignity : for my father, dying, left me a younger brother, and nothing to me but my bare annuity. Then growing to man's estate and some small practice of the law, I took a wife, by whom I had many chil- dren, the keeping of us all being a great impoverishment to my estate, and the daily living of us all nothing but my daily industry. Neither from my person nor nature doth this choice arise ; for he that supplieth this place ought to be a man big and comely, stately and well spoken, his voice great, his courage majestical, his nature haughty, and his purse plen- tiful and heavy : but contrarily, the stature of my body is small, myself not so well spoken, my voice low, my carriage lawyer-like and of the common fashion, my nature soft and bashful, my purse thin, light, and never yet plentiful. .... But if this cannot move your sudden choice, yet let this one thing persuade you, that myself not being gracious in the eye of her Majesty, neither ever yet in account with any great personages, shall deceive your expectation." The prayer which, according to the custom of those times, he composed and read ! Una-dale's Orig. 295. 298. Chron. Ser. 2 Peck's Desid. Cur. b. v. 6. 1603— 1G25. CITRISTOPIIER YELVERTON. 205 to the house every morning, has much devotional beauty. In this parliament, which was dissolved in the following Febru- ary > it is observable that the queen " refused or quashed forty- eight several bills which had passed both houses." l The allusion to his " not being gracious in the eye of her Majesty," probably refers to an old complaint mentioned in a letter from Sir Walter Mildmay to Sir Christopher Hatton in 1582, wherein he says that Yelverton u doth assure me that he is utterly guiltless of any of those matters whereof her Majesty hath been informed against him, and doubteth not fully to satisfy you when it shall like you to hear him, which my re- quest to you is that you will vouchsafe to do ; for it will be grievous unto him that her Highness should retain any such opinion of him, whereof he hath given no just cause."'2 How- ever this may be, his conduct in the house seems to have removed the evil eye, his promotion to be queen's serjeant having taken place three months after the dissolution. In this character he opened the indictments against the Earl of Essex and the other conspirators in 1600, but the principal duty of urging the evidence fell on Coke and Fleming, the attorney and solicitor-general.3 Lord Burleigh thought very highly of him, and soon after his appointment as queen's serjeant, named him as most eligible for " learning and auncienty " to fill a vacancy in the Common Pleas; yet considered that he. would do the queen more ser- vice by continuing queen's serjeant, than by being made a justice.4 He was not then selected ; but four years later, on February 2, 1602, he was nominated a judge of the King's Bench. On the accession of James I. in the following year, his patent was renewed, and he received the honour of knight- hood. ' It fell to his lot to pronounce sentence of deatli upon Robert Creighton, Lord Sanquire, for procuring the murder 1 Tar]. Hist. i. 897. 905. 2 Nicolas's Hatton, 248. 3 State Trials, i. 1336. 1419. * Peck's Dend. Cur. b. v. 24. 20(5 CimiSTOFIIER YELVERTON. James I. of Robert Turner, a feneing master, who had by mischance struck out his eye while playing with the foils.1 Sir Christopher died in November, 1612, at Easton Mau- duit, an estate he had purchased in Northamptonshire, which has remained the seat of his family up to the present time. About two years before his decease, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, gave this character of him to his son Henry : " He is a gentleman, a learned man, and a lawyer ; one that will deliver his mind with perspicuous reason and great comeli- ness." 2 His wife Margaret, daughter of Thomas Catesby of Ecton and Whiston in Northamptonshire, Esq., brought him two sons and four daughters. Of his two sons, Henry and Chris- topher, the former became a judge of the Common Pleas, and will be the subject of an article in the next reign. YORK, Archbishop of. See J. Williams. 1 State Trials, ii. 752. 2 Archaeologia, xv. 52. 207 CHARLES I. Reigned 23 years, 10 months, and 3 days; from March 27, 1625, to January 30, 1 649. SURVEY OF THE REIGN. Such was the nominal length of Charles's reign : but he had substantially lost all regal power from August 22, 1642, when he set up his standard at Nottingham in opposition to the parliament ; although in the various acts of government and the appointments of officers his name continued to be used. The parliamentary grant of the Marquis of Worcester's lands to Cromwell on April 24, 1648, purports to be from King Charles.1 One of the primary causes of the great rebellion, that overthrew the government and that cost the king his head, was the degradation of the bench of justice. The arbitrary principles prevalent in the last reign had by degrees been exercised over the judges, who, some from fear, some from subserviency, and some from honest though mistaken con- viction, had gradually become more anxious to support the royal prerogative than to preserve the people's rights. When the encroachments of the crown increased and became op- pressive; when the people were subjected to impositions without parliamentary authority, and their representatives were imprisoned for expressing their grievances; above all, when the courts of justice refused their customary aid, and timorously denied them relief; when they found, in addition, 1 Archeologia, %.xix, 208 TRAFFIC IN JUDICIAL OFFICES. Charles I. that the venerable men who ventured to speak for them were displaced from their seats, and their most time-serving oppres- sors appointed to fill them ; when, in short, they had lost all confidence in that solemn judicature which they had been taught to depend on and venerate, the people might well despair ; and no one can wonder at any attempt they might make to extricate themselves from their bondage, though all must regret the lengths to which they were carried in their efforts to procure their liberation. The disgraceful trading in ministerial and judicial offices which prevailed in the last reign was continued in this. In the Chancery they were notorious objects of traffic. Arch- bishop Laud, when consulted by Sir Charles Caesar about the vacancy in the mastership of the Rolls, plainly told him " that as things then stood, the place was not like to go with- out more money than he thought any wise man would give for it." 1 Sir Charles, notwithstanding this caution, appears to have given 15,000/., with a supplemental loan of 2000/. to the king. On Sir Charles's death, Dr. Buck offered a good sum for the office, and actually paid 3000/. in advance ; but the king returned the money, having resolved to keep a promise he had made to Sir John Colepeper.2 Nor were the common law judges exempt from the same imputation. Chief Justice Richardson was said to have given 17,000/. for his place 3 ; and, according to Sir James Whitelocke's diary, Jus- tice Vernon " dedit aurum " for his promotion.4 The shameful practice was no doubt general, though many instances remain unrecorded, the details being as discreditable to the giver as to the receiver, to the tempted as to the tempter. One inevitable consequence of this was, that men were afraid of losing the places they had paid for; and another, that the public, to whom the corruption of some was known, attri- 1 State Trials, iv. 417. 2 Life of Clarendon, i. 170. 3 Walter Yonge's Diary, 97. 4 Bacon's Works (Montagu), xvi. ccciv. 1G25— 1649. BRIBERY. — ROYAL INTERFERENCE. 209 buted it to all, and distrusted the motives of an adverse judg- ment, though that judgment might be rightly pronounced. So strong was the general feeling that bribery exercised an influence in the courts, that it even found vent from the pulpit, and the judges were sometimes compelled to listen to charges against their order. At Thetford assizes, in March, 1630, Mr. Ramsey, the preacher, touched pithily on the cor- ruption of judges " favouring of causes," and of counsellors i( taking fees to be silent ; " and at Bury assizes, in the sum- mer of 1631, "one Mr. Scott made a sore sermon in dis- covery of corruption in judges and others." At Norwich, also, 6 i Mr. Greene was more plaine, insomuch that Judge Harvy, in his charge, broke out thus : l It seems by the sermon that we are corrupt, but know that we can use conscience in our places, as well as the best clergie man of all.' " l Sometimes, however, the judges would resist interference, and refuse obedience to unconstitutional commands. A clergyman, named Huntley, in 1630 had brought an action in the King's Bench against some of the members of the High Commission Court for false imprisonment. Archbishop Laud endeavoured to stop the proceedings, and induced the king to interpose his authority. The judges " stoutly answered that they could not, without breach of their oaths, perform that command," insisting u that it was against law to exempt any man from answering the action of another that would sue him : " and their honest argument prevailed.2 Hyde, Jones, Whitelocke, and Croke then formed the court. This High Commission Court, which had exercised un- limited authority in all ecclesiastical matters, was suppressed by act of parliament in July, 1641 ; and at the same time the people were relieved from the oppression of the Star Chamber.3 Another grievance which occasioned much com- 1 Diary of John Rous, 50. 62. Whitelocke, 15. Whitelocke, 46. VOL. VI. P 210 COURTS SUPPRESSED.— MICHAELMAS TERM. Charles I- plaint, the Court of Wards and Liveries, was abolished in 1646 ; and that petty cause of annoyance, the Court of Requests, a minor Court of Chancery, was generally sup- posed to be put an end to by statute 16 Car. I., c. 10 (1640) ; but there is a volume of its decrees extending to the eighteenth year, 1642.1 To these legislative benefits of this reign may be added the Petition of Right, a new Magna Charta, in 1628; and the judicial declaration of all the judges that the punishment by torture is illegal.2 It has been generally sup- posed that up to the end of 1640 the judges were always ap- pointed " durante bene placito ; " but several instances occur previously of their patents being "quamdiu se bene ges- serit." It is sufficient to mention the late one of Chief Baron Walter, whose elevation to the bench in 1625 was in that form, and who refused to be dismissed in 1630 without a scire facias " whether he did bene se gerere or not." 3 From January, 1641, however, that improvement has been uni- versally adopted. Another inconvenience, arising from the commencement of Michaelmas Term so soon after the feast of St. Michael, was remedied by a statute passed in 1640, 16 Car. I., c. 6, whereby its first two returns were cut off; the effect of which was, that the first day of full Term was put forward from October 9 to October 23. The title of lord chancellor was not used during this reign. The Great Seal was held with that of lord keeper only ; of whom the king appointed five ; one being an eccle- siastic— the last that ever filled the office — and the other four lawyers. 1 12 Report Pub. Rec. 8. 9. 3 Whitclocke, 11. 16. Rushwortb, i. 638. 1625—1649. lord keepers. 211 Lord Keepers. John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, retained his place as lord keeper for exactly seven months after Charles's acces- sion. He was then removed, and the Seal was given to Sir Thomas Coventry, the attorney-general, on No- vember 1, 1625. He retained it till the day of his death; having been created Lord Coventry on April 10, 1628. Sir John Finch, chief justice of the Common Pleas, succeeded him as lord keeper, on January 17, 1640; and on April 7, was created Lord Finch of Fordwich. He held the Seal only eleven months and a few days, flying the country on December 21, to avoid the impeachment of the Commons. Sir Edward Lyttelton, chief justice of the Common Pleas, received the Great Seal on January 23rd, 1641 ; and on February 18, was raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Lyttelton of Mounslow. He joined the king at York, on the breaking out of the civil war, and though a new Great Seal was ordered, and Commissioners for its custody were appointed, by the parliament, he retained the title of lord keeper till his death ; when Sir Richard Lane, lord chief baron of the Exchequer, on August 30, 1645, succeeded him with the same title, which he held at the king's decapitation on January 30, 1648-9. When Lord Lyttelton took the Great Seal to the king at York in May, 1642, the parliament were much puzzled how to act. They had so much respect for that emblem of authority that they for some time took no decided step to provide a substitute: but in about a year the House of Commons, by only a slender majority, passed a resolution " That a Great Seal of England shall be forthwith made to attend the parliament for dispatch of the affairs of the parliament and kingdom." The Lords not agreeing with this resolution, the Commons on July 5, 1643, voted " That P 2 212 COMMISSIONERS OF GREAT SEAL. Charles I. a Great Seal be presently made," and that Mr. Simonds have 1007. for his pains in making it. After four months' delay, an ordinance was agreed to by both houses on No- vember 16, 1643, invalidating all acts done under the Great Seal since May 22, 1642, and all acts that should thereafter be done ; and ordaining that the Great Seal of England already provided by the Lords and Commons should be forthwith put in use ; and that it should be placed in the custody of the following commissioners, mem- bers of the two houses : — Henry Grey, Earl of Kent1, and Oliver St. John, Earl of Bolinbroke, Peers; Oliver St. John, solicitor- general ; John Wilde, serjeant-at-law ; Samuel Browne, esq. ; and Edmund Prideaux, esq., Commoners ; or any two of them, one being a member of one house, and one of the other. These commissioners were accordingly sworn, and among other oaths, took, somewhat curiously, those of alle- giance and supremacy. William Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, was on July 3, 1646, made a commissioner in the place of the Earl of Bo- linbroke, deceased. In the following October, in consequence of a vote of the House of Lords that there should be three commissioners who were not members of either house of parliament, the above-mentioned commissioners received thanks, and (except the Earl of Salisbury) 1000/. each, for their faithful services; and it was ordered that as a mark of honour, those commis- sioners who were members of the House of Commons should practice within the bar, and have precedence next after the solicitor-general. But the lords and commons could not agree as to the num- ber, names, or duties of the future commissioners; till at 1 The Earl of Kent was substituted for the Earl of Rutland, who was first appointed, but who desired to be excused. 1625—1649. CHANCERY. — GREAT SEAL. 213 last, on October 30, 1646, they concurred in appointing the speakers of both houses, viz. : — Edward Montagu, Earl of Manchester, and Wil- liam Lenthall, Esq., Master of the Bolls ; limiting their power to twenty days after the end of Michaelmas term. This period was from time to time extended till March 15, 1648, when Henry Grey, Earl of Kent ; William Grey, Lord Grey de Werke ; Sir Thomas Widdrington, M. P. ; and Bulstrode Whitelocke, Esq , M.P. were nominated commissioners, with a salary of 1000/. a year each.1 They remained in office till the king's death. On the day of Lord Coventry's appointment a commission was issued to all the puisne judges, and to all the masters in chancery, to assist him in hearing causes : so that he could call in the aid of any of them in case of necessity.2 His lordship's allowances were the same in amount as those men- tioned in the last reign.3 The allowance to Sir Richard Lane, when he was appointed at Oxford, was 23.9. per diem for his diet; 26Z. 13s. 4d. per annum for a winter livery, and 1 31. 6s. 4c/. for a summer livery ; and 300/. per annum pension out of the Hanaper ; together with all other fines, fees, and allowances belonging to the office.4 The fee to each commissioner under the par- liament was 1000/. a year. On the surrender of the city of Oxford in June, 1646, the king's Great Seal and the seals of the several courts were delivered up to the parliament. They were imme- diately ordered to be defaced and broken, and the pieces 1 Journals of Lords and Commons. Votefl were passed in one or other of the Houses for the following gentlemen to be commissioners, but not agreed upon: Mr. Serjeant Bramston, Sir Nathaniel Brent, Mr. Serjeant Greene Mr. Serjeant Turner, Sir Rowland Wandesl'ord, Sir Thomas Bedingfield, Mr. John Bradshaw, Challcnor Chute, esq. ■ Rymer, xviii. 219. ■ Ibid. 220. Sf ante, i» 4 Docquets, &c at Oxford. 214 MASTERS OF THE ROLLS. Charles I. given to the speakers of the two houses.1 The parliament's new Seal, which had been ordered to be made in July, 1643, and had been used by them since November in that year, and which nothing differed from the king's, now continued in undivided operation till January, 1649. Masters of the Eolls. Sir Julius C-assAR, who had been master of the Rolls for nearly eleven years under King James, retained the office for eleven more under King Charles. In April, 1629, the rever- sion of it was granted to Sir Humphrey May ; but he died without coming into possession in June in the next year. Sir Julius survived him till April 18, 1636, when Sir Dudley Digges, to whom, on the death of Sir Hum- phrey May, it had also been granted in reversion, entered on the office, and held it for about three years. At his death Sir Charles Caesar, one of the masters in Chancery, was placed in the office on March 30, 1639, but enjoyed it but for a short time, dying of the small-pox on December 6, 1642 ; when the king appointed Sir John Colepeper, the chancellor of the Exchequer, on January 30, 1643. He was created Lord Colepeper on October 14, 1644, and nominally held the office at the death of the king on January 29, 1649. On the death of Sir Charles Csesar, the Commons ordered the rents and profits of the office to be sequestered for the service of the parliament ; and one of the first instruments to which the parliamentary Great Seal was attached was a patent dated November 22, 1643, granting the office to William Lenthall, Esq., speaker of the House of Commons ; so that for the rest of the reign there were two masters of the Rolls — one appointed by the king, and one by the parliament. 1 Whitelocke, 210. 219. 1625 — 1649. # JUDGES. 215 Masters in Chancery. Sir Julius Cassar, M. R. - - - 1 to 12 Car. I Francis James, LL.D. - - - - 1 — Sir Charles Caesar, LL.D., afterwards M. R. - - 1 to 18 — Richard More - - - - 1 to 11 — Sir John Hayward, LL.D. - - - 1 to 3 — Ewball Thelwall - - - 1 to 6 — Robert Rich - - - - 1 to 22 — John Michell - - - - 1 to 20 — Sir Edward Salter - - - 1 to 18 — Edward Leech - - - 1 to 24 — Sir Peter Mutton - - - 1 to 13 — Edward Clarke - - - 1 to 14 — Thomas Eden, LL.D. - - - - 1 to 16 — John Page - - - 3 to 24 — Sir Dudley Digges, afterwards M. R. - - - 6 to 13 — Sir Thomas Bennett, LL.D. - - - 11 to 24 — William Griffith, LL.D. - - - 12 to 17 — Robert Aylett, LL.D. - - - 13 to 24 — William Child - - - - 14 to 24 — James Littelton - - - 15 to 20 — Thomas Heath, LL.D. - - - 16 to 21 — Sir Justinian Lewen, LL.D. - - - 17 to 24 — Sir Thomas Colepeper, afterwards Lord Colepeper, M.R. 18 to 24 — William Lenthall, M. R. - - - 19 to 24 — Sir Thomas Mainwaring - - - 19 to 23 — John Sadler - - - 20 to 24 — Arthur Duck, LL.D. - - - 21 to 24 — Edward Rich - - '- - 21 to 24 — William Hakewell - - - 22 to 24 — Edward Eltonhead - - - 23 to 24 — The judges suffered with the rest of the kingdom from the violence resulting from the extreme opinions of the opposing parties. Their removal from the bench was frequent ; — by the king during the first ten years of the reigu, and by the parliament afterwards. Lord Keeper Williams was an early sacrifice to the cabals of the Duke of Buckingham and his friends, joined to the dislike of the king to receive unwelcome advice. Lord Chief Justice Crewe was dismissed in 1(>2(> for 216 JUDGES. • Charles 1. not acknowledging the lawfulness of forced loans. In 1630 Chief Baron Walter was suspended for doubting the legality of proceeding against members of parliament for acts done in the house. The removal of Sir Robert Heath in 1634 was caused either by his discouragement of ship-money, or by his resistance to Archbishop Laud. All these examples arose from supposed non-compliance with the king's will; others suffered for supporting what he claimed as his prerogative. Lord Keeper Finch, Chief Justice Bramston, Chief Baron Davenport, Justices Berkeley and Crawley, and Barons Wes- ton and Trevor, were impeached by the parliament in 1640 for their opinions in favour of ship-money; Justices Jones and Vernon only escaping the same ordeal by dying before the parliament acted. Chief Justice Banks and Justices Fos- ter and Malet also got into disgrace for their steady adherence to their royal master, and were likewise impeached. The former died, and the two latter were declared to be disabled as if they were dead. The king had hitherto preserved his prerogative of appointing the judges, and had exercised it for the last time on January 31, 1644; but his authority being then entirely set aside, and the twelve judges having by the above impeachments and other casualties been reduced to four, the parliament from thenceforth took upon themselves to supply the vacancies ; the Oxford parliament of course de- claring that those who acted on these nominations, and all lawyers pleading before them, were guilty of high treason. These various changes often led to great inconvenience, and obliged the parliament itself to resort to extraordinary mea- sures to preserve the regular administration of justice. In October, 1642, all the judges of the King's Bench being either with the king at Oxford or imprisoned in the Tower, except Judge Berkeley, who had been impeached in the pre- vious year, and arrested while sitting on the bench, an ordi- nance was passed notwithstanding, resolving that "having 1625—1649. DELAYS. 217 carried himself with modesty and humility, and inoffensively to both houses," he should keep the essoigns of Michaelmas term. Another of the impeached judges, Baron Trevor, was allowed on payment of a fine to make his peace, and to resume his judicial functions till the king's death. He was for some time the only baron in the Exchequer; and on September 29, 1645, being too ill to attend the court, and the Cursitor Baron Leeke having joined the king, the parliament was obliged to name another, in order that the form should be preserved of presenting the sheriffs of London, &c., on the next day, which " for the space of three or four hundred years had never been omitted;" and Richard Tomlins was accordingly appointed cursitor baron.1 From Michaelmas, 1645, to the end of the reign two judges only sat in each court. The suitors also had great reason to complain on account of the frequent adjournment of the terms and the irregular sittings of the courts. In the early part of the reign several adjournments took place on account of the plague which visited the kingdom. In 1625, both Trinity and Michaelmas terms were adjourned, and the latter was ordered to be held at Reading. Michaelmas, 1630, and Trinity and Michaelmas, 1636, were obliged for the same cause to be partially delayed.2 These could not be avoided ; but during the parliamentary conflict other adjournments were attempted under different circumstances. In 1642, the king adjourned Easter and Michaelmas terms from London to York, which the parlia- ment voted to be illegal. In 1643, though the two houses had adjourned Trinity term, they commanded the judges not to adjourn Michaelmas term by colour of any writs from Oxford ; and in Hilary, 1 644, they ordered that any person delivering such writs " should be proceeded against as spies, according to Marshal law." The same order was re- 1 Lords' and Commons' Journals ; Clarendon, iv. 287. - Kymer, xviii. 116. 184. 206., xix. 192., xx. 20. 23. 71. 218 DIFFICULTIES. — SALARIES OF JUDGES. Charles I. peated in the following terms ; and that this was not an idle threat was sufficiently proved by their actually executing one of the unfortunate messengers who delivered the writs to Justice Reeve and Baron Trevor. Hilary term, 1649;, was adjourned till after the king's trial.1 In August, 1643, Whitelocke states that "the courts were not yet open, no practice for lawyers ; " and on December 1 2 of the same year, when the new commissioners had been sworn in, they sealed above 500 writs, u so desirous were people to have the course of Justice to proceed." Again, while the two houses were disputing in October, 1646, into whose hands the Great Seal should be entrusted, there were no less than 8000 writs ready to be sealed.2 The parliament, on account of " the present distractions," forbade the judges to go the usual circuits in Lent, 1643; but afterwards, the assizes were held with tolerable regularity, according to the position of the respective armies. The people, however, were sometimes unwilling or afraid to appear. Whitelocke relates that at Hereford, in August, 1647, " the People came not in, so that there was little to do either for Judges or Lawyers;" and in August, 1648, the judges were desired to " avoid going to any place where they shall appre- hend to be any danger;" and the judges were to go the northern circuit "if they please."3 The salary of the parliamentary judges was fixed at 1000/. a year in lieu of all former fees and profits, to be paid out of the receipts of the Customs ; but it wras frequently allowed to get in arrear, so that there was a peremptory order of the parliament on December 19, 1648, for the immediate dis- charge of all that was due, and the punctual payment in future.4 1 Whitelocke, 59. 62. 78. 80. 87. 370.: Journals; Clarendon, iv. 342. 2 Whitelocke, 71. 79. 3 Ibid. 265. 329. 332. ; Clarendon, iii. 536. 4 Whitelocke, 174.; Journals. 1625-1649. KING'S BENCH. 219 Chief Justices of the King's Bench. Sir Kanulphe Crewe, who had held the office only two months in James's reign, was re-appointed in this ; but not pleasing the governing powers, was removed on No- vember 9, 1626, and was succeeded by Sir Nicholas Hyde, a practising barrister, on Feb- ruary 5, 1627. On his death, Sir Thomas Kichardson, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, was on October 24, 1631, removed into this court; over which he presided till his death on February 4, 1635. Sir John Bramston, king's serjeant, was called to supply his place on April 14, 1635 ; but had a patent of revocation on October 10, 1642 ; when Sir Robert Heath, formerly chief justice of the Com- mon Pleas, but since a judge of the King's Bench, was ap- pointed by the king. The parliament, by an ordinance on November 25, 1645, voted him disabled "as though he were dead ; " and he fled to France to avoid their impeachment. The place was not filled up till little more than three months before the decapitation of the king, when the parlia- ment appointed Henry Rolle, already a parliamentary judge of the King's Bench, chief justice of that court, on October 12, 1648. Justices of the King's Bench. I. 1625. March. John Doderidge, 1 The judges at the end William Jones, r of James's reign were JamesWhitelocke,J continued by Charles. George Croke, vice Doderidge. llobert Berkeley, vice Whiteloeke. Robert Heath, vice W. Jones. Thomas Malet, vice G. Croke. IV. 1628. Oct. 28. VIII. 1632. Oct 11. XVI. 1641. ,1:1... -2:1 XVII. July 1. 220 COMMON PLEAS. Charles I. XVIII. 1642. O^t. 14. Francis Bacon, vice R. Heath. XIX. 1644. Jan. 31. Robert Brerewood, vice R. Berkeley. Chief Justice Heath and Justice Malet being disabled by a vote of parliament, the only judges of this court remaining were Sir Francis Bacon, who acted till the end of the reign, and Sir Robert Brere- wood, who was appointed at Oxford, and never appeared in Westminster Hall. XXI. 1645. Sept. 30. Henry Rolle, 1 Appointed by the Parlia- XXIV. 1648. Oct. 12. Samuel Browne, V 1 1 m^ Philip Jermyn, J The judges of this court at the king's death were, Henry Rolle, chief justice, Francis Bacon, Samuel Browne, Philip Jermyn. Chief Justices of the Common Pleas. Sir Henry Hobart, who had been chief justice nearly twelve years, had his patent renewed, and kept his seat till his death on December 26, 1625. The vacancy was not filled up for eleven months, when Sir Thomas Richardson, king's serjeant, received the appointment on November 28, 1626; and, being removed to the King's Bench on October 24, 1631, was, two days after, succeeded by Sir Robert Heath, the attorney-general, who in about three years was suddenly removed from his place, which was given to Sir John Finch, the queen's attorney-general, on Octo- ber 14, 1634. He became lord keeper in January 17, 1640, and Sir Edward Lyttelton, the king's solicitor-general, received his patent for the place on January 27, 1640. On his promotion at the beginning of the next year to be lord keeper, Sir John Banks, the attorney-general, was made chief 1G25— 1G19. EXCHEQUER, 221 justice on January 26, 1641. He died on December 28, 1644; after which the king did not fill up the place, which remained vacant nearly four years. The parliament then appointed Oliver St. John, the parliamentary solicitor-general, chief justice of the Common Pleas, on October 12, 1648. Justices of the Common Pleas. I. 1625. March. Richard Hutton, | K tLeir ^ on |fc- GeorgeGroke, V Bench Francis Harvey, J Thomas Chamberlayne, (?) for a temporary object. May 10. Henry Yelverton, as a fifth judge ; which was not continued after Judge Croke's removal to the King's Bench in 1628. Humphrey Davenport, vice H. Yelverton. George Vernon, vice H. Davenport. Francis Crawley, vice F. Harvey. Edmund Reeve, vice R. Hutton. Robert Foster, vice G. Vernon. A vote of parliament having disabled Justices Crawley and Foster, and Chief Justice Banks being dead, the only judge of the court was Mr. Justice Reeve. XXI. 1645. Sept. 30. Peter Pheasant, XXIII. 1647. April 30. John Godbolt, XXIV. 1648. Oct. 12. Thomas Bedingfield, Richard Cresheld, At the death of the king the judges of this court were Oliver St. John, chief justice, Peter Pheasant, Thomas Bedingfield, Richard Cresheld. Chief Barons of the Exchequer. Sir Laurence Tanfield, having served for eighteen years under James, was re-appointed at the beginning of this reign ; but died in little more than a month. VI. 1630. Feb. 2. VII. 1631. May 8. VIII. 1632. Oct. 11. XIV. 1639. March 24 XV. 1640. Jan. 27. Appointed by the parliament. 222 EXCHEQUER. Charles I. Sir JonN Walter, one of the king's Serjeants, was then made chief baron, May 10, 1625. Though suspended from sitting in court, he retained his place till his death on No- vember 18, 1630; soon after which, Sir Humphrey Davenport, from being a judge of the Common Pleas, was raised to the office of chief baron on January 10, 1631. At his death, Sir Richard Lane, attorney-general to the Prince of "Wales, was appointed on January 25, 1644; and, though he became lord keeper on August 30, in the following year, his place of chief baron was not filled by King Charles during the unfortunate remainder of his reign. After being vacant for nearly five years, John Wilde, serjeant-at-law, and late one of the com- missioners of the Great Seal, was appointed by the parlia- ment lord chief baron on October 12, 1648. Barons of the Exchequer. I. 1625. March. May 10. III. 1627. July 4. VII. 1631. May 16. Oct. 24. X. 1634. April 30. XIV. 1638. Oct. 29. XV. 1639. Jan. 22. XVIII. 1642. Nov. 25. Edward Bromley, "I Had their Patents re- John Denham, J newed. John Sotherton, ? cursitor. Thomas Trevor, vice G. Snigge, who died in the last reign. George Vernon, vice E. Bromley. James Weston, vice G. Vernon. James Paget, ? cursitor, vice J. Sotherton. Richard Weston, vice J. Weston. John or William Page, ? cursitor, vice J. Paget. Edward Henden, vice J. Denham. Thomas Leeke, cursitor, vice J. or W. Page. Chief Baron Sir Richard Lane having been promoted to the office of lord keeper, Sir Richard Weston being disabled by an order of parliament, and Sir Edward Henden being dead, Sir Thomas Trevor was now the only baron remaining in the court, besides Cursitor Baron Leeke. 1G25 — 1049. CIIAXCERY. 223 Richard Tomlins, cursitor,"| A inted by Edward Atkyns, > ±, ,. . _. _ J the parliament. Thomas Gates, J XXI. 1G45. Sept. 29. Sept. 30. XXIV. 1648. Oct. 12. The following were barons on Charles's death : — John Wilde, chief Baron, Thomas Trevor, Thomas Gates, Edward Atkyns, Richard Tomlins, cursitor. Table of the Lord Keepers, &c, of tiie Seal, and Masters of the Rolls. A.R. A. D. Loud Keepers. Masters of the Rolls. 1 1625, Mar. 27 John Williams, Bishop of Lin- coln Sir Julius Ca;sar. Nov. 1 Sir Thomas Coventry — 4 1628, April 10 Cr. Lord Coventry — 12 1636, April 18 — Sir Dudley Digges. 15 1639, Mar. 30 — Sir Charles Caesar. 16 1640, Jan. 17 Sir John Finch — April 17 Cr. Lord Finch — 17 1641, Jan. 23 Sir Edward Lyttelton — Feb. 18 Cr. Lord Lyttelton — 19 1643, Jan. 30 — Sir John Colepcper. 20 1644, Oct. 14 — Cr. Lord Colepeper. 21 19 1645, Aug. 30 1643, Nov. 10 Sir Richard Lane William Lenthall, Henry Grey, Earl of" Kent Pari. M. R. Oliver St. John, Earl Pari. > Commrs. of Bolinbroke Oliver St. John John Wilde Samuel Browne Edmund Prideaux 22 1646, July 3 William Cecil, Earl of S >alisbury, — vice Earl of Bolinbroke Oct. 30 Edward Montagu, Earl " of Manchester Pari. Commrs. — William Lenthall, M. 11. Ilrnry Grey, Earl of"" 24 1648, Mar. 15 — Kent William Grey, Lord Grey de Werke ► Pari. Sir Thomas Wid- Commrs. drington Bulstrode Whitelocko 224 KINGS BENCH. Charles 1. W i— i B O w H H ft O H •e) oS o M o o .2 "5 0J "3 | | | 1 PQ 1 1 1 1 o 1 w | s 1 « £ 1 1 1 1 I " 1 *» •£ ■£ _c

1 o 'S c 3 1 1 b X! ■ O % o •a £ H s a a p >-> to « o 1 1 " | 1 1 1 1 i | 1 1 3 § '•3 8 a p a o i 1 V be 1 1 1 1 1 s o 43 ■ I 5 g 0 H B o V 13 >> B « o 43 * 1 c o 1 i 43 . « 1 B 1 1 •o 5 1 1 1 fa s a "3 a s 03 £ o 43 H pq s O >-5 a> 43 O (3 3 C B 55 a> * s 5 a 2 3 3" 0 ■g g tl s e- S £ o o £ o s* «* 8 2 m o o o ■< £ % £ o «« 8 2 to *>r od" --T c S "E « o u ""* s "3 is Chai Yelve irey E Vern 1 1 1 1 • 1 1 fa '-5 u •a I 3 ES E B 3 •C « 3 S O H K as O H « oj C*. >. >, * 3 5? E i E a g X) i z PB 1 | 1 1 f 1 1 5 1 I l I I 3 •c 1 1 1 1 o s to 1 1 1 III! '5 a a i 1 1 1 1 as •9 fa ' ' ' ' o nj 1 y 8 £ £ fa M S H t- O 9 P 1 1 1 M B w * « T3 S s a 5 «3 c o 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 S > « 1 1 1 1 1 a ^ 1 « "H 73 ^ O "3 «, a O rt 3 i S i n H % H c o 9 o •3 | "3 B CO D 1-5 n B X O enry Hobat died homas Ricl obert Heatl 1 u d a dward Lytt ahn Banks died O n ffi H tf N| « ^ 3 V 6 < March 27 May 10 Dec. 26 Nov. 28 Oct. 28 Feb. 2 May 8 Oct. 26 o 9 — U 0 March 24 Jan. 27 Jan. 29 Dec. 28 Nov. 24 Sept. 30 March 27 April 30 about Jur Oct. 12 in to oo cf ~ «© to e a w 1 1 a o «" v* m" (c c S 3 tc t>T oo* s s d — . . f e "J" O (O © — m — « 35 (M S3 3 < VOL. VI. 226 EXCHEQUER. Charles I. s & W o M W w W H O CO § i i i i i — ■ O) i 5 I 3 3 E o I I I I i I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I £ I I I I I ■§ 5 I S u H S I h Mills 5 "S g o « o «5 £ (D (O 1£ 1625—1649. KOBES OF THE JUDGES. 227 In consequence of various changes which had been intro- duced from time to time by the judges, partly in the fashion of their robes, but principally in the times of wearing them, a solemn order was made on June 4, 1635, by the whole bench, regulating this important subject, so that there might be certainty and uniformity for the future. From this order it appears that the judges' various dresses then consisted of black, violet, and scarlet gowns, with hoods and mantles of the same colour ; the hood put over their heads, and the mantles above all, with the end of the hood hanging over behind. The summer facing of the gowns, mantles, and hoods, was changeable taffeta, except the chiefs', which was velvet or satin ; the winter facing was white furs of miniver. The summer was reckoned from Ascension Day to the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, October 28 ; and the winter comprehended the rest of the year. They had for the cover- ing of their heads velvet caps, coifs of lawn, and cornered caps. In Term they were to sit in their black or violet gowns as they chose ; except on holy days, when they were to sit in scarlet. So also when the Lord Mayor of London came to be sworn ; and upon the 5th of November (being Gunpowder day); also when the judges went to Westminster Abbey to hear a sermon, and after sit in court ; and when they went to St. Paul's, or any other public church in Term. On these, and all other grand days, the chiefs were to wear their collars of SS above their mantles. At Nisi Prius, in Westminster or London, they were to go in violet gowns, with scarlet casting hoods and tippets ; but on holy days in scarlet. On the circuit they were to go to church, and open the commission in scarlet, with their velvet caps or cornered caps upon their heads. He who gave the charge and delivered the gaol was to continue the same dress during the assizes ; q 2 228 ATTORNEY-GENERALS. Charles I. and he who sat at Nisi Prius commonly used the same coloured robe. Similar directions are given for the dress at the council- table and the House of Lords, when they attended the king's majesty, or dined at a public feast. In one place the scarlet casting hood is directed to be pinned "near the left shoulder;" but in another, and seemingly in contradiction of this, the order says : — " The scarlet casting hood is to be put above the tippet on the right side, for Justice Walmesley and Justice Warburton, and all the Judges before, did wear them in that manner, and did declare, that by wearing the hood on the right side, and above the tippet, was signified more temporal dignity, and by the tippet on the left side only the Judges did resemble Priests." l Ruffs continued to be worn in the beginning of Charles's reign, but soon after gave way to the falling band. The judges and the bishops were the last who laid them aside.2 Lord Keeper Lyttelton's portrait by Van Dyck is one of the earliest of the judges represented with the falling collar, which in the Commonwealth was universally worn. The grant to the Marshal of the Household to hold pleas for those not of the Household, by letters patent in the last days of King James's reign, was renewed " with more per- fection, as was conceived," in November, 1630; but a ques- tion arising whether the proceedings under it were good in law, the king desired the opinion of the judges, which they apparently evaded to give.3 Attorney-Generals. I. 1625. March. Sir Thomas Coventry was continued in this place by Charles I., but was raised to that of lord keeper in seven months, when 1 Dugdale's Orig. 101 2 Granger, ii. 412. Gent. Mag. xxxviii. 457. 3 Rush worth, ii. 104. .625-1649. SOLICITOR-GENERALS. 229 Oct. 31. Sir Robert Heath, the solicitor-general, suc- ceeded. On his appointment as lord chief justice of the King's Bench, six years after, VII. 1631. Oct. 27. William Noy was made attorney-general, but dying after holding it about three years, X. J 634. Sept. 27. Sir John Banks, the prince's attorney, re- ceived the office, and held it till his eleva- tion to the Bench as chief justice of the Common Pleas, when XVI. 1641. Jan. 29. Sir Edward Herbert, the solicitor-general, was appointed. He was discharged by the king, by whom XXI. 1645. Nov. 3. Sir Thomas Gardner was then nominated. For the trial of the king the parliament appointed XXV. 1649. Jan. 10. William Steele to be attorney-general. Solicitor-Generals. I. 1625. March. Sir Robert Heath, the solicitor-general at the death of James I., retained the office till he was advanced to that of attorney-general. Nov. 1. Sir Richard Shilton or Sheldon succeeded him ; and after nine years resigned, to make way for X. 1634. Oct. 17. Sir Edward Littelton, who in five years was advanced to the chief justiceship of the Common Pleas. XV. 1640. Jan. 25. Sir Edward Herbert, the queen's attorney, was then made solicitor, and the next year succeeded as attorney-general, when XVI. 1641. Jan. 29. Oliver St. John was put into the office. The king found it necessary to remove him, and gave it to XIX. 1643. Oct. 30. Sir Thomas Gardner, on whose appointment as attorncy-genei ;il, XXI. 1645. Nov. 3. Jeilery Palmer succeeded him. The parliament not recognising either of the List two appointments, Oliver St. John still retained the title ami performed the duties annexed to the u a 230 SERJEANTS. Charles I. XXIV. 1648. 1649. office, till raised to that of chief justice of the Com- mon Pleas, when the parliament made Oct. 12. Edmond Prideaux, solicitor-general ; but afterwards, Jan. 10. John Cook was substituted for the trial of the king. Serjeants at Law. The added initial marks the inn of Court to which they belonged ; and those who became judges are distinguished * John Walter (I.), * Thomas Trevor (L), * Nicholas Hyde (M.). Rowley Ward (M.), * Robert Berkeley (M.), William Ayloff (L.), * James Weston (I.), * Richard Weston (I.).4 * John Finch (G.)5, * Thomas Malet (M.) 7. Timothy Leving (I.), * John Wilde (L), * Robert Foster (I.), Henry Clarke (M.), Thomas Milward (L.), * Richard Cresheld (L.), XIII. 1637-8. John Glanville (L.).9 XV. 1639-40. * Edward Lyttelton (I.). i-Kjii^y. ,V4. , WW 'a*. I. 1625-6. II. 1626-7. III. 1627-8. VII. 1631-2. IX. 1633-4. X. 1634-5. XI. 1635-6. XII. 1636-7. Henry Yelverton (G.).1 Robert Callice (G.), * George Vernon (I.).2 * Robert Heath (I.).3 Ralph Whitfield (G.).G * Edmund Reeve (G.), * John Godbolt (G.), Arthur Turner (M.) Nathaniel Finch (G.), Gilbert Boone, * Philip Jermyn (M.).8 1 Walter and Trevor's motto was " Regi, Legi, servire Libertas;" Yelverton's was " Stat lege Corona." 2 Ward and Berkeley's, « Lege Deus et Rex ; " Ayloff and Callice's, Oracula Leges ; " and Vernon's, " Lex Regis Regnique Patronus." 3 J. Weston's, u Servus Regi, serviens Legi ; " Heath's, " Lex regis vis legist 4 R. Weston's, " Rex legem, lex regem, protigit." 5 J . Finch's, " Rosce lilia dant purpuram." 6 Whitfield's, " Religio finem Legi ponit" 7 Malet's, " Deo, Regi, Regince, Legi" 8 The motto of these was " Rex animat lege?^' 9 Glanville's was " Sol regis stirps legis i>/resci7." 1625—1649. SERJEANTS. 231 XVI. 1640-1. John Stone (I.), Richard Taylor (L.), John Whitwich (I.), * Edward Atkyns (L.), * Henry Rolle (I.), John Green (L.), William Lyttelton (M.), * Peter Pheasant (G.), * Robert Brerewood (M.), * Francis Bacon (G.), Robert Hyde (M.), Sampson Evre (G.), * John Banks (G.). XIX. 1643-4. * Richard Lane (M.). XXIV. 1648. * Thomas Widdrington * John Puleston (M.), (G.), * Thomas Bedingfield Thomas Chapman, (I.), (GO, * Thomas Gates (I.), William Littelton (I.), William Powell (L.), John Clerke (L.), John Eltonhead (M.), * Robert Nicholas (I.) * John Parker (G.), Robert Bernard, * Richard Keeble (G.), * Francis Thorpe (G.), * John Bradshaw (G.), * Oliver St. John (L.), * Samuel Browne (L.), * John Glynne (L.), Erasmus Earle (L.), * Bulstrode Whitelocke (M.), William Coniers (M.), Robert Hutton (M.). This call being by authority of parliament only, was subsequently declared to be invalid. The survivors were recalled at the Restoration. King's Serjeants. I. 1625. * John Walter (I.), Francis Ashley (M.), * Thomas Trevor (I.), * Humphrey Davenport * Henry Yelverton (G.), (GO, II. 1627. *kNicholas Hyde, III. 1627. * Robert Berkeley (M.), X. 1634. * John Bramston (M.), XI. 1635. Ralph ^Vhitfield, XIII. 1637. * Robert Heath, XVI. 1640-1. Nathaniel Finch, John Glanville (L.), Sampson Evre (G.), * Robert Brerewood (M.), XIV. 1648. Thomas Widdrington Bulstrode Whitelocke (GO, (M.). Q 4 232 SERJEANTS' INN. Charles I. By an order of Privy Council of March 19, 1636, any serjeant who comes before it to move in any matter, and shall not wear his proper gown, is liable to a fine of 20s., and any counsellor at law, 10s.1 King Charles had only two general calls of Serjeants — one in 1636, and the other in 1640. The feast of the first was in the Middle Temple hall, that of the last is not named. The other calls were principally for the purpose of qualifica- tion to the bench ; and the feasts of these occasions (for that ceremony was never omitted, though the customary speeches were frequently dispensed with) were held at the hall of one of the Serjeants' Inns, either in Chancery Lane or Fleet Street. The same order by which the twelve judges regulated the wearing of their robes contained also directions for the Ser- jeants' dresses, describing how the lord chief justice of the King's Bench was to put on their coif and tie it under the chin, and arrange their hood on the right shoulder; and how they were always to wear their party-coloured robes during the first year, and afterwards to put on violet at Westminster when the judges sat in scarlet ; and on all grand days, to wear scarlet gowns and scarlet hoods ; " but no Serjeants may pin their hoods, nor have used to line their gowns." Both "Judges and Serjeants when they ride circuits are to wear a Serjeant's coat of good broad cloath, with sleeves, and faced with velvet ; they have used of late to face the sleeves thick with lace. And they are to have a sumpture, and ought to ride with six men at the least."2 At King James's funeral, the king's Serjeants had pre- cedence of the masters in Chancery.3 Both the Inns in Fleet Street and Chancery Lane were used 1 Dugdale's Orig. 321. 2 Ibid. 101. 139.; Gent. Mag. xxxviii. 457. 3 Jones's Rep. 157. 1625—1649. KING'S COUNSEL. 233 by the judges; and at one time there seems to have been a little jealousy between the residents of the two houses; for on the inauguration of George Vernon in 1627, in the hall" in Fleet Street, the judges of the other inn were not present.1 The meetings of the judges were held sometimes at one and sometimes at the other ; but the house in Fleet Street was most frequently selected. Serjeants' Inn, Fleet Street. — A new lease of this inn was granted by the Dean and Chapter of York, in 1627, for forty years, and the lessees included no less than nine of the judges and fifteen Serjeants. When the parliament abolished the title and dignity of bishops in 1646, they passed an ordinance securing to the judges and Serjeants the use of the inn during the continuance of their lease ; but that at the end of it, the inn should be ct in the disposing of both houses of parliament." 2 Serjeants' Inn, Chancery Lane. — There was evi- dently some sort of chapel in this inn; for the treasurer's books contain entries of arrangements for administering the Sacrament in every term in 1635 and 1646. This inn was also secured to the judges and Serjeants by a similar ordinance of parliament to that above mentioned. The appointment of special counsel for the king, separate from the attorney and solicitor-general and the king's Ser- jeants, became more common in this reign. The four follow- ing are recorded in Bymer's u Foedera " : — 1626. March 17. John Finch, afterwards lord keeper. 1G32. Nov. 15. George llatcliffe. 1634. Oct. 7. Richard Shilton, on his resigning the office of solicitor- general, with a salary of 70/. a year, and prece- dency before the solicitor-general. (Croke, far. 376.) 1641. July 31. Thomas Levingston.3 1 Croke, Car. 85. * Journals. 3 Rymer's Foedera, xviii. G'33., xix. 4:V2. 607., xx. 517. 234 1646. Oct. 1. COUNSEL. Charles I. The parliament also, though they did not give the title of king's counsel, conferred the same privilege of precedence and of pleading within the bar upon John Wilde, serjeant at law, Samuel Browne, and Edmund Prideaux, when they were removed from the office of Com- missioners of the Great Seal.1 Counsel. The initials show the courts to which those who became judges were first appointed. — Adam, W. Boothe, F. Crawley, C. P., — Alestre, — Boreman, R. Cresheld, J. Aleyn, J. Bradshaw, C. G. I., H. Cressy, E. Andrews, J. Bramston, Ch. K. B. , T. Crew, — Archibald, R. Brerewood, K. B., U. Crooke, F. Ashley, T. Brickendine, — Danby, K. Ashley, — Bridgeman, J. Darey, R. Aske, J. Briscoe, H. Davenport, C. P. T. Athoe, C. Brooke, J. Da vies, E. Atkyns, — Broome, H. Denne, W. Ayloffe, G. Brown, T. Denne, J. Baber, S. Brown, C. G. I., W. Denny, W. Babington, J. Bryan, R. Downes, F. Bacon, K. B., E. Bulstrode, N. Ducke, N. Bacon, R. Callice, E. Earle, E. Bagshaw, H. Calthorpe, J. Eltonhead, P. Ball, T. Chapman, E. Estcourt, J. Banks, Ch. C. P., — Choke, S. Evre, J. Barkesdale, N. Cholmley, W. Eyre, — Barton, C. Chute, W. Farrer, G. Beare, E. Clerke, E. Fettiplace, T. Bedingfield, H. Clerke, H. Finch, R. Berkeley, K. B., J. Clerke, J. Finch, Ch. C. P., R. Bernard, W. Clopton, N. Finch, — Bing, W. Conyers, T. Fletcher, E. Bishe, — Cook, T. Forde, T. Bletcher, G. Copley, R. Foster, C. P., G. Boone, T. Coventry, L. K., 1 Whitelocke, 223. J. Franklyn. 1625—1649. COUNSEL. 235 N. Franklyn, D. Jenkins, T. Pepys, C. Fulwood, P. Jermyn, K. B., P. Phesant, T. Gardner, E. Johnson, — Philips, T. Gates, B. E., C. Jones, J. Plat, J. Glanville, R. Keble, — Popes, J. Glynne, Ch. U. B., — Keeling, — Porter, R. Godard, R. King, W. Powell, J. Godbolt, C. P., R. Lacee, — Prescott, — Goldsmith, R. Lane, Ch. B. E., — Prestwood, J. Greene, T. Lane, R. Proctor, T. Greene, — Latch, — Prynne, — Griggs, R. Lathom, J. Puleston, C. P., — Grimston, W. Lenthall, M. R., W. Pye, P. Gwyn, T. Levingston, H. Pyne, W. Hackwill, — Lightfoot, G. Ratcliffe, E. Hadde, B. Llanden, W. Ravenscroft, — Hales, J. Lloyd, E. Reeve, C. P., J. Harrington, J. Lovelace, T. Richardson, Ch. C. P., J. Harrison, G. Ludlow, T. Riddell, R. Hatton, E. Lyttelton, Ch. C. P., H. Rigby, R. Heath, Ch. C. P., W. Lyttelton, H. Rolle, — Hedley, T. Malet, K. B. W. Rumsey, E. Hele, J. Martin, 0. St. John, C. G. S., E. Henden, B. E., R. Mason, T. Sanderson, E. Herbert, — Maynard, R. Seaborne, A. Herenden, J. Merefield, R. Sheldon or Shilton, J. Heme, T. Milward, H. Sherfield, — Hersey, R. Minshall, C. Sherland, — Hill, — Montague, W. Shuttleworth, R. Hitcham, J. More, T. Southe, — Hoddesden, — Moreton, T. Spenser, R. Holbourn, P. Mutton, J. Stone, — Holhead, J. Newton, R. Tanfield, C. Holloway, R. Nicholas, R. Taylor, J. Hoskins, W. Norbonne, T. Tempest, W. Hudson, W. Noy, R. Thornes, T. Hughes, R. Osbaldeston, F. Thorpe, W. Hussey, E. Palmer, R. Thorpe, B. E., J. Hutchins, J. Palmer, E. Thynn, — Hutchinson, — Panell, A. Tumour, — Hutton, J. Parker, B. E., R. Townsend, L. Hyde, R. Parker, W. Towse, N. Hyde, Ch. K. B., — Peard, — Trevor, U. Hyde, K. lV|>ys, E. Trotman, 236 INNS OF COURT AND CHANCERY. Charles I. J. Tryst, A. Turner, T. Turner, — Twisden, G. Vernon, B. E. J. Wakering, — Walker, R. Wandesford, R. Ward, W. Warde, J. Wentworth, J. Weston, B. E., R. Weston, B. E., J. Whistler, W. Whitaker, J. White, R. Whitfield, B. Whitelocke, C. G. S., J. Whitwick, T. Widdrington, C. G. S., J. Wightwick, J. Wilde, C. G. S., T. Wilde, T. Williamson, — Windham, R. Wolriche, E. Woodroofe, — Worlick, E. Wright, J. Wright, P. Wyat, — Yard. The fee paid to four Serjeants in a cause in the Court of "Wards and Liveries in 1625, "for the day of hearing," was 4/. each, and to two other counsel 47. and 37. ; but these are stated to be larger than usually allowed. In 1633 Lord Bayning paid "to Mr. Challenor Chute, the counsellor, for one quarter of a year's allowance, for his council and help in our law business, according to an agree- ment with him, the sum of 127. 10s. ; " and in the same year the same gentleman had from his lordship, " for a gratification, for his great pains and care extraordinary on my lord's busi- ness, &c, 207." l Challenor Chute was afterwards speaker in Richard Cromwell's parliament. Before the commencement of the rebellion, the same atten- tion was paid to the education of the students of law as in the preceding reigns. The readers in all the houses of Court were subjected to new regulations by an order of the judges in Hilary Term, 1627-8. A double reader was to continue his reading for a week at least ; a single reader for a fortnight at least. They were not to have above ten men in atten- dance on them ; they were to repair on the Sunday before reading to the sermon at Paul's Cross, and wear their caps while there ; and were not to practise at Westminster but with their reader's gown, with the velvet welt on the back. All the fellows were directed to repair to the hall at dinner, supper, and exercises, and to the " church, chapel, and place 1 Gent. Mag. Nov. 1853, p. 478. 1625—1649. INNS OF COURT AND CHANCERY. 237 of prayer" in their caps, and not in hate.1 Another order was issued by the lord keeper and the judges on April 15, 1630, for the government not only of the inns of Court but also those of Chancery, principally in repetition of the order of 1614, which evidently had not been very strictly obeyed. It directs that the inns of Chancery shall be sub- ordinate to the inns of Court, by whom the former shall be surveyed annually, that there may be a competent number of chambers for the students. A search is required to be made in both inns of Court and Chancery three times a year for ill subjects and dangerous persons; every member is to receive the Communion once at least in every year upon pain of immediate expulsion ; and no person except members of the societies are to be " admitted or allowed to lodge in any of the houses." Utter-barristers are prohibited from prac- tising publicly at any bar at Westminster until they have been three years at the bar, unless they have been readers in some inn of Chancery ; and none are to be called to the bar by readers, but by the bench of the inn, nor unless they have kept their exercises in an inn of Court and Chancery for at least eight years. It forbids hats, cloaks, boots, spurs, swords, or daggers to be worn in the hall or chapel, and also long hair. No attorney or solicitor is to be admitted into any of the four inns of Court ; but attorneys are mentioned as mem- bers of the inns of Chancery.2 Whitclocke gives an account of a splendid masque per- formed by the members of the four inns of Court before the king and queen at the end of Christmas, 1633. This masque had a political application, and was suggested by the courtiers as a means of counteracting the effect of Prynne's Histrio- mastix, and of confuting his opinions against interludes. The lawyers, who were at that time eminently loyal, took up the idea so zealously that they appointed two of the most eminent 1 Dugdale's Orig. 319. 2 Ibid. 320. 238 INNS OF COURT AND CHANCERY. Charles I. men of the time in each inn to be a committee, to arrange and conduct the performance. Among those selected were Sir John Finch, Sir Edward Herbert, Mr. Edward Hyde, and Mr. Whitelocke, who all afterwards held the Great Seal ; and no less famous were two of the remaining four, viz., Mr. Selden and Mr. Attorney-General Noy. Distributing the various duties among them, they seem to have spared no ex- pense or labour to produce the desired effect. Whitelocke had the management of the music ; which, he says, " was so performed that it excelled any musick that ever before that time had been heard in England." He engaged Mr. Simon Ivy and Mr. Laws to compose the airs and songs; and selected four " most excellent musicians of the Queen's Chapel," with many others, English, French, Italians, and Germans, " with forty lutes at one time, besides other instru- ments and voices in consort." One dispute among "the Houses," as to precedence, having been settled by throw of the dice, and another, as to the arrangement of the masquers in the chariots, having been accommodated by making the chariots oval, " after the fashion of the Roman Triumphant Cars," so that each man should sit in front, the procession started in the evening of Candlemas-day from Ely House, Holborn, and proceeded down Chancery Lane to Whitehall. Some extracts from Whitelocke's account of it will not be unwelcome. " The first that marched were twenty Footmen, in Scarlet Liveries with Silver-lace, each one having his Sword by his side, a Baton in one Hand, and a Torch lighted in the other Hand; these were the Marshal's Men, who cleared the streets, made way, and were all about the Marshal, waiting his Commands. After them, and sometimes in the midst of them, came the Marshal, then Mr. Darrel, afterwards knighted by the King : He was of Lincoln's Inn, an extraordinary handsome proper Gentleman ; he was mounted upon one of 1625—1649. INNS OF COURT AND CHANCERY. 239 the King's best Horses, and richest Saddles, and his own habit was exceedingly rich and glorious ; his Horsemanship very gallant ; and besides his Marshal's Men, he had two Lacquies, who carried Torches by him, and a Page in Livery that went by him, carrying his Cloak. " After him followed one hundred Gentlemen of the Inns of Court, five and twenty chosen out of each House ; of the most proper and handsome young Gentlemen of the Societies, every one of them was gallantly mounted on the best Horses, and with the best Furniture that the King's Stable, and the Stables of all the Noblemen of the Town would afford, and they were forward on this occasion to lend them to the Inns of Court. "Every one of these hundred Gentlemen were in very rich Clothes, scarce anything but Gold and Silver-lace to be seen of them; and each Gentleman had a Page and two Lacquies by his Horse-side : The Lacquies carried Torches, and the Page his Master's Cloak. The richness of their Ap- parel and Furniture glittering by the light of a multitude of torches attending on them, with the motion and stirring of their mettled Horses, and the many and various gay Liveries of their Servants ; but especially the personal Beauty and Gallantry of the handsome young Gentlemen, made the most glorious and splendid shew that ever was beheld in England. " After the Horsemen came the Antimasquers, and as the Horsemen had their Musick, about a dozen of the best Trumpeters proper for them, and in their Livery, sounding before them; so the first Antimasquers, being of Cripples and Beggars on Horseback, had their Musick of Keys and Tongs and the like, snapping and yet playing in a consort before them. " These Beggars were also mounted, but on the poorest leanest Jades that could be gotten out of the Dirt-carts or elsewhere : and the variety and change from such noble 240 INNS OP COURT AND CHANCERY. Charles I. Musick and gallant Horses as went before them, unto their proper Musick and pitiful Horses, made both of them the more pleasing. " The Habits and Properties of these Cripples and Beg- gars were most ingeniously fitted (as of all the rest) by the Committee's direction, wherein (as in the whole business) Mr. Attorney Noy, Sir John Finch, Sir Edward Herbert, Mr. Selden, those eminent Persons, as all the rest of the Committee, had often meetings, and took extraordinary care and pains in the ordering of this Business, and it seemed a pleasure to them." Then follows an antimasque of birds ; after which a satirical antimasque of projectors from the " Scotch and Northern Quarters" is thus described : — " First in this Antimasque, rode a Fellow upon a little Horse, with a great Bit in his mouth, and upon the man's Head was a Bit, with Head-stall and Rains fastned, and signified a Projector, who begged a patent, that none in the Kingdom might ride their Horses, but with such Bits as they should buy of him. " Then came another Fellow, with a Bunch of Carrots upon his Head and a Capon upon his Fist, describing a projector, who begg'd a Patent of Monopoly, as the first Inventor of the Art to feed Capons fat with Carrots, and that none but himself might make use of that Invention, and have the Privelege for fourteen years, according to the Statute. " Several other Projectors were in like manner personated in this Antimasque ; and it pleased the Spectators the more, because by it an information was covertly given to the king, of the unfitness and ridiculousness of these Projects against the Law ; and the Attorney Noy, who had most knowledge of them, had a great hand in the Antimasque of the Pro- jectors." 1625—1649. INNS OF COURT AND CIIANCERY. 241 After this and other antimasques, two superb chariots are duly delineated, with their attendant bands of music. " Then came the first Chariot of the Grand Masquers, which was not so large as those that went before, but most curiously framed, carved, and painted with exquisite Art, and purposely for this service and occasion. The form of it was after that of the Roman Triumphant Chariots, as near as could be gathered by some old Prints and Pictures extant of them. The seats in it were made of an oval form in the back end of the Chariot, so that there was no precedence in them, and the faces of all that sat in it might be seen together. " The colours of the first Chariot were Silver and Crimson, given by the Lot to Gray's Inn, as I remember ; the Chariot was all over painted richly with these colours, even the Wheels of it most artificially laid on, and the carved Work of it was as curious for that Art, and it made a stately Show. It was drawn with four Horses, all on breast, and they were covered to their Heels all over with Cloth of Tissue, of the colours of Crimson and Silver, huge Plumes of red and white Feathers on their Heads and Buttocks ; the Coachman's Cap and Feather, his long Coat, and his very Whip and Cushion of the same Stuff and Colour. " In this Chariot sat the four Grand Masquers of Gray's- Inn, their Habits, Doublets, Trunk-hose, and Caps, of most rich cloth of Tissue, and wrought as thick with Silver Spangles as could be placed, large white silk Stockings up to their Trunk-hose, and rich Sprigs in their Caps ; them- selves proper and beautiful young Gentlemen." Then followed similar Chariots of the three other Inns, only differing in their colours. The Middle Temple, with blue and silver ; the Inner Temple, and Lincoln's Inn, whose colours are not mentioned. Their march was slow, " interrupted by the Multitude of the Spectators in the VOL. VI. B 242 INNS OF COURT AND CHANCERY. Charles I. Streets, besides the Windows, and they seemed loth to part with so glorious a Spectacle." "In the meantime the Banquetting-house at Whitehall was so crouded with fair Ladies, glittering with their rich Cloths and richer Jewels, and with Lords and Gentlemen of great Quality, that there was scarce room for the King and Queen to enter in. The King and Queen stood at a Win- dow, looking straight-forward into the Street, to see the Masque come by ; and being delighted with the noble Bravery of it, they sent to the Marshal to desire that the whole Show might fetch a turn about the Tilt-yard, that their Majesties might have a double view of them. " The King and Queen, and all their noble Train being come in, the Masque began, and was incomparably performed in the Dances, Figures, Properties, the Voices, Instruments, Songs, Composures, the Words and Actions were all of them exact, and none failed in their parts of them, and the Scenes were most curious and costly. " The Queen did the honour to some of the Masquers to dance with them herself, and to judge them as good Dancers as ever she saw ; and the great Ladies were very free and civil in dancing with all the Masquers, as they were taken out by them." Whitelocke estimates the expense of this masque to have been above 21,0007. ; and he concludes his account of it with this ominous reflection : — " Thus these Dreams past, and these Pomps vanished ! " l How little did any of the spec- tators of this gaudy pageant dream of the melancholy contrast that was to be exhibited a few years after on the same spot, and how many lived to witness it ! The king, to show his gracious acceptance of this masque, invited one hundred and twenty gentlemen of the four Inns 1 Whitelocke's Memorials, 19—22. 1625—1649. INNS OF COURT AND CHANCERY. 243 of Court to a masque at Whitehall on the Shrove Tuesday following.1 The readings at all the Inns of Court were frequently irv» terrupted on account of the plague that visited the city. In the 1st, 6th, 12th, and 13th years of the reign there were no readings " causa pestilential." During the latter years of the reign, when the civil war — a worse pestilence — raged, the readings entirely ceased. These were not the only evils suffered by the lawyers in consequence of the rebellion. Though some from the first sided with the parliament, the great majority in the outset were loyal to the king. In 1642 the four Inns of Court presented an address to the parliament, reminding them of their duty to the throne2; and even while the king was at Oxford, the members of the profession were numerous enough to form a regiment of foot under the command of Lord Keeper Lyttelton. Few, indeed, were allowed to remain neutral in the contest. The dominant party took the most effectual method of frightening the backward, by stigmatizing their opponents with the title of malignants, and sequestering and selling their property. In 1644 a committee of lawyers was appointed by the parliament for sequestering and selling the chambers belonging to what they called u malignant law- yers;" and in 1646 the benchers of the Inns of Court and the principals of the Inns of Chancery were forbidden to permit any lawyers that had borne arms for the king to be in any of their societies. No surprise can therefore be felt at the following entry in Whitelocke's Memorials: — " The Commissioners of the Seal gave the Covenant to the Lawyers and Officers ; and so many came to take it, that they were fain to appoint another day for it." Some of the barristers took arms in the parliamentary army3; and others sold their 1 Dugdalc's Orig. 246. - Pearce's Inns of Court, 281. 3 Wbitelocke, hi. 91. loi. B 2 244 LINCOLN'S INN. Charles I. chambers and deserted their profession till order was re- stored.1 When the Directory was established instead of the Book of Common Prayer, and the Presbyterian government sub- stituted for the Prelacy, the parliament, by an ordinance of March 14, 1645-6, directed that the Chapel of the Rolls, the two Serjeants' Inns, and the four Inns of Court, should be a province of themselves, and should be divided into classes ; one consisting of Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, Serjeants' Inn in Chancery Lane, and the Rolls ; and the other of the two Temples and Serjeants' Inn in Fleet Street.2 Lincoln's Inn. Notwithstanding the prohibition against attorneys and common solicitors by former orders, it was found that some persons of that class had contrived to be admitted into the society. To remedy this " which they esteemed to be no small disparagement thereunto," the bench at a council held on June 4, 1635, not only ordered that none should from thenceforth be admitted, but also that if any gentleman, after his admission, should become an attorney or common solicitor, his admittance should be ipso facto void. This society takes the credit of having originated the masque that was presented before the king in 1634. Besides the dresses of the individual members, some of which are stated to have cost 1000Z. a piece, the expense to this society was 2400/., which was raised by a tax of 61. on the benchers, 3/. and 27. on the utter barristers, and 17. on the students3; and the contributions by the members of the other societies to the cost was much in the same proportion. Rushworth tells a story of four young men of this inn being called before the council, on the information of the drawer at a tavern, for drinking a health " to the confusion of the Archbishop of Canterbury." They first applied to the 1 Bramston's Autobiog. 103. 2 Rushworth, vii. 226. 3 Dugdale's Orig. 243. 246. 1G25— 1649. INNER TEMPLE. — MIDDLE TEMPLE. 245 Earl of Dorset, when his lordship on understanding that the drawer was going out at the door, suggested that he had only heard the first words of the health, and not the last, and that they must have drunk " to the confusion of the Archbishop of Canterbury's foes." The young gentlemen gladly took the hint, and using the earl's interpretation before the coun- cil, were dismissed with a slight admonition.1 Inner Temple. In the early part of the reign this society showed considerable activity in providing accom- modation for their members. Among the erections were the great brick buildings over against the garden, those in Fig- tree Court, and those between that place and the Hall. They repaired likewise the east end of the church. In 1631 more stringent rules for keeping Christmas were enacted by both the Temples. The Christmas Commons was ordered to continue for three weeks only ; the ct innova- tion of treasurers" was abolished, and three stewards restored; drinking of healths was prohibited, and the sale in the house of wine or tobacco ; and no play was allowed on Saturday night or Christmas eve after twelve o'clock. Middle Temple. The society expended no less a sum than 4668/. 10s. lid. in 1639, in erecting a large brick build- ing between Elm Court, Pump Court, Vine Court, and Middle Temple Lane, where, according to Chauncy's descrip- tion, the old Hall, which was then pulled down, stood. The u gentlemen that were builders " contributed 2300/., each de- positing 80/. for a whole chamber, and 40/. for a half chamber. The remainder was paid out of the treasury, " which did put the house much in debt." In 1635, the benchers of this house made an order enforcing in all its particulars that issued by the judges in April, 1630. That they denied the authority of the judges to interfere in their internal regulation is evident, as well from their delay 1 Rushwortb, ii. 1180. R 3 246 INNER TEMPLE, Charles I. in issuing this order as from these expressions in its pre- amble : — " The Masters of the Bench conforming themselves to the grave advice of the said Judges, and in obedience to his Majestie's command : and finding all the said particulars agreeable to the ancient Orders and Constitution of this House, have agreed," &e. In 1642, Mr. Robert Ashley, an ancient barrister of this house, having bequeathed some books to the society, they were ordered to be kept under lock and key till a library was built.1 A curious contest arose in consequence of the death, during the Christmas revels of 1628, of Mr. Basing, " an Officer of Quality in that solemnity." The society ordered him to be buried according to the dignity of his office, and the expense to be disbursed out of the public stock of the society. His father, being applied to, refused to pay the amount ; where- upon the society preferred a bill in the Court of Bequests, drawn by the principal lawyers of the day, — Mr. Palmer, Mr. Maynard, Mr. Noy, and others, — setting forth, " inge- niously and handsomely," the customs of the Inns of Court for the solemnities of Christmas, and the choice of Christmas officers, with the other facts ; and praying the repayment of the money with damages. The father, however, thought proper to stop here, and to pay the money ; which the society distributed among the poor prisoners, not taking " one peny for the publick stock." 2 A letter from Garrard to the Earl of Strafford of January 8, 1635, will give some idea of the grandeur assumed by the officers elected for the Christmas revels : — " The Middle Temple House have set up a prince who carries himself in great state, one Mr. Vivian, a Cornish gentleman. He hath all his great officers attending him, lord keeper, lord treasurer, eight white staves at the least, captain of his pensioners, captain of his guard, two Dugdale's Orig. 189—191. 193. s Whitelocke, 11. 1625—1649. GRAY'S INN. 247 chaplains who on Sunday last preached before him, and in the pulpit made three low legs to his excellency before they began, which is much laughed at. My lord chamberlain lent him two fair cloths of state, one hung up in the hall, under which he dines, the other in his privy chamber ; he is served on the knee, and all that come to see him kiss his hand on their knee. My lord of Salisbury hath sent him pole-axes for his pen- sioners. He sent to my Lord of Holland, his justice in eyre, for venison, which he willingly sends him ; to the lord mayor and sheriffs of London for wine ; all obey. Twelfth day was a great day ; going to the chapel many petitions were delivered to him, which he gave to his masters of the requests. He hath a favourite whom, with some others of great quality, he knighted on his return from church, and dined in great state. ... It costs this prince 2000Z. out of his own purse ; I hear of no other design, but all this is done to make him fit to give the prince elector a royal entertainment, with masks, dancings, and some other exercises of wit in orations or arraignments that day that they invite him." l Mr. Bagshaw, the Lent reader in 1639-40, having chosen for his reading some questions about the bishops and clergy, which trenched too much on the politics of the time, was commanded by the king not to proceed. He of course de- sisted ; but shortly after, went out of town accompanied with a retinue of forty or fifty horse, and in good credit with the gentlemen of the society. This Mr. Bagshaw, though White- locke describes him as " much inclined to the Nonconformist's way," being elected member for South w ark in the Long Par- liament, joined the king at Oxford, and was afterwards taken, imprisoned, and expelled the house.2 Gray's Inn. — At the commencement of this reign all the orders for the regulation of the society were extracted from registers by three of the readers, — Mr. Osbaldiston, Mr. Clopton, and Mr. Whistler, — and reduced into a form, which was inscribed on a tablet, and hung up in the hall.3 No subsequent orders of any importance were passed. Barnard's Inn. — The gradual admission of attorneys into Inns of Chancery, and the attempts to exclude them, appear ' Pcarce's Inns of Court, 127. ■ Whitelocke, 33. 92. 116\ Dugdftle'i Orig. 287—291. B I 248 BARNARD S INN. Charles I. from the following order of this house. In May, 1630, Mr. Harvey, late a student, now practising as an attorney con- trary to his admission, the principal was ordered to " admit a Student into the chamber of Mr. Harvey;" and in 1638, the principal was borne harmless by the society in a suit brought against him by Thomas Marsh, a companion, for breaking into his chamber. Thomas Marsh was discomfited, and be- sides being committed to the Marshalsea until he could find bail for his good behaviour, was ordered to be struck off the roll of attorneys. In 1639, an order was made that every principal, on being chosen, should give plate of the value of 51. at the least for the use of the house.1 1 Barnard's Inn Books, 249 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF THE JUDGES UNDER THE REIGN OF CHARLES I. ATKYNS, EDWARD. Parl. B. E. 1645. See under the Interregnum, and the Reign of Charles II. BACON, FRANCIS. Just. K. B. 1642. In addition to the four judges of this name who have ap- peared in these pages, a fifth remains to be noticed, who owed his origin to the same root from which they sprang, being of that branch of the family which settled at Hesset in Suffolk. This was Francis Bacon, whose great grand-parents are stated to be Thomas Bacon of that place and Anne Rowse, and whose father is described in Francis's admission to Gray's Inn, as John Bacon of King's Lynn in Norfolk, gentleman. He was born about the year 1587, and commencing his legal studies at Barnard's Inn, he pursued them at Gray's Inn, the same school at which his two illustrious predecessors were nurtured. Admitted a member in February, 1607, he was called to the bar in the same month in 1615, and became reader there in autumn 1634.1 His name does not appear in any of the contemporary reports ; his practice probably being in Chancery or the provinces. In 1624 and 1626, Blomefield records his reparation of the 1 Gray's Inn Books; Dugdale's Orig. Jurid. 297. 250 FRANCIS BACON. Charles I. font and east window of St. Gregory's church, in Norwich.1 In 1636, he had a grant in reversion of the office of drawing licences and pardons of alienations to the Great Seal.2 Four years afterwards in May 1640, he was included in the batch of Serjeants then called; and on October 14, 1642, he re- ceived the then dangerous promotion to a seat in the King's Bench, his patent being dated at Bridgenorth3, on the king's march towards London ; when he was knighted. That the new judge was not obnoxious to the parliament may be in- ferred from their request in the propositions made to the king, in February, 1643, that he might be continued in his place. Pie does not appear to have joined the king at Oxford, but he attended his duty in his court at Westminster Hall ; where, in Michaelmas Term, 1643, he was the only judge sitting4; and on the trial of Lord Macguire for high treason as the fomenter of the great rebellion and horrible massacre in Ire- land in 1641, before that court in Hilary Term, 1645, he alone appears to have been present.5 He is next mentioned in September, 1647, as having, with Serjeant Creswellor Cres- held, committed James Symbal and others for speaking words against the king, with whom negotiations were proceeding. He continued to act till the king was beheaded ; when he had the courage to refuse the new commission offered him by the Commons.6 He lived more than eight years after his retirement, spend- ing the remainder of his days in privacy, and died on August, 22, 1657. His eldest son, Francis (who was a reader in Gray's Inn in autumn 1662), raised a handsome monument over his grave in St. Gregory's church, Norwich; the in- scription on which states that after his appointment, "nee ser- viens ad legem, neque Judex apud Westmonasterium, per ip« 1 Blomefield's Norwich, ii. 274. 2 Rymer, xx. 123. 8 Rymer, xx. 541. 4 Clarendon, iii. 407., iv. 342. * State Trials, iv. 666. 6 Whitelocke, 269. 378. 1625—1649. JOIIN BANKS. 251 sum Begem, ordinatus nee constitutes fuit." 1 This, though perhaps strictly correct as to the letter, leads to a wrong in- ference, and would seem to exclude Chief Justice Heath, Chief Baron Lane, and Judge Crerewood, who all received patents from the king at a subsequent period, though they were sworn in at Oxford. Sir Francis married Elizabeth daughter of William lio- binson, and had several children : but his branch of the family has been long extinct.2 BANKS, JOHN. Ch. C. P. 1641. The family of this chief justice resided at Keswick in Cum- berland, where his father of the same name was a merchant, and his mother was Elizabeth, daughter of HasselL He was born in 1589, and having received the rudiments of his education at a grammar school in his own county, was sent in 1604 to finish his studies at Queen's College, in the Univer- sity of Oxford. Without taking any degree there, he entered himself a student at Gray's Inn in May, 1607, and after being called to the bar on November 30, 1614, and to the bench of the society in 1629, he was elected reader in Lent, 1631, and treasurer in the following year.3 He had previous to arriving at these posts acquired a high reputation in his profession. lleturned to the Parliament of 1628, he confined himself to legal questions4; and had been selected in July 1630, to be attorney-general to the newly-born Prince Charles, Duke of Cornwall \ afterwards Charles II. ; whereupon he had been knighted. On the death of William Noy, he was appointed attorney-general to the king on September 27, 1634, and it is some proof of the estimation in which he was held, that a con- temporary letter writer says, with somewhat of exaggeration, 1 Blomefield's Norwich, ii. 275. 8 Wotton's Baronet, i. 2. : Dugdale'a Orig. 297. 299. 4 Pari. I list. ii. 480. 5 Ilynicr, lij 252 JOHN BANKS. Charles I. that he was commended to his Majesty as exceeding Bacon in eloquence, Ellesmere in judgment, and Noy in law.1 Soon after his advance he purchased the manor of Corfe Castle in Dorsetshire of Sir Edward Coke's widow, Lady Hatton. Under his official direction the questionable proceedings in the Star Chamber were taken against Bastwick, Burton and Prynne, against Bishop Williams, and against John Lilburn ; and though he did not originate the plan for the imposition of ship money, it fell to his lot to support it as the prosecutor against John Hampden.2 These duties he performed so satis- factorily to the court, that upon the elevation of Sir Edward Lyttelton to the post of lord keeper, he received that of chief justice of the Common Pleas on January 29, 1641.3 Very soon after his appointment a commission was granted to him to sit as speaker in the House of Lords, in consequence of the illness of the lord keeper ; and in that character he had the melancholy duty of presiding, when the Earl of Strafford, who had been his client, and with whom he was in habits of friendly intimacy, was brought to the bar on his impeachment by the Commons.4 Early in the next year, on the king re- tiring to York, Banks was among the first to join him ; when he was admitted into the Privy Council, and subscribed the profession made by the lords of their belief that the king had no intention to make war upon the parliament, but that his anxious desire was to preserve the peace of the kingdom.5 When Charles took up his winter quarters at Oxford, Sir John Banks received from the university the complimentary degree of Doctor of Laws.6 Notwithstanding the part which Sir John had formerly taken in the prosecution and in the case of ship money, and his present assistance to the royal counsels, he does not seem to have been an object of enmity to the parliament; for in the 1 Bankes's Corfe Castle, 54. 2 State Trials, iii. 711. 771. 1014. 1374. 3 Rymer, xx. 447. .4 Bankes's Corfe Castle, 83. 5 Clarendon's Reb. iii. 72. G Wood's Fasti, ii. 44. 1625—1649. JOHN BANKS. 253 propositions they made to the king for peace in February, 1643, they desired that he should keep his place in the Com- mon Pleas.1 This recommendation he owed to his having friends in both houses, with whom he continued to correspond ; the Earls of Northumberland and Essex, the Lord Wharton, Daniell Holies, and Green. These had been desirous of an accommodation, and some of them were aware that Banks by his moderate counsels had hazarded the king's indignation.2 Soon after the failure of this negotiation, Sir John's real de- votion to the royal cause was proved by his liberal subscrip- tion to the king's necessities, and by his wife's noble defence of Corfe Castle. This lady was Mary, the daughter of Ralph Hawtrey, Esq., of an ancient family resident at Kuislip in Middlesex. At the beginning of the troubles she had retired with her children to the castle, and for some time remained there in peace. But at length, after several fruitless endeavours by the parliamentary army to surprise her and get possession, she made hasty preparations for its defence, though totally unprovided with cannon. Laying in a store of provisions and powder, she obtained the assistance of a few soldiers under the command of Captain Lawrence from Prince Maurice's army. Sir Walter Erie set himself down before the castle on June 23, 1643, with artillery, and a large body of men; and made several furious attempts to take it by assault. The steadiness of the soldiers in the castle, and the bravery of the lady and her servants, as often succeeded in repulsing the assailants ; who after a six weeks' siege, and the loss of an hundred men, alarmed by the report of the advance of the king's forces, fled from the field on August 4, leaving their guns and ammunition to the victors.3 The former good feeling of the Parliament towards the chief 1 Pari Hist. iii. 7<). ■ Corfe Castle, 3 Hutchint'l Dorset, i. 180. 254 JOHN BANKS. Charles I. justice had been totally changed by his steady adherence to his royal master; and their present inveteracy against him had been excited by his charge to the grand jury at Salisbury in the summer assizes of this year, denouncing the Earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, and Salisbury, and several mem- bers of the House of Commons as guilty of high treason in taking up arms against the king. Though the bills were not found, he was ordered to be impeached for his charge ; an order which was repeated in the following year on the occasion of his condemning Captain Turpin to be hanged at Exeter.1 Though by his absence he escaped the consequences of these votes, he paid the price of his loyalty, under another ordi- nance, by the forfeiture of all his property. Even his books were seized and given by the parliament to Mr. Maynard.2 Sir John did not live to see the destruction of his castle, which, at the close of 1645, was again invested, and after a resolute defence of forty-eight days, in which Lady Banks showed the same courage that formerly distinguished her, it fell into the hands of the enemy by the treachery of an officer in the garrison, and was immediately dismantled. Its ruins at the present day tell of its former strength and splendour. The chief justice, after a short illness, died at Oxford on December 28, 1644, and was buried in Christ Church cathe- dral. Lord Clarendon describes him as "a man of great abilities and unblemished integrity," but at the same time intimates that he wanted courage to meet the exigencies of the time. All agree that he was thoroughly versed in the learning of his profession, and his whole conduct shows that though cautious and moderate, he was steady in his attachment to the crown. He made a settlement of 307. a year, and other emoluments, on the poor of Keswick, and chiefly to set up a manufacture there of coarse cottons.3 Lady Banks, by compounding, got rid of the sequestration 1 Whitelocke, 78. 96. 2 Ibid, 177. 3 Fuller's Worthies, i. 237. 1625—1649. THOMAS BEDINGFIELD. 255 issued by the parliament.1 She had a numerous family by the chief justice, whose descendants represented Corfe Castle as long as that borough returned members to parliament ; and his late representative, the Right Honourable George Bankes, the cursitor baron, remained till his death one of the members for the county of Dorset. BEDINGFIELD, THOMAS. Parl. Just. C. P. 1648. ^Sprung from a younger branch of an ancient and knightly family, which took the name of Bedingfield from a manor so called in Suffolk, the judge was the second son of Thomas Bedingfield, Esq., of Darsham Hall in that county ; to which his eldest son Philip succeeded, and sold it to Thomas his younger brother. Thomas was admitted a student at Gray's Inn in 1608, and being called to the bar on February 17, 1615, arrived at the post of reader there in Lent 1636.2 He acquired such eminence in his profession that he was made attorney-general of the Duchy of Lancaster ; and was thereupon knighted. He was assigned by the House of Lords in 1642 to con- duct the defence of Sir Edward Herbert the attorney-general, against the impeachment of the Commons ; but declining to plead in consequence of the latter threatening any counsel, who presumed to appear against them, with their displeasure, he was committed to the Tower by the peers for his contempt of their commands. He did not, however, long suffer under this choice of predicaments, being released from his incarce- ration in three days.3 The Commons showed their estimation of him in 1646 and 1647, by several times inserting his name as one of the persons they proposed as commissioners of the Great Seal : but the appointment never was completed, in consequence of the disagreement of the Lords. But both ' Whiteluckc, '270. - Grays Inn Books. :i State Trials, ii. 11 25. 1129, 256 ROBERT BERKELEY. Charles I. houses concurred in October 1648, in a vote appointing him one of the judges of the Common Pleas ; and, having been first decorated with the coif, he was in the following month sworn in. Not long, however, did he retain his new dignity, for on the decapitation of the king in January 1649, Sir Thomas refused to act under the commission offered by the executioners.1 Retiring into private life, he outlived the in- terregnum, and on the return of Charles II. in 1660, he re- ceived immediately and in a legitimate manner the degree of the coif.2 At his death, the date of which is uncertain, he left a son of the same name, whose descendants for some time retained possession of Darsham Hall, and the judge's other posses- sions.3 BERKELEY, ROBERT. Just. K. B. 1632. The descent of this unfortunate judge from the noble family of Berkeley, and consequently from the two itinerant justices, Maurice and Robert de Berkeley, already noticed under the reigns of Richard I. and John 4, is thus traced. James, sixth Lord Berkeley, by his second wife Isabel, daughter of Thomas Mowbray, first Duke of Norfolk, had four sons, the youngest of whom was Thomas, whose third son Richard's fourth son William, was Mayor of Hereford in 1545. William's eighth son was Rowland Berkeley, who, the youngest born of a suc- cession of younger sons, had little to begin the world with ; but by his industry became a very eminent and wealthy clothier at Worcester, and purchased, among others, a consi- derable estate in the neighbouring parish of Spetchley. By his wife, Catherine, daughter of Thomas Hay ward, Esq., he had a family of seven sons and nine daughters.5 1 Whitelocke, 224. 234. 240. 342. 348. 356. 378. ; Journals. - Dugdale's Chron. Series. 3 Wotton's Baronet, iii. 161. 322. 4 See Vol. I. 341.; Vol. II. 39. 5 Chambers's Bk>£. Illust. Worcester, 85. 1025— 1G49. ROBERT BERKELEY. 257 Robert Berkeley, the seeond son, was born at Worcester in 1584. It does not appear that he had the advantage of a university education, and nothing is recorded of him, except that he pursued his legal studies at the Middle Temple, where lie was admitted on February 5, 1600, was called to the bar May 6, 1608, and remained till the death of his father in 1611; when he became possessor of the Spetchley estate. In 1613, he was sheriff of his native county, and thirteen years afterwards, in 1626, he became autumn reader of his inn of court. At the commencement of the next year, he was called to the degree of the coif, and on April 12 was no- minated one of the king's Serjeants. From this time his name appears in the Reports ; and it fell to his lot in 1629, to argue for the king that the return made to the Habeas Corpus, ob- tained by William Stroud and the other members imprisoned for their conduct in the last parliament, was good and sufficient in law ; his argument showing great abilitv.1 On October 11, 1632, having been previously knighted, he succeeded Sir James Whitelocke as a judge of the King's Bench ; a position perhaps coveted by him as an honourable promotion in his profession, but not to be envied when kings push their prerogative beyond its limits, and parliaments would restrain it within too narrow bounds. Judge Berkeley had a deep feeling in favour of the king's prerogative ; and though he agreed that the king could not on all occasions impose charges on his subjects without consent of parliament, saying a The people of this kingdom are subjects not slaves, freemen not villains, to be taxed de alto et basso," yet ho contended that his majesty might do so when the good and safety of the kingdom in general is concerned, and that ho is the sole judge of the danger, lie therefore in the great case of ship money, after a most elaborate and learned argu- ment, which however wrong it may be thought in its founda- 1 State Trials, iii. B4 i VOL. Vf. 258 ROBERT BERKELEY. Charles I. tion, at least showed his conscientious conviction of its truth, pronounced his opinion against Mr. Hampden.1 For this he was called to severe account by the Long Par- liament. He was one of the six judges whom the Lords, on December 22, 1640, bound in 10,000/. a piece to answer the charges which the Commons were preparing against them. On February 13, he was singled out for the first example, and, being impeached for high treason, was arrested in open court while sitting on the bench, to " the great terrour of the rest of his brethren, and of all his profession." 2 The articles of impeachment charged him with endeavouring to introduce ar- bitrary and tyrannical government against law, and, principally denouncing his opinion on ship-money, added some other judgments given during his judicial career tending to the same consequence ; with two other articles, showing that the judge's leaning against the Puritanical party had, in a great measure, influenced the promoters of the prosecution.3 He was kept in custody of the Sheriff of London till October 20, 1641, wThen he appeared at the bar of the House of Lords and pleading not guilty, obtained permission to go with a keeper to Serjeants' Inn to look out papers and advise with his counsel. The trial, which was fixed for November 2, was put off at the instance of the Commons for want of wit- nesses.4 In Michaelmas Term, 1642, of the three judges of the King's Bench that were then left, Heath being with the king, Malet in the Tower, and Berkeley under impeachment, the two houses at a conference resolved, "tThat Judge Berkeley having carried himself with modesty and humility, and inoffen- sively to both houses, be pitched upon for keeping the Essoigns." 5 The Lords in the following September, — that is, the ten that remained, — sentenced the judge to pay a fine of 20,000/. 1 State Trials, iii. 10S7— 1125. 3 Whilelocke, 40. 8 Rushworth, ii. 606—614. * Pari. Hist. ii. 917. s Parry's Parliament, &c. 1625—1649. JOHN BRAMSTON. 259 and to be for ever disabled from holding any office in the commonwealth. But the parliament being then pressed for money to pay an instalment of their subsidy to the Scots, he was let off on payment of half to their own officers.1 In the conflict that afterwards took place, Sir Robert Berkeley suf- fered much from the plundering and exactions of both the parties. Cromwell took up his quarters at his mansion of Spetchley ; which was afterwards burned down by the Pres- byterians, his old enemies, though in the service of the king. He wisely refrained from restoring it, but contented himself with converting his stables into a dwelling-house, and quietly waiting for better times. Even Whitelocke represents him as " moderate in his ways," and acknowledges him to be " a very learned man in our laws, and a good orator and judge." He outlived his sovereign above seven years, dying on August 5, 16.56, at the age of 72. He was buried under a hand- some monument, with an excellent marble figure of the judge upon it, in a chancel he had built to the church of Spetchley. He married Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Thomas Conyers, Esq., of East Barnet, Herts, by whom he had one son, Thomas, who became a Roman Catholic, and whose descendants still enjoy the family estate. BOLINBROKE, Earl of. See Oliver St. John. BRAMSTON, JOHN. Ch. K. B. 1635. In a pedigree appended to the interesting autobiography of the eldest son of the chief justice, edited for the Camden Society by Lord Braybroke, its president, the first person of this name is William Bramston, who was sheriff of London in 18 Richard II., 1394-95. A descendant of his, John, about two centuries later, was a mercer in the same city, whose son Roger Bramston, of Whitechapel, was the first 1 Clarendon, iv. B -1 260 JOHN BKAMSTON. Charles 1. who established himself in Essex ; having married Priscilla, daughter of Francis Clovile, of West Haningfield Hall, and widow of Thomas Rushee, of Boreham, both in that county. Of that union the chief justice was the eldest son. John Bramston was born on May 18, 1577, "at Maldon, and after receiving his early instruction in the free- school there, finished his education at Jesus College, Cambridge. He entered on the study of the law at the Middle Temple, and having been duly called to the bar, he was chosen in 1607 by his university as one of their counsel. In the pre- ceding year he had married Bridget, daughter of Dr. Thomas Moundeford, an eminent physician of Milk Street, London ; and lived then, or soon after, in a large and handsome house in Whitechapel, his inheritance, where his eldest son was born. In regular succession he was admitted to the bench of his inn, and was selected as Lent reader in 16231, when his reading was on the statute 32 Henry VIII., c. 2., concerning limitations ; and again in the following autumn, when he took the statute 13 Eliz., c. 5., as his subject, treating on fraudu- lent conveyances. In the Michaelmas Term after his last reading, he was one of the fifteen who took the degree of the coif2 ; not, however, without contributing, as all the others did, 500/. to King James's purse. He obtained great practice as well in the courts of law, as in Chancery, the court of Wards, and the Star Chamber. In 1626 he was selected by the Earl of Bristol to defend him3; in 1627 he pleaded for Sir John Heveningham, who was imprisoned for not contributing to the loan4; in 1628 he was retained by the city of London as their counsel, with a fee pro consilio impenso et impendendo ; and in 1630 he was constituted chief justice of Ely, on the nomination of the then bishop of that see, which was con- firmed by his successor. He was made the queen's serjeant 1 Dugdale's Orig. 219. 2 Croke, Jac. 611. 1 State Trials, ii. 1:580. * Ibid. iii. 6. 1625—1649. JOHN BRAMSTON. 201 on March 26, 1632, and King Charles advanced him on July 8, 1634, to be one of his Serjeants, and knighted him in November following. After the birth of a numerous family his wife died at the age of thirty-six, and some few years after, in 1631, he married for his second wife, Elizabeth, the daughter of Lord Brabazon, and the relict already of two husbands, the first being George Montgomerie, bishop of Clogher, and the second Sir John Brereton, the king's Serjeant in Ireland. He had no children by her and she died in 1647, leaving him a second time a widower. Soon after his second marriage he pur- chased the estate of Skreenes in Roxwell, Essex, for 8000/. from Thomas Weston, afterwards Earl of Portland. On the death of Sir Thomas Richardson he was called upon to fill the then not very enviable place of chief justice of the King's Bench, and received his patent on April 14, 1635.1 The people were discontented and seditiously inclined ; King Charles was raising money by various means without the aid of parliament, which had not met for six years ; the writs for ship money had just been issued and created general excite- ment. Bramston, who evidently was conscientious in con- sidering that it was legally imposed, as chief justice headed the opinion in its favour, that was given by all the judges, in answer to the case which the king had laid before them. In the prosecution of Hampden he supported that opinion upon the general principle that the defence of the realm must be at the subjects' charge ; but, notwithstanding, gave his vote against the crown upon a technical point, that by the record it did not appear to whom the money assessed was due.2 One of the earliest proceedings of the Long Parliament, which met in November, 1640, was to impeach Chief Justice Bramston and five other of the judges who had given this 1 Etymer, xix. 7G4. state' Trials, iii. ! 262 JOHN BRAMSTON. Charles I. answer to the king ; and he was obliged to give security in 10,0007. to abide his trial.1 The principal charge against him was for signing the opinion, and did not touch his judgment in the case of Hampden. His answer, which his son thinks, though prepared and signed by counsel, was never called for, was that he, like Croke and Hutton, subscribed only for con- formity, for he was overruled by the rest of the judges in his wish to insert that the charge could not be made except in case of necessity, and only during the time and continuance of that necessity. When the king wftit to York in July, 1642, he commanded the attendance of the chief justice, and though Bramston sent his sons to excuse him on account of the danger which those who had become bound for his appearance before the parliament would incur, the injunctions for his pre- sence were reiterated. Bramston had already applied to the parliament for leave, and been refused ; and, therefore, seeing the ruin in which both he and his bail would be involved if he complied, he determined to stay away. The consequence was, that on October 16, 1642, the king revoked his appointment 2 ; but, as if to show that it was not from royal displeasure, sent him a patent as king's serjeant on the 10th of the following February. It is curious that this patent was granted a few days after the king had received the propositions of the Lords and Commons for an accommodation ; one of which was a prayer that he would make Sir John Bramston chief justice of the King's Bench.3 By this it is evident that the parliament were not very inveterate against Sir John ; and it seems probable that the king appointed him his serjeant as an earnest of his intention, if the negotiation had succeeded, to replace him in his office in compliance with the parliament's request. As a further proof that that body held him absolved, and esteemed him to be, as Lord Clarendon calls him, " a man of great learning and integrity," they made several attempts to induce him to resume his judicial duties, ] Pari. Hist. ii. 700. 2 Rymer, xx. 536. 3 Pari. Hist. iii. 70. 1625—1649. JOHN BRAMSTOX. 263 and, when he refused, as another had superseded him, they or- dered him to be advised with on some legal business before them. In January, 1 646-7, the Commons named him as one of the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal ; but by his interest with the peers, he induced them to pass him over. In the following March the same attempt was made with the like result. In the interim the Lords had voted that he should sit in their house as an assistant; but without refusing the appointment, he ma- naged to avoid the attendance. And in April a vote was passed that he should be one of the judges of the Common Pleas l, which he also declined. His son says that Cromwell, after he became Protector, urged Sir John to take the office of chief justice again; but that he excused himself, pleading his old age ; which, as this must have been in 1654, when he was verging on seventy-seven, he might well do. On Septem- ber 22, of that year, he died at Skreenes after a very short illness ; and was buried in Roxwell church. Fuller gives him the character of being ' ( accomplished with all qualities requisite for a person of his place and profession, . . . deep learning, solid judgment, integrity of life, and gravity of behaviour : " adding, that " he deserved to live in better times." 2 Out of a large family, six children only survived him, three sons and three daughters. The descendants of his eldest son, John, who was made a knight of the Batli by Charles II., have given members to the county of Essex in very many par- liaments; and one of them is its present representative, and now resides at Skreenes. This property, Morant says3, " has been all along in families that have raised themselves by their merit and eminence in the law." The mansion took its name from Serjeant William Skrene, who was called to the degree of the coif by Henry IV. from the society of Clifford's Inn 4 ; and 1 Whitelocke, 108. 234. 2f57. 210. 245. 2 Fuller's Worthies, i. 949. M. .rant's i;,,ex, ii. 7fJ. * See Vol. IV. p. 141. s 4 264 ROBERT BREREWOOD. Chart.ks I. it was afterwards possessed by Richard Weston, judge of the Common Pleas in the reign of Elizabeth, whose grandson became Earl of Portland. From one of that family it was purchased by Chief Justice Bramston, by whom the charter was still kept up ; for Moundeford, his second son, was a master in chancery and knighted ; and Francis, his third son, became a baron of the Exchequer, and will be noticed in the reign of Charles II.1 BREREWOOD, ROBERT. Just. K. B. 1644. The family of Brerevvood were flourishing citizens of Chester, many of them enjoying the municipal honours of that ancient city. The judge's grandfather is called a wet-glover there, and was thrice mayor. His uncle, Edward, was a famous scholar, and became the first Gresham professor of astronomy. His father, John, who was the mayor's eldest son, was sheriff of Chester , and the judge himself was born there about 1588. He was admitted into Brazenose College, Oxford, in 1605; and two years afterwards became a member of the Middle Temple ; where, after somewhat more than the usual seven years' probation, he was called to the bar on November 13, 1615. After a lengthened practice of two-and-twenty years, during which he published several of his uncle's works, he was appointed a judge of North Wales in 1637 ; was chosen reader to his inn in the Lent following, and at Easter, 1639, was elected recorder of his native city. The degree of the coif was conferred upon him in 1640, and in Hilary Term, 1641, he was made king's serjeant. Receiving the honour of knighthood in December, 1643, he was advanced to the bench on the 31st of the next month, and was sworn into office at Oxford on February 6.2 The exercise of Sir Robert's judicial 1 The incidents in this memoir, for which no other authority is cited, are de- rived from Bramston's Autobiography. 2 Middle Temple Books ; Dugdale's Orig. 220. ; Chron. Ser. 1625—1649. EDWARD BROMLEY. 265 functions were, however, of short continuance, and were never exercised in Westminster Hall. Witnessing the extinction of regal authority and lamenting his royal master's untimely death, he passed the remainder of his days in the retirement of his home ; and dying there on September 8, 1654, he was buried in St. Mary's church, at Chester. He married, first, Anna, daughter of Sir Randle Mainwar- inge, of Over Pever, in Cheshire, and, secondly, Katherine, daughter of Sir Richard Lea, of Lea and Dernhall, of the same county ; and left several children by each of them.1 BROMLEY, EDWARD. B. E. J 625. See under the Reign of James I. This is the third member of the same family who has been adorned with the judicial ermine ; Sir Thomas Bromley, the chief justice in the reign of Queen Mary, being the son, and Sir Thomas Bromley, the lord chancellor in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, being the grandson, of Roger Bromley, of Mitley, Esq. ; and Edward, the subject of the present notice, being the son of Sir George Bromley, justice of Chester, the elder brother of the chancellor. Of his antecedents before he was constituted a baron of the Exchequer, there is no account, except that he kept his terms at the Inner Temple, and was a reader there in Lent, 1606. He was made a serjeant for the purpose of his being raised to the bench ; his call taking place on February 5, and his patent as baron being dated February 6, 1610. Dur- ing the remaining sixteen years of James's reign, and for above two years in that of Charles I., he performed the func- tions of his office ; and, according to Croke, he died in the 1 Wood, Ath. Oxon. ii. 140; Gent. Mflg. lxi. 714. 266 JULIUS CJBSAH. Charles I. summer vacation of 1627.1 It does not appear that he left any issue. BROWNE, SAMUEL. Parl. Com. G. S. 1643. Just. K. B. J 648. See under the Reign of Charles II. CiESAR, JULIUS. M. R. 1625. See under the Reign of James I. The parentage of the Caesar family has already been given in noticing Sir Thomas Caesar, the cursitor baron of the Ex- chequer in the last reign. He was the third, while Sir Julius Caesar was the eldest, son of Caesar Adelmare, physician to Queens Mary and Elizabeth, by his wife Margaret Perin or Perient. Julius was born at Tottenham in Middlesex in 1557, and enjoyed royal patronage from his infancy ; Queen Mary, by her proxy Lady Montacute, being his sponsor, together with William Paulett, Marquis of Winchester, lord high treasurer, and Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. He received the names of Julius Caesar ; the latter of which he seems very early to have substituted for that of his ancestors ; though even so late as 1608 he was designated by both names with an alias in formal documents. Thus in King James's patent to the Inner and Middle Temple, he is described " Sir Julius Caesar, otherwise Adelmare, knight." Having lost his father when he was twelve years old, and his mother having married again, he was sent to Oxford, where he became a student at Magdalen Hall, and took the degree of B.A. in 1575, and that of M. A. in 1578. In October, 1580, he was admitted a member of the Inner Temple, and proceeding to Paris, he took the degree there of doctor in both laws in 1581 ; after which he returned to Ox- 1 Dugdale's Orig. 138. 167.; Chron. Ser. ; Croke, Car. 85. 1G25— 1640. JULIUS CiESAR. 267 ford, and proceeded to the same degree in that university in 1583.1 In the meantime he had received in October, 1581, two public appointments, one being " Justice of the peace in all cases of piracy," and the other, chancellor to the master of St. Catherine's near the Tower. In the following February he married Dorcas, daughter of Sir Richard Martin, an alder- man of London, afterwards master of the Mint, and widow of Richard Lusher. In 1583, he became counsellor to the city of London, and commissary of Essex, Herts, and Middle- sex; and on April 30, 1584, he was made judge of the Ad- miralty Court. Although possessed of so important a post at the early age of 27, he was not contented. In March, 1587, he petitioned the queen to grant him a lease of such of her manors for forty years as should amount to 100 marks yearly ; or to give him one of various specified preferments ; viz., a deanery, or a hospital, or the provostship of Eton College, or the place of one of the masters of requests. His influence must have been great to have warranted these applications ; in which he was only so far at that time successful, that in October, 1588, he was admitted one of the masters in Chan- cery, an office which was then frequently filled by doctors of the Civil Law. He still continued his importunities, alleg- ing that he had spent 4000Z. above his gains in the execution of his office of judge of the Admiralty, and in relieving the poor suitors of his court. This statement it would be scarcely possible to credit, if his unlimited charity were not evidenced by the following confirmatory anecdote. Ci A gentleman," says David Lloyd, u once borrowing his coach, which was as well known to the poor as any hospital in the kingdom, was so followed and encompassed with the London beggars, that it cost him all the money in his purse to satisfy their impor- tunities, so that he might have hired twenty hackney coaches • Wood's Fasti, i. 224. 268 JULIUS C.ESAR. Chari.es I. on the same terms."1 Isaac Walton says of him that, when grown old, " he was kept alive beyond nature's course, by the prayers of those many poor he daily relieved." At last his perseverance procured for him, in addition, the appointment of a master extraordinary of the Court of Re- quests on January 10, 1591 ; but it was not till August 17, 1595, that he was admitted one of the ordinary masters of that court, which gave him immediate access to the queen. During this time it is amusing to see how he paid his court to the influential ministers and favourites ; and how ingeniously he contrived to remind them of his claims in his letters con- veying New Years' Gifts, some curious specimens of which are preserved among the Lansdowne MSS. In 1593, without having passed through the grade of reader, he was elected treasurer of the Inner Temple, and on December 8 in the same year he was appointed governor of the mine and battery works throughout England and Wales. Having already procured (by a bribe of 500/ to Archibald Douglas, the Scottish ambassador, to use his influence with the queen) the reversion of the Mastership of St. Catherine's, he succeeded to it on June 17, 1596. His wife dying in June, 1595, he entered in the following year into a second matrimonial connection with Alice, daughter of Christopher Green, and widow of John Dent, a rich merchant of London. This lady had two daughters by Mr. Dent, for the wardship of whom she paid the queen 1000/. Sir Julius was desirous of securing them in marriage for his two sons, Julius and Charles, but the ladies were not compliant, and two documents are extant, dated in 1606 and 1608, recording their respective refusals.3 Two years after this marriage, in September, 1598, her majesty inflicted on him the honour of a visit to his house at Mitcham, the 1 State Worthies, 937. s Life of Wotton, 178. 3 Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 12497. fo. 357. 359. 1625 — 1649. JULIUS CiESAR. 269 expense of which, with the customary offering, amounted to 700/. sterling. No other incident occurred to him in Eliza- beth's reign, except that he obtained a verdict of 200/. against a man for asserting that he had pronounced a corrupt sentence against him in the admiralty.1 King James knighted him on May 20, 1603 ; and in the same year reappointed him master of the Court of Requests, and master of St. Catherine's. He was further favoured with grants of the manor of Linwood in Lincolnshire, and of the Forest of High Peak in Derbyshire, for life.2 On April 1 1 , 1606, the important office of chancellor and under treasurer of the Exchequer was conferred upon him, and in the next year he was sworn of the privy council. During the eight years in which he performed the onerous duties of his place, his main difficulty seems to have been the supplying means to meet the idle profuseness of his master. He had prepared his way for relieving himself from its responsibilities, by ob- taining from the king, so early as January 16, 1611, a rever- sionary grant of the mastership of the Rolls ; but he did not come into possession for nearly four years. He was sworn in on September 13, 1614; but as the former grant was questionable, he deemed it advisable, before he took his seat, to have a new patent, dated October 1. Four months before he entered on his new office, he lost his second wife ; but seven months afterwards he entered into espousals with Anne, the daughter of Henry Wodehouse, of Waxham in Norfolk, by Anne, daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon, lord keeper, and widow of William Ilungate, of Bast Brudcnhani in the same county. In the previous year he took a most prominent part in the proceedings for a divorce by the Countess of Essex against her husband for impotency, almost making himself a party in the cause. Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was at l Pat. 1 Jac. i>. 21. j 'J Jac. i>. IS, ; 7 Ja* 270 JULIUS CiESAR. Charles 1. the head of the commission, could not be prevailed on to give judgment for the nullity of the marriage ; and so anxious was the king for it, that he issued a new commission, adding two bishops, so that a majority was obtained over those who dis- sented.1 The lady, two months afterwards, married the Earl of Somerset. Sir Julius continued master of the Rolls till his death, a period of more than twenty-one years ; and during the in- terval between the disgrace of Lord Chancellor Bacon, and the delivery of the Seal to lord keeper Williams, viz., between May 21 and July 10, 1621, he had a commission to hear causes in Chancery. To Bacon, with whom he was connected by marriage, he continued a kind friend ; assisting him by his bounty, affording him an asylum in his misfortunes, and receiving his last breath in his arms. He had not any great reputation as a judge, and it is said that counsel would occasionally pass "a slyejeste" upon him. A hubbub occurring in court, one of them cried out, " Silence there, my masters, you keep such a bawling, the master of the Rolls cannot understand a word that is spoken."2 Cla- rendon relates, that towards the close of his career, having outlived most of his friends at court, Weston, Earl of Port- land, the lord treasurer, taking advantage of this and his old age, procured the appointment of one Mr. Fern, who had bribed him with 6000/., to be one of the six clerks. This place was in the gift of the master of the Rolls, and he had designed it for his son, Robert Caesar, " a lawyer of good name, and exceedingly beloved ; " but he was easily frightened into admitting the treasurer's nominee. The transaction made a great noise, and the king hearing of it, promised that " if the old man chanced to die before any other of the six clerks, that office, when it should fall, should be conferred on his son, whosoever should succeed him as master of the Rolls ; " 1 State Trials, ii. 785., fcci '-' Anecdotes and Traditions (Camden Soc.), 23. 1625—1649. JULIUS CESAR. 271 and the treasurer promised to procure a declaration of this under the sign manual. One day the Earl of Tullibardine, who was nearly allied to Mr. Caesar, asked the treasurer "whether he had done that business?" To whom he an- swered, u that he had forgotten it, for which he was heartily sorry ; and if he would give him a little note in writing, for a memorial, he would put it among those which he would despatch that evening." The earl presently writ upon a little paper, Remember Ccesar, and gave it to him, and he put it in his pocket. Many days passed, but Caesar never was thought of. At length, when he changed his clothes, his servant brought him all the notes and papers in those he had left off. When he found this little billet, Remember Caesar, which he had never read before, he was exceedingly con- founded, and knew not what to think of it. After a serious and melancholic deliberation with his friends, it was agreed that it was the advertisement, by some friend who durst not own the discovery, of a conspiracy against the treasurer's life by his many and mighty enemies. They all knew Caesar's fate by contemning such a notice, and therefore concluded that he should pretend to be indisposed, that he might not stir abroad all that day. The porter was ordered to open the gates to nobody, nor to go to bed till the morning ; and some servants were ordered to watch with him, lest violence should be used at the gate ; and they themselves, and some other gentlemen, would sit up all night, and attend the event. It was late next morning before any one was ad- mitted. At last the Earl of Tullibardine came, and asking whether he had remembered Caesar, the truth flashed upon the treasurer, who could not forbear telling the jest to his friends. ! 1 Clarendon, i. 94. The name of Mr. Fern does not appear in Mr. Duffbs Hardy's List of the Six Clerks. Mr. Robert C\esar was appointed three months before his father's death. 272 CHARLES CAESAR. Charles I. Sir Julius died on April 18, 1636, at the age of seventy- nine, and was buried at Great St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, where his father lay. Over his remains was placed a monument with an inscription written by himself, in the form of a deed with a pendant seal, the connecting silk of which is broken. Pie had no issue by his last wife ; but his other two brought him eight children. Of the five by his first wife only one survived him, viz., Charles, who, three years after the death of his father, became master of the Rolls. His second wife produced to him three sons : John, who was knighted at the age of ten ; Thomas, who became a doctor in divinity ; and Robert, who obtained the place of one of the six clerks in Chancery ; no descendants of any of whom remain.1 C^SAR, CHARLES. M. R. 1639. Charles Caesar, the eldest surviving son of Sir Julius, the master of the Rolls, was born on January 27, 1589. Destined to pursue the profession by which his father had risen, he was sent to All Souls' College in the university of Oxford, and was admitted to the degree of doctor of laws on December 7, 1612.2 Commencing practice in the Ecclesias- tical Courts, he received the order of knighthood on October 6 in the following year, and was gradually promoted, first to the office of the master of the faculties, and then to that of judge of the audience.3 According to a common practice in those times, of selecting the masters in Chancery from among the doctors of laws, Sir Charles Caesar attained that appoint- ment on May 19, 16 154, no doubt by the interest of his father, who had been sworn in as a judge of that court in the preceding year. In his customary attendance on the House 1 Lodge's Memoirs of the Ca?sars. ■ State Trials, ii. 1452. 2 Wood's Fasti, i. 348. 4 Hardy's Catalogue, 89. 1G25— 1649. CHARLES CJE8AR. 273 of Lords, it fell to his duty to carry down to the Commons the Duke of Buckingham's answer to the articles of impeach- ment against him.1 This is the only incident related of Sir Charles till the death of Sir Dudley Digges, in 1639, who had succeeded his father three years before as master of the Rolls. Sir Charles was desirous to obtain this place, and went to Archbishop Laud to consult him about it, when that prelate " told him plainly that as things then stood the place was not like to go without more money than he thought any wise man would give for it."2 Sir Charles was not disheartened, and bid so highly that it appears by a memorandum made by his son that he paid for that " high and profitable place " no less than 15,000/., "broad pieces of gold," with a loan of 2000/. more when the king went to meet his rebellious Scottish army. He received his patent for the office on March 30, 1639. It is difficult to regret that he did not live long enough to profit by this iniquitous traffic of the judicial seat, as dis- graceful to one party as the other. In November, 1642, the small-pox seized the family, and proved fatal to one of his daughters on the 2nd of that month, to himself on the 6th of December, and to his eldest son five days after. They were buried at Bennington in Herts, where his estate was situate ; and his monument there bears an inscription commemorative of his personal worth and his judicial integrity. It records besides, that he had two wives — the first, Anne, daughter of Sir Peter Vanlore, knight, an eminent London merchant ; and the second, Jane, daughter of Sir Edward Barkham, knight, lord mayor of London ; and that he had six children by the first wife, and nine by the second. Of these fifteen only five survived him, two daughters and three sons — - Julius, who lived but five days after his father; Henry, who and 1 Pari Hist. ii. 191. State Trials, iv. J17. VOL. VI. T 274 WILLIAM CECIL. Charles I. whose son and grandson were successively members of parlia- ment for the county of Herts ; and Charles, of Great Grands- den in Huntingdonshire, whose son was treasurer of the navy in the reign of Queen Anne. The patrimonial possessions were eventually dissipated, and no male descendant now pre- serves the name of the family.1 CECIL, WILLIAM, Earl of Salisbury. Pari,. Com. Great Seal, 1646. The appearance of William Cecil, second Earl of Salisbury, in these pages arises from his filling the place of one of the parliamentary commissioners of the Great Seal for less than four months. His grandfather was the renowned Lord Burleigh, and his father was Robert Cecil, the wise minister of Queen Elizabeth and James I., who, after serving both sovereigns, and after passing through the two lower grades of the peerage, was created Earl of Salisbury in 1605. On his death, in 1612, this William succeeded, but did not do much credit to his lineage. At first the obsequious servant of his sovereign, he concurred in every act proposed by the court, and attended King Charles when he retired in his troubles to York, joining the peers in signing the declaration that the king had no intention to take warlike measures. Soon after, without any apparent reason, he fled from court, deserting the king's party for that of the parliament, and forming one of the small knot of lords who legislated at Westminster. He had the effrontery to appear before the king at Oxford as a commissioner to treat for peace, and was named in the same capacity in the proposed treaty at Uxbridge. Though totally without credit with either party, he was appointed a commis- sioner of the Great Seal on July 3, 1646, in place of the Earl of Bolinbroke deceased, but was not sworn in till Au- 1 Lodge's Lives of the Cfesars. 1625—1649. THOMAS < 'TI.\ MIJERLAYNE. 275 gust 1 1 . The parliament, however, withdrew their confidence from him and the other commissioners on October 30, and placed the Seal in the custody of the speakers of the two houses. On the decapitation of the king he allowed himself to be nominated one of the Council of State, and, as if this was not a sufficient degradation, he got himself, on the abolition of the House of Lords, returned as a member of the House of Commons for Lynn in Norfolk, in September, 1649. After being expelled with the rest by Cromwell in 1653, he joined the Rump a its meeting in 1659, to be again expelled, and again restored. In none of these variations is any act of his recorded, save the bare mention that they actually took place. His insignificance probably saved him on the restoration of Charles II., who no doubt thought that the contempt which all men felt for the degraded earl was a sufficient punishment. He died on December 3, 1668. His descendants have wiped out his disgrace, and, at the end of nearly two cen- turies, flourish with the additional title of marquess, granted in 1789.1 CHAMBERLAYNE, THOMAS. Just. C. P. 1625. See under the Reign of James I. This family claims a noble origin, being descended from Wil- liam, Count Tankerville, who was one of the Norman fol- lowers of William the Conqueror, and whose son John became lord chamberlain to Henry I. ; the same office being held by several of his descendants, its name thus became attached to them. They spread through various counties, and were eminent in different departments of the State, One of the branches of the family, William Chamberlayne, brother of 1 Dugdak-'s Baron, ii. 407. ; Clarendon's Hist. i. 279., lii. 559. ; Wbitelooke, 37G. . 3 Bramston, in his Autobiography, p. 251., says that the name of this lady's father was Iloskins * Wood's Ath. Oxon. ii. 650.; Fuller's Worthier, ii. 470. 1 Grandeur of the Law (1684). u Gray's Inn Hooks. 7 Pari. I list. ii. 5>w. 286 FRANCIS CRAWLEY. Charles I. was appointed a judge of the Common Pleas on October 11, 1632, and knighted. In the great case of Ship-money, he not only joined the rest of the judges in their answer to the king's letter affirming its legality, but in an elaborate argu- ment in the Exchequer Chamber, in February, 1638, he gave a decided opinion in favour of the king against Hamp- den, which he repeated at the assizes, asserting in his charge to the grand jury, " That ship-money was so inherent a right in the crown, that it would not be in the power of a parlia- ment to take it away." For these opinions, and particularly the last, he was impeached by the Long Parliament, the charge against him being introduced in July, 1641, in a powerful speech by Mr. Waller, who warmly urged the enormity of the doctrine.1 In August the house resolved that the im- peached judges should have no commissions to go the circuits ; but it appears that they still continued to sit in Westminster Hall. Justice Crawley joined the king at Oxford in 1642, and on the following January was made doctor of civil law in that university.2 The state of the kingdom probably prevented his trial from taking place, notwithstanding his extreme unpopularity; but on November 24, 1645, the Com- mons passed an ordinance disabling him and four others " from being judges, as though they were dead." 3 He died on February 13, 1649, having survived his sove- reign only a fortnight, and was buried at Luton. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Rotherham, knight, of that place, by whom he left two sons. The eldest, John, dying without children, the patrimonial property devolved on his brother, Francis, who is described, in 1660, in the list of those qualified to be knights of the contemplated order of the Royal Oak, as possessed of an estate in Bedfordshire worth 1 State Trials, iii. 1078. 1301. 2 Wood's Fasti, ii. 44. 3 Whitelocke's Mem. 181. 1625—1649. UICTTARP CRESHELD. 287 1000/. a year1, and who became cursitor baron of the Exche- quer in the reign of Charles II.2 CRESHELD, RICHARD. Paul. Just. C. P. 1C4S. In the propositions made by the parliament to the king in February, 1643, they name " Mr. Serjeant Creswell " as one of those whom they desire to be appointed justices of the Common Pleas.3 In September, 1 647, " Mr. Serjeant Cres- well" is mentioned by Whitelocke as accompanying Mr. Justice Bacon on the circuit, and there committing a person for words spoken against the king. On October 12, 1648, the same writer states that "Mr. Serjeant Creswell" was made a judge of the Common Pleas by the parliament ; and again states that " CreswTell " was one of the judges who refused to act after the death of the king.4 Notwithstanding these authorities, there was no Serjeant of the name. The person intended is Richard Cresheld, who was summoned to take the coif in 1636 5, and who is recorded under that name in Dugdale's List of Serjeants. By an abbreviated mispronunciation of the name it became cor- rupted to Creswell, for even in Sir W. Jones's Reports of the period he is called, when appointed, " Creswell."0 He was admitted into the society of Lincoln's Inn on June 18, 1608, under the description of " Richard Cresheld, son of Edward Cresheld, of Mattishall-Burgh in the county of Norfolk;" and having studied for seven years he was called to the bar on October 17, 1615, and became bencher in 1 Wotton'l Baronet, f, 2 I am indebted to Hear; II. Gibbs, Esq., a relative of Chief Justice Sir Vicary Gibbs, for information of the family of Judge Crawley, witb wbieli be is maternally connected. • Clarendon, iii. 407. ' Wbitrloeke, 2^9. 342. 378. ' Rymer, xx. 22. 8 W. .Jones's Reports, 390. 288 RICHARD CRESHELD. Charles 1. ] 633. l lie sat for the borough of Evesham in Worcestershire in King James's last parliament, and was returned member for the same place (of which he was recorder) in all the parliaments in King Charles's reign.2 In 1628 he led the van in the Committee of Grievances, presided over by Mr. (afterwards lord keeper) Lyttelton, in a speech sufficiently complimentary to the king, but arguing strongly against the legality of imprisonment without declaration of the cause.3 He does not appear to have often taken part in the debates ; and in the Long Parliament his return was contested, or rather that of his colleague, Mr. Sandys, who was displaced by Mr. Coventry ; but the same confusion of the name ap- pears.4 On his receiving his writ of summons to take the coif, the usual compliment was paid him by his inn of ap- pointing him Lent reader5 before he retired from the society ; and, when his inauguration took place, he was presented with a purse of ten guineas, as the customary viaticum.6 That he accommodated himself to the views of the popular party is apparent by his receiving the thanks of the Commons on November 2, 1642, for "the good service done by Serjeant Cresweld in the country upon the matter of contributions, and other services7," by their proposing him to be a judge in 1643, and by their appointing him one in 1648 ; but that he disapproved of their violent proceedings is equally apparent from his refusal to act under their usurped authority on the death of the king. It is to be regretted that no further information remains of a judge who had the courage to vacate his seat in such perilous times. One of his daughters married William Noel of Kirkby Mallory.8 1 Lincoln's Inn Books. 2 Notes and Queries, 2nd S. i. 460. 3 Pari. Hist. ii. 240., where, quoting Sir J. Napier's MSS., he is called Cres- keld. Rushworth i. 506., giving the same speech, calls him Creswell. * Rushworth, iv. 9. 5 Dugdale's Orig. 255. 266. 6 Lincoln's Inn Books. 7 Commons' Journal, ii. 831. 8 Wotton's Baronet, iii. 93. 1625—1649. RANULPHE CREWE. 289 CREWE, RANULPHE. Ch. K. B. 1625. See under the Reign of James I. Crew or Crue is a manor in Cheshire, which gave the name to a family in the reign of Edward I.1, from a younger branch of which the chief justice traces his descent. His father, John Crewe, was settled at Nantwich, and is said to have been a tanner in that town. By his wife Alice Mainwaring, he left two sons, both of whom were the ancestors of noble families. Ranulphe (as he himself spelled it), the elder, whose career i3 now to be narrated; and Thomas, the younger, a serjeant at law, and speaker of the House of Commons in the last parliament of James I. and in the first of Charles I., whose son, John Crewe, in 1661, was created Baron Crewe, of Stene in Northamptonshire. This barony became extinct in 1721, on the death of Nathaniel, Bishop of Durham, the third baron, without issue.2 Ranulphe Crewe was born about the year 1558. Of his early life there are no particulars, till he was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn, on November 13, 1577, and was called to the bar, after the customary seven years' study, on November 8, 1584.3 Though he had acquired sufficient eminence to be elected member for Brackley in the parliament of 1597 4, bis name is not mentioned as an advocate in any of the Reports till Michaelmas, 1598. In that year he married Juliana, the daughter and heir of John Clipsby, of Clipsby in Norfolk, with whom he had a fair inheritance.5 He was admitted to the bench of Lincoln's Inn on November 3, 1600, and filled the office of reader to the society in autumn, 1602.° Judging 1 Cal. Inq. p. m. i. 1 1 9. 2 Collins's Peerage, ix. 326. 3 Line. Inn, Black 15k. v. 230. 364. ' IlinuhcliiFu's Barthomley, 222. 5 Fuller's Worthies, i. 188. a Dugdale's Orig. 254. 262. VOL. VI. U 290 RANULPHE CREWE. Charles I. from the published Reports, he does not seem to have been much employed in the courts, yet it is evident that his repu- tation as a lawyer must have been considerable, as he was selected to defend the king's title to alnage in the House of Lords in 1606, for his "travail and pains" in which he re- ceived 10Z.1; and as his professional income was so consider- able, that he was enabled, two years afterwards, to gratify the great object of his ambition by the acquisition of the ances- tral property from which he derived his name. He purchased the manor of Crewe from Sir Edward Coke and his wife Lady Elizabeth Hatton; and thus becoming repossessed of the estate which for nearly three hundred years had had no Crewe for its owner, he built the magnificent seat there, which has ever since been the seat of the family. Of that parliament which met on April 5, 1614, and was so hastily dissolved on the 7th of the following June, to which he was returned as representative of his native county, he had the honour to be selected as speaker2 ; but he did not participate in the king's displeasure towards the other mem- bers, since he was knighted the day after the dissolution, and, being called to the degree of the coif on July 1, was (though not so recorded by Dugdale) a few days afterwards made king's serjeant. In this character he sat, in 1615, as a com- missioner on the trial of Weston for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury ; and was one of the counsel for the crown against the Earl and Countess of Somerset.3 He was also concerned in the shameful trial of Edward Peacham for trea- son at Taunton.4 He was not in the next parliament of 1620 ; but conducted the proceedings in the House of Lords against Sir Francis Michell, the monopolist, Sir Henry Yelverton, late attorney- general, and Sir John Bennet, judge of the Prerogative 1 Pell Records, Jac. 64. 2 Pari. Hist. i. 1153. 2 State Trials, ii. 911. 952. 989. 4 Walter Yonge's Diary, 28. 1625—1649. 1! ANULPHE CEEWF. 291 Court.1 In the parliament of 1624, he opened some of the charges against Cranfiekl, Earl of Middlesex2; and when Sir James Ley succeeded that nobleman as lord treasurer, Sir Ra- nulphe was selected to fill his place as chief justice of the King's Bench, to which he was promoted on January 26, 1625. King James died in the following March. His successor having angrily dissolved two parliaments in less than fifteen months, was compelled to resort to unconstitutional means to replenish his exhausted exchequer. One of these was by forced loans from his subjects according to the amount they would have paid towards a subsidy. The judges, who among the rest were applied to, paid the money demanded ; but re- fusing to subscribe a paper recognising the legality of the collection, Chief Justice Crewe was selected as an example, and was discharged from his office on November 9, 1626, having held it not quite two years. In 1628, he wrote a manly and modest letter to the Duke of Buckingham, plead- ing for his restoration to the king's favour, in which he took credit to himself that he had declined to be in the parliament just prorogued, "distrusting that I might be called upon to have discovered the passages concerning my removal."3 What- ever intentions the duke might have had of repairing the injury he had done to the chief justice, they were frustrated by his assassination by Felton, in the August of that year. After another application to the king himself, which produced no result, Sir Ranulphe retired from public life. He survived his dismissal more than nineteen years, witnessing the calami- tous effects of those illegal measures to which he had refused his judicial sanction, and suffering much from the conse- quences of the civil war, his revenues being seized and his mansion ransacked by the soldiers of that parliament which 1 State Tr^ls, ii. 1136. 11 IS. II 16. Pari. Hist. i. I 117. Yonge'a D Rymer xviii. 791.; Erdeswyrice's StafTord&h. 71. ii 2 292 RANULPHE CREWE. Charles T. had made those measures the ostensible motive of the re- bellion.1 He died at his house in Westminster on January 13, 1646 ; and his remains, deposited in a stone coffin, on the lid of which his effigy is carved, were interred so late as the 5th of the following June, in a chapel he had erected in the church of Barthomley, the parish in which Crewe Hall is situate. As a lawyer he was learned and painstaking ; as a judge he was assiduous and patient ; of his honesty, independence, and integrity (so justly lauded by Mr. Hollis in parliament2), he gave the best proof that man can offer ; and of his elo- quence he has left a most favourable specimen, in his speech to the Lords on the titles of De Yere. After describing the 500 years of unbroken lineage in the family, he exclaimed : " I have laboured to make a covenant with myself that affec- tion may not press upon judgment ; for I suppose there is no man that hath any apprehension of gentry or nobleness, but his affection stands to the continuance of so noble a name and house, and would take hold of a twig or a twinethread to uphold it. And yet Time has his revolutions ; — there must be a period and an end of all temporal things — finis rerum, — an end of names and dignities, and whatsoever is terrene; and why not of De Vere ? For where is Bohun ? Where is Mowbray ? Where is Mortimer ? Nay, which is more and most of all, where is Plantagenet ? They are entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality. And yet let the name and dignity of De Vere stand so long as it pleaseth God!"3 By his first wife, who died in 1623, he left a son, Clipsby Crewe, whose grandson dying without issue, his sister (mar- ried to John Offley, Esq., of Madeley in Staffordshire) suc- ceeded to the inheritance. Their son took the name of Crewe, and both he and his son and grandson represented their native 1 Barthomley, 238. 2 Rushworth, ii. App. 266. 3 Sir W. Jones's Reports, 101, 1625—1649. GEORGE CROKE. 293 county until 1806, when the latter was elevated to the peer- age by the title of Lord Crewe, of Crewe in Cheshire. His grandson now enjoys the title and estate. Sir Kanulphe married, secondly, another Juliana, daughter of Edward Fusey, of London, and relict of Sir Thomas Hesketh, Knt., by whom he had no children.1 CROKE, GEORGE. Just. C. P. 1625. Just. K. B. 1628. See under the Reign of James I. Sir George Croke was the third son of Sir John Croke of Chilton in Buckinghamshire and Elizabeth Unton ; and was seven years junior to his brother Sir John Croke the judge in the last reign, being born about 1560. He received the rudiments of his education at the school at Thame founded by Lord Williams, and completed it at Christ Church College, Oxford, where he was admitted in 1575. In the same year on February 7 th, he was entered of the Inner Temple, where, having been called to the bar in Hilary Term, 1584, he be- came a bencher on November 5, 1597, was appointed autumn reader in 1599, and again in Lent, 1618, having in the in- terim, in 1609, filled the office of treasurer.2 He commenced his parliamentary career in 1597 as member for Berealston. Though not mentioned in his own Reports as an advocate till Michaelmas 1588, he had commenced his collections for them seven years before ; showing an early devotion to the practical part of his profession. He did not attain legal honours, however, till four years after his brother's death, when he was made serjcant at law and king's serjeant nearly at the same time; his writ being dated in June 1623, and his inauguration taking place in the following Michaelmas. King James knighted him on the occasion. Long before this period 1 Barihomley, 239. Dugdtto'a Orig. 167. 171. 294: GEORGE CROKE. Charles I. his professional profits were so considerable as to enable him in 1615 to purchase the estate of Waterstock in Oxfordshire of Sir William Cave; and Studley Priory in 1621 of his nephew. Judge Whitelocke, in his diary, says that he did not receive the coif sooner, because he refused to give money ; and offence was taken at his saying he thought " it was not for the King:" — so common it was in those days to pay for honours, and so large a part of these unholy payments were known to be appropriated by those about the court. He had not been eighteen months a serjeant ere he was raised to the bench on February 1 1, 1625, as a justice of the Common Pleas, in the place of Sir Humphry Winch.1 In six weeks the death of James I. occurred, when his patent was renewed by King Charles; who, on October 9, 1628, re- moved him to the court of King's Bench on the death of Sir John Doderidge. He had no successor in the Common Pleas ; the opportunity being taken to reduce the judges from five, to which they had been increased by James I., to the original number of four.2 The twelve years that he sat there were those that im- mediately preceded the great Rebellion ; which the courts of justice were greatly instrumental in hastening. They were used as tools to enforce the unconstitutional behests of the crown, which by the subservient decisions of the judges were declared to have the force of law. This servile spirit did not extend over the whole bench, and Sir George Croke was one of the minority, whom neither the threats of power nor the hopes of favour could induce to swerve from the dictates of conscience. He was the only judge of the King's Bench excepted in the vote of the House of Commons from responsibility for delaying justice towards Selden, Hollis, and the other members of parliament who were committed to the Tower for their speeches there ; and in the great case of 1 Croke, Jac. 700. 2 Ibid. Car. 127. 1625—1649. GEORGE CKOKE. 295 ship-money, though he had been induced in the first instance to join the rest of the judges, for the sake of conformity, in signing an abstract opinion declaring its legality, yet when it came judicially before him in Hampden's case, he, in opposi- tion to the majority, gave judgment against the crown ; and in this courageous conduct he was imitated by Sir Richard Hutton, Sir Humphrey Davenport, and Sir John Denham. The decision against Hampden was pronounced on June 12, 1638 ; and all the concurring judges were impeached for high treason by the Long Parliament in December, 1640. About this time Sir George, being then eighty years old, had peti- tioned to be relieved from his duties, and had received from the king a dispensation from his attendance in court or on the circuit; his judicial title, salary, and allowances being continued to him. The ostentatious disavowal in the instru- ment that this dispensation was not granted " out of any our least displeasure conceived against him," looks somewhat as if the request which occasioned it was dictated by the court on conditions with which the judge was not unwilling to comply. It has been supposed that Fuller attributed to Sir George's conduct in regard to ship-money the saying " by hook or by crook ; " but it is evident that the humorous author only jocularly applies a well-known expression of the time ; which is of far greater antiquity, and is derived from an old custom that prevailed in the forests, of taking such wood as could be obtained by hook or by crook. Early in Charles's reign one Nicholas Jeoffes was indicted and fined in the King's Bench, for writing a petition wherein he said that the judge was a traitor.1 Sir George retired to his estate at Waterstock, where lie spent the remainder of his life. He died on February 16, 1641-2, in the 82nd year of his age, and was buried at Waterstock, under a monument on which he is represented 1 Uusliwoith, ii. App. 271. U 4 296 GEORGE CROKE. Charles I. in his judicial robes, with an inscription commemorative of his private virtues and public patriotism, which, unlike the usual language of epitaphs, was acknowledged both by con- temporaries and posterity to be a faithful picture of his cha- racter. His learning as a lawyer and his bearing as a judge are well described by his son-in-law, Sir Harbottle Grimston, in the preface to his Reports, which were not published till after his death. They were originally written by Sir George in the Norman-French language, but were translated by Sir Harbottle into English ; and they consist of three volumes, one being appropriated to each of the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles. The cases commence with the 24th year of the former reign, and end with Michaelmas Term in the 16 th of the latter, being the date of his retirement from the court ; thus comprehending a period of sixty years, and affording an example of persevering industry not to be equalled. In the abbreviated language of the courts they are referred to, as Cro. Eliz., Cro. Jac, and Cro. Car., and are always quoted with respect for their learning and accuracy. At Studley he erected a chapel in his mansion house, and settled a stipend of 207. a year for a clergyman to preach there ; and he founded an almshouse for four poor men and four poor women, with excellent regulations, which are still maintained. He gave also 1007. to the library of Sion Col- lege. He married Mary, the daughter of Sir Thomas Bennet, who was lord mayor of London in 1 James I., and whose brother Richard was ancestor to the noble houses of Arlington and Tankerville. This lady is said to have encouraged and con- firmed her husband in his resolution not to be influenced by the persuasions of the king's friends to give a judgment in the case of ship-money contrary to conscience. She survived him fifteen years, and died December 1, 1657. By her he had one son and three daughters. The son, Thomas, died 1625—1649. HUMPHREY DAVENPORT. 297 cither before or immediately after the father, without issue. The eldest daughter, Mary, married Sir Harbottle Grimston, bart., who will be mentioned as master of the Rolls in the reign of Charles II. The second, Elizabeth, became the wife, first of Thomas Lee, Esq., of Hartwell, Bucks, ancestor of Sir William Lee, chief justice of the King's Bench in the reign of George II. ; and, secondly, of Sir Richard Ingoldsby, a distinguished officer in Cromwell's army, but afterwards made knight of the Bath for his services in securing the restoration of Charles II. The third daughter, Frances, married Richard Jervois, Esq. The estate of Waterstock was left by the judge to his nephew, Dr. Henry Croke, the son of his brother Henry ; whose son, Sir George, one of the earliest members of the Royal Society, dying without male issue, it was sold to Sir Henry Ashurst. Studley was devised to his brother William, whose de- scendants still enjoy it.1 DAVENPORT, HUMPHREY. Just. C. P. 1630. Ch. B. E. 1631. Chester is the county that claims the birth of Sir Hum- phrey Davenport. He was the second son of William Davenport, of an ancient and genteel family settled at Brom- hall in Cheshire, by Margaret, daughter of Sir Richard Ash- ton, of Middleton in Lancashire. Born about 1566, he entered Balliol College in 1581, and, without taking a degree, then went to Gray's Inn to study the law ; where, passing through the regular course, he was called to the bar on November 21, 1590, and in Lent, 1613, became reader to this society.2 Ten years afterwards, having gained a con- 1 Sir Alex. Croke's Genealogical Hist, of the Croke Family. a Dugdale's Orig. 296. ; Gray's Inn Books. 298 HUMPHREY DAVENPORT. Charles I. siderable practice as a barrister, he took the degree of the coif in the great call of Serjeants in June, 1623 ; and, having been knighted by King James, he was created king's serjeant, shortly after King Charles's accession, on May 9, 1625. In this character he had to argue on the part of the crown in support of the detention of the members imprisoned for forcing the speaker to put a question at the close of, the last parlia- ment; and it is not to be wondered at that he did not make much of his argument.1 The prisoners refused to give sure- ties for their good behaviour in Michaelmas, 1629, and Davenport was relieved from all further anxiety in the case by being raised to the bench on February 2, 1630, as a judge of the Common Pleas. He had not sat there a year before he was called upon to fill the office of lord chief baron, to which he was nominated on January 10, 1631, as the suc- cessor of Sir John Walter, his patent being " durante bene placito," instead of " quamdiu se bene gesserit,'' as Sir John Walter's was.2 In the case of ship money, he gave his opinion assuming the king's power to impose it, but acquitting Hampden on a technical point, that the writ was not good in law.3 The majority of the judges having decided against Hampden, it became the duty of the lord chief baron, to whose court the cause properly belonged, to deliver the judgment, which after- wards, in the Long Parliament, was declared to be void. His equivocal opinion in favour of Hampden did not avail to prevent that parliament from condemning the support he had given to the king's illegal impositions. Articles of im- peachment against him were accordingly carried up to the House of Lords on July 6, 1641 4; and, in the conference between the two houses, Mr. Hyde (afterwards Lord Cla- rendon) opened those against him and Barons Trevor and 1 State Trials, iii. 250. 2 W. Jones's Rep. 230. ; Rymer, xix. 133. 254. 3 State Trials, iii. 1202. 4 Pari. Hist. 869. 1625—1649. JOHN DENHAM. 299 Weston.1 He was ordered to give 10,000/. bail for his ap- pearance. It is probable that he then withdrew himself alto- gether from the duties of his office, for on January 25, 1644, the king appointed Sir Richard Lane his successor. It is curious, however, that Sir Humphrey's patent of revocation is not dated till January 11 in the following year.2 The date of his death is not given. Fuller says he w had the reputation of a studied lawyer and upright person3;" and A. Wood states that " he was accounted one of the oracles of the law." 4 One of his sons, of the same name, was admitted at Gray's Inn in 1619. DENHAM, JOHN. B. E. 1625. See under the Reign of James I. The biographers of Sir John Denham, the poet, have been content with recording that he was the son of Sir John Den- ham, the judge, without tracing his lineage higher. Neither the father's admission at Lincoln's Inn, nor the inscription on his monument at Egham, supply the deficiency, except so far as a marginal note to the former intimates that his domicile was London. In the memoirs of the poet, the judge is de- scribed as of Little Horsely in Essex ; but whether that was a patrimonial, a purchased, or a rented property, is left in obscurity. He appears to have been a member first of Fur- nival's Inn, and then of Lincoln's Inn, to which he was admitted on August 19, 1577; and, having been called to the bar on June 29, 1587 5, to have been chosen reader of that society twenty years afterwards, in Lent, 1607.6 1 Wood's Ath. Oxon. iii. 1022. " Docquets, &c. Oxford. ■ Fuller's Worthies, i. 188. * Ath. Oxon. iii. 182. • Black Book, Line. Inn. v. 271. 407. Dugdftle'l Orig. 25 1. 300 JOHN DENHAM. Charles I. Eton College employed him as their counsel, and made him their steward; and in 1609 he was called serjeant, for the purpose of taking the post of lord chief baron of the Irish Exchequer, to which he was appointed on June 5, and was then knighted. From this office he was advanced within three years to that of lord chief justice of the King's Bench, in the same country. This he held for five years, and then exchanged it for a seat in the English Court of Exchequer, in the place of Baron Altham, receiving his patent on May 2, 1617.1 How well he performed his duties in Ireland may be judged from the address of Lord Chancellor Bacon to his successor, Sir William Jones, who is recommended to imitate " the care and affection to the commonwealth of Ireland, and the prudent and politic administration of Sir John Denham." 2 He was so good an (( administrator of the reve- nue " there, as Bacon calls him, that he set up the customs, which, bringing first only 500/., were let before his death for 54,0007. per annum.3 In the proceedings against his eminent eulogist, three years afterwards, he had the unpleasant duty of delivering the mes- sage of the lords to the fallen chancellor, requiring a special answer to the charges against him.4 In the case of ship money, he joined the other judges for the sake of conformity in the opinion they gave to the king in favour of its legality ; but on the hearing of the case against Hampden, he was absent during four days of the argument, and being sick and weak gave a short written judgment on May 28, 1638, in opposition to the king's claim.5 He lived only seven months after the unfortunate decision of the majority, and died on January 6, 1639, having sat on the judicial bench for thirty years, eight of them in Ireland, and twenty-two in England. 1 Law Off. of Ireland, 88. 141. 8 Bacon's Works (Montagu), vii. 264. 3 Ibid. 316. n. ; quoting Borlace's Reduction of Ireland, p. 200. 4 Pari. Hist. i. 1239. * State Trials, iii. 1201. 1625—1649. DUDLEY DIGGES. 301 He was buried at Egham in Surrey, where there is a monu- ment to him and his two wives. The second of these was Eleanor, the daughter of Sir Garrett Moore, first Viscount Drogheda, whom he married while chief justice of Ireland. The judge built the mansion called " The Place " at Egham ; but his estate was wasted in gambling by his only son, John Denham, equally celebrated as the author of u Cooper's Hill," and other poems, and as a loyal adherent of Kino* Charles through all his adversities. He was rewarded on the Restoration with the post of surveyor-general and the knighthood of the Bath, and died in 1668.1 DIGGES, DUDLEY. M. R. 1636. On the monument of Sir Dudley Digges, in the church of Chilham in Kent, there is a pedigree prepared by himself, which commences in the reign of Henry III. The first per- son named in it is " Joannes filius Rogeri de Mildenhall dic- tus Digge," who purchased property in Kent, and whose descendants are traced in regular succession down to Leonard, " insignem mathematicum," whose son Thomas, " mathemati- cum insignissimum," (buried in the church of St. Mary, Alder- manbury), was by Anne, the daughter of Sir Warham de Sentleger, father of Sir Dudley Digges. Both of these pro- genitors, so eminent for their mathematical studies, the result of which they gave to the world in many well-esteemed trea- tises, were resident at Digges Court, Barham in Kent, where Sir Dudley was born in 1583. At the age of fifteen he was entered a gentleman commoner of University College in Oxford, where he had for his tutor Archbishop Abbot, with whom he preserved a close intimacy during the remainder of his life, always calling him father ; and, says the archbishop, 1 Aubrey, ii. 320.; Collins's Peerage, ix. 17. ; Brit. Biog. v. 453. 302 DUDLEY DIGGES. Charles I. " I term his wife my daughter, his eldest son is my godson, and their children are, in love, accounted my grandchildren." l He took the degree of B. A. in 1601, and, in the multitudinous distribution of honours by King James, he was knighted soon after the accession, He was returned member for Tewkesbury to James's first parliament2, which met in March, 1604, and lasted till Feb- ruary, 1611 ; but he does not appear to have taken any part in its discussions. During this time he travelled abroad ; and was subsequently employed on a mission to the Hague, to ob- tain from Holland the restitution of some goods which had been intercepted in their voyage from the East Indies. Whether he then held any office at court is uncertain ; but he probably did so in October, 1615, when he deposed on the trial of Weston for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, that he was sent to Sir Thomas " by a privy counsellor, a great man " (the Earl of Somerset), and that the knight had im- parted to him his readiness to be employed in an embassy to Russia, to which the king had appointed him.3 There is no doubt, however, that he was a gentleman of the king's Privy Chamber in 1618, for he is so described in a commission of that date appointing him " ambassador to the Great Duke and Lord of all Russia, to treat concerning the renewing of the privileges of the king's subjects enjoyed in that dominion, and concerning the loan from the king to the duke." 4 Of this voyage, which was not improbably connected with the mission which Sir Thomas Overbury was imprisoned for refusing, and in which John Tradescant accompanied him as a naturalist, there is a MS. account preserved in the Ashmolean Museum.5 In the parliament that met, in January, 1621, which was so fatal to Lord Chancellor Bacon, Sir Dudley sat again for 1 State Trials, ii. 1472. 2 Pari. Hist. i. 974. 3 State Trials, ii. 916. 919. 4 Rymer, xvii. 257. 5 Notes and Queries, 1st Ser. iii. 392. 1625—1649. DUDLEY DIGGES. 303 Tewkesbury, and was one of the committee that brought for- ward the charges against the noble delinquent. His speeches in the first session had reference, principally, to subjects of trade and the customs. In one of them he accounts for the decay of the former by asserting that the merchants "give over their trade and turn usurers, as most of the aldermen of the city do." In the second and last session he was a more frequent speaker, but, except his declaration that, if Sir Edwin Sandys suffered for parliamentary business, " he must, if he died, say that of right we ought not to be punished for what we speak here other than by the house," he seems to have taken a moderate and conciliatory part. The king, however, thought otherwise, for though not included among the (( ill- tempered spirits " mentioned in his Proclamation on the Dis- solution, whom he committed to the Tower, Sir Dudley and a few others were punished by being sent into Ireland on a frivolous commission. They were dismissed from their penal employment on February 26, 1623, receiving each thirty- shillings a day for 124 days, from October 26, when they en- tered on their commission.1 Archbishop Abbot, in his narrative, says of Sir Dudley, that he had been " a great servant " of the Duke of Bucking- ham, who, he presumes, lost his friendship for some unworthy carriage offered to him. The archbishop also alludes to Sir Dudley being committed to the Fleet and kept there for seven or eight weeks, without any known reason for his impri- sonment.2 It is apparent that these two persons bore greiit ill-will towards each other, for Sir Dudley, in the second par- liament of Charles I. (1626), was one of the most active man- agers of the impeachment against the duke. In the conference with the Lords he made an eloquent introduction, " comparing England to the World ; the Commons to the Earth and Sea ; ' Pari. Hist. i. 1171. 1290. 1302. 1371.; Pell Etecoi - Uuslnvorth, i. 450. 304 DUDLEY DIGGES. Charles I. the King to the Sun ; the Lords to the Planets ; the Clergy to the Fire ; the Judges and Magistrates to the Air ; the Duke of Bucks to a blazing Star." In it, having made some allusion to the plaister administered to the late king, Buck- ingham endeavoured to fasten upon him expressions which were little less than treason to the present king ; and there- upon obtained his committal to the Tower. There was evi- dently a wilful misrepresentation of the words used, and on the murmured resentment of the Commons, Sir Dudley was released after three days' detention.1 In Charles's third parliament (1628) Sir Dudley was re- turned for the county of Kent, and took a prominent part in forwarding the Petition of Right, being appointed to open the conference with the Peers on the subject. The lord pre- sident in reporting to the House describes him as " a man of volubility and elegance of speech," and there is nothing in his address that takes it out of that category. At a late period, when the speaker (Sir John Finch) interrupted Sir John Elliot in his reflections on the duke, Digges exclaimed st unless we may speak of these things in parliament, let us arise and be gone, or sit still and do nothing." But in the intervening debates he showed a disposition to pursue tem- perate measures and to place confidence in the king.2 This parliament was angrily dissolved in March, 1629, and the next (which it was not Sir Dudley's fate to see) was not called until eleven years afterwards. In the interim, Sir Julius Caesar being a very old man, the reversion of his office of master of the Rolls had been granted to Sir Humphrey May, an old officer and constant supporter of the court, but he dying in fourteen months, and no vacancy occurring, the reversion had again become at the king's disposal. On the 29th of the following November (1630) it was given to Sir Dudley Digges, who, though a strenuous advocate for the 1 Whitelocke, 5. 2 Pari. History, ii. 254. 260. 277. 331. 402. 1625—1649. DUDLEY DIGGES. 305 liberty of the subject, yet had, since the death of his enemy the duke, shown no disposition to oppose government mea- sures, and had probably resumed his connection with the court. On obtaining this grant, he entered himself as a member of the Society of Gray's Inn, and, honoris causa, was immediately made a bencher. He had to wait for nearly five years and a half before Sir Julius Cassar died ; but in the meantime he was admitted one of the masters in Chan- cery on January 22, 1631.1 He thus had a slight oppor- tunity of acquiring some professional knowledge ; for neither he nor Sir Humphrey May, having never studied any branch of law, could from their legal experience found any claim to the judicial seat. On Sir Julius's death on April 18, 1636, Sir Dudley immediately acceded to the office 2 ; but of his proceedings in it, during the three years of his possession, there is no account. He died on March 18, 1639, and was buried at Chilham, the manor and castle of which he acquired by his marriage with Mary, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Sir Thomas Kempe of Ollantigh in the next parish. A. Wood says that the wisest men reckoned his death a public calamity, and gives him so splendid a character that, were it not taken verbatim from the epitaph on his tomb, he might rank high among the worthies of his age. It must, therefore, be re- ceived with some little qualification ; but there is no doubt he was intelligent, eloquent, and ready as a public man, and pious, amiable, and generous in his private life. He be- queathed 20/. a year for a running match at Old Wives Lees in Chilham, to be contested every 19th of May, by a young man and maiden of Faversham, and a young man and maiden of Chilham, the male and female winners of the race to re- ceive 10/. each. He charged forty acres of his lands in the parishes of Sheldwick and Preston, since called " the running 1 Hardy's Catalogue, 90. 2 Dugdale's Chron. Series. VOL. VI. X 306 JOHN DODERIDGE. Charles I. lands," with the payment. The day was kept as a holiday, and a great concourse of the gentry attended, during the whole of the last century, but the diversion has been discon- tinued under the unsociable fastidiousness of very recent times. He published "A Defence of Trade" during his life ; and was the author of " The Compleat Ambassador," printed after his death. The family was famous for literature. Besides his grandfather, his father and himself, his brother Leonard was an accomplished poet, and is connected with the memory of Shakespeare by his commendatory verses, which have been often reprinted. Sir Dudley's third son Dudley was also a good poet and linguist ; and in later times the elegiac poet, James Hammond, might claim a descent from his daughter Anne, who married William Hammond of St. Alban's Court, near Canterbury. Sir Dudley's grandson, Sir Maurice Digges, wTas created a baronet soon after the Restoration, but by his death without issue within the year (1666) the title became extinct.1 DODERIDGE, JOHN, Just. K. B. 1625. See under the Reign of James I. Devonshire was undoubtedly the native county of Sir John Doderidge ; but there is some uncertainty as to the place in it where he was born, and the parentage from which he sprang. The more received opinion is that he was the son of Richard Doderidge, an eminent merchant at Barnstaple, and Joan Badcock of South Moulton, and that he was born at Barn- staple in 1555. He was entered of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1572, and took the degree of B. A. four years after; and then he became a member of the Middle Temple. At both, his studies were so successful, that Fuller says " it was hard 1 Wood's Athen. Oxon. ii. 634. ; Fasti, i. 290. ; Hasted's Kent, vii. 265. 1625—1649. JOHN DODERIDGE. 307 to say whether he was better artist, divine, civil or common lawyer." Among his other pursuits history was a favourite one, and he joined the learned men who formed the nucleus of the Society of Antiquaries, then meeting at the Heralds' College in Derby House.1 In 1593 and 1602 he was selected by his inn to deliver lectures at New Inn. The subject of the last course was " advowsons and church livings," published after his death under the title of " A Compleat Parson." In the following year he was appointed Lent reader to his own society ; and on January 20, 1604, he was called to the degree of the coif, being at the same time nominated serjeant to Henry Prince of Wales. He had held this degree scarcely nine months when he was discharged from it on October 29, for the purpose of taking the office of solicitor-general. At this time he was the representative in parliament for Horsham in Sussex ; and was on the different committees relative to the disputed election for Buckinghamshire.2 After filling the office of solicitor-general nearly three years, during which he argued the famous case of the Post-nati3, he was induced on June 25, 1607, to resign it, and become prin- cipal serjeant to the king, in order that Bacon might be put into his place. For this accommodation he was knighted on July 5, with a promise of the first seat that should become vacant in the Court of King's Bench. This did not occur for the next five years; but at length on November 25, 1612, he received his patent as the successor of Sir Christopher Yel- verton.4 In that court he continued during the remainder of his life, being nearly thirteen years in James's reign, and above three in that of Charles. Three months after he had ascended the bench the vice- chancellor, the two proctors, and five academicians of Oxford, paid him the extraordinary honour of attending in Serjeants' 1 Reliq. Spelman, 69. ite Trials, ii. 96. 1 10. 8 State Trials, ii. .- ' Croke, .lac. x 2 308 JOHN DODERIDGE. Charles I. Inn hall and creating him master of arts. This degree was conferred upon him in so distinguished a manner, to show the gratitude of the university for his great exertions on their behalf in the legal questions lately agitated between them and the city. When the practice of privately interrogating the judges was adopted, Coke's resistance to which in Peacham's case was one cause of his dismissal, Bacon, in a letter to the king, says, " Mr. Solicitor came to me this evening and related to me that he had found Judge Doderidge very ready to give opinion in secret:"1 a course in which it is lamentable to think that most of his colleagues concurred. When King James was negotiating for his son's marriage with the Spanish princess, and was desirous of showing some leniency to the Catholics, Walter Yonge reports that " Judge Doderidge saith he thought they [the Judges] should find out a way by law to dispense with the Statute against recusancy."2 This spirit of accommodating their opinions to the royal wishes was further shown, when the Judges refused to admit Hampden and others to bail for refusing to subscribe to the late loan. On their being called before the House of Lords in April, 1628, to assign the reasons for their judgment, Judge Dode- ridge, though he attempted to justify the decision, seemed to acknowledge they had committed a mistake, by thus apologe- tically concluding: " omnia habere inmemoria, et in nullo errarc, divinum potius est quam humanum."3 This speech exhibits somewhat of the drivelling of an old and failing man ; but in it he says, " God knoweth I have endeavoured always to keep a good conscience;" — an assertion which is borne out by the general tenor of his life. In conversing on the belief then existing that some parties had given large sums to purchase places of judicature, he said, " That, as old and infirm as he • Bacon's Works (Montagu), xii. 125. 2 Yonge's Diary, 69. 3 Pari. Hist. ii. 291. -1649. JOHN DODERIDGE. 309 was, he would go to Tyburn on foot to see such a man hanged, that should proffer money for a place of that nature." He had the habit of shutting his eyes while sitting on the bench, for the purpose of concentrating his attention on the argu- ment, without being distracted by surrounding objects; and was thence jocularly called the Sleeping Judge. He survived his appearance in the House of Lords only five months, dying on September 13, 1628, at Forsters, near Egham in Surrey, and was buried in the Lady chapel in Exeter cathedral, where there is a stately monument erected to his and his wife's memory. Croke, in recording his death, describes him as " a man of great knowledge, as well in common law, as in other humane sciences, and divinity :"* and Fuller, another of his contem- poraries, says of him, " his soul consisted of two essentials, ability and integrity, holding the scale of Justice with so steady a hand, that neither love nor lucre, fear or flattery, could bow him on either side."2 But it must be acknowledged that in several instances he betrayed that subservience to the ruling powers, for which the j udicial bench was then remark- able. Anthony Wood, who lived shortly after him, shows that he had a high reputation for learning. He composed a variety of works, legal and antiquarian, none of which were published in his lifetime, and some of which still remain in manuscript. He was married three times. His first wife was a daugh- ter of Germin ; his second was a daughter of Cul- lum, of Canon's Leigh in Devonshire ; and the third was Dorothy, daughter of Sir Amias Bampfield, of North Molton, and widow of Edward Hancock, of Combe Martin, Esq. By the two former he had no issue, and by the latter only one son, who died before him. He was succeeded in his property by his brother, Pentecost Doderidgc, of Barnstaple, whose 1 Croke, Car. 127. 2 Fuller's Worthies, i. 282. X 3 310 JOHN FINCH. Charles I. son became recorder of that town, and edited one of his uncle's tracts concerning Parliament."1 FINCH, JOHN, Lord Finch of Fordwich. Ch. C. P. 1634. Lord Keeper 1640. This family originally bore the name of Herbert. It is said to have descended from Henry Fitz-Herbert, chamberlain to Henry I., and to have adopted the name of Finch in the reign of Edward I., being that of a manor in Kent, which came into their possession by a marriage with the daughter and heir of its lord. After a long train of succession, Sir Thomas Finch, in the reign of Queen Mary, married one of the coheirs of Sir Thomas Moyle, of Eastwell in Kent, and on his death by shipwreck in 6 Elizabeth, he left three sons. Through two of them his connection with the law is worthy of remark, for he had one son, two grandsons, one great- grandson, and one great-great-grandson, all eminent in West- minster Hall, besides two female descendants connected by marriage with lawyers equally illustrious. Sir Thomas's eld- est son was Sir Moyle Finch, whose fourth son, Sir Heneage, a serjeant at law, recorder of London, and speaker in the first parliament of Charles I., was father of Heneage, who became lord chancellor to Charles II., and was created Earl of Not- tingham. The earl's second son, Heneage, was solicitor-ge- neral to Charles II., and was ennobled by Queen Anne with the title of the Earl of Aylesford ; and his eldest daughter married the son and heir of Sir Harbottle Grimston, Bart., master of the Rolls. The addition of Hatton to the family name arose from the marriage of Daniel, the second Earl of Nottingham, with a descendant of Queen Elizabeth's lord chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton ; and one of this earl's daughters became the wife of the first Earl of Mansfield, 1 Wood's Ath. Oxon. ii. 425.; Prince's Worthies of Devon. 1625—1649. JOHN FINCH. 311 whose name as chief justice of England will not soon be for- gotten. Sir Thomas's son, Sir Henry Finch, was an eminent advocate, and one of King James's Serjeants, and by his wife Ursula, daughter and heir of John Thwaites, was the father of John, the subject of this article, who brought no credit to the name he bore. John Finch was born on September 17, 1584, and was admitted of the society of Gray's Inn in February, 1600. In his reply to Lord Keeper Coventry's speech on his instal- lation as lord chief justice, he gives this account of himself: " For the first six years bestowed by me in the books of law by some unhappy means I was diverted, and my resolution fitted in another way for foreign employment, to which after nine or ten years I was designed." Nearly twelve years elapsed before he was called to the bar, on November 8, 1611 ; but in six years more, assisted by the patronage of Lord Bacon, he became a bencher, and was chosen autumn reader in 1618.1 In the meantime he had been elected member for Canterbury in the second of James's parliaments, 1614 ; but neither in that nor in the succeeding parliaments of the reign is he mentioned as addressing the house. He wras chosen re- corder for the same city in 1617, and held that office till 1621 ; again representing it in the first three of Charles's par- liaments, of the last of which, meeting in March, 1628, he was chosen speaker. Clarendon says that he had " led a free life in a restrained fortune, and having set up upon the stock of a good wit and natural parts, without the superstructure of much knowledge in the profession by which he had to grow ; he was willing to use those weapons in which he had most skill."2 The first effect of his endeavours was his knight- hood ; the next his appointment as king's counsel, on March 1 Ilushworth, ii. 256.; Gray's Inn Books; Dugdale's Orig. 296. 3 Clarendon, i. I x 4 312 JOHN FINCH. Charles I. 17, 1626 ; and then followed his being made attorney-general to the queen on the 13th December in that year.1 In his address to the king on his being elected speaker, he showed some of the wit for which Clarendon gave him credit, and too much of the customary adulation. The liberty of the subject, which had been invaded by the imprisonment of those who refused to contribute to the loan, the many grievances under which the people suffered, the Petition of Bight, and the remonstrance against Tonnage and Poundage, were among the subjects which agitated this parliament. To avoid doing anything which might deprive him of the con- fidence of the Commons, or hazard the destruction of his hopes from the king, was, to a man of Finch's disposition, a difficult and delicate task. Through the first session he managed in his speeches to the throne to steer with tolerable safety ; and though, towards the end of it, he ran some risk by interrupting, " with tears in his eyes," a speaker who was about, as he supposed, to fall upon the Duke of Buckingham, and requesting to withdraw, he redeemed himself by bring- ing back a conciliatory message from the king, which elicited the declaration by another member, e ' Mr. Speaker, you have not only at all times discharged the duty of a good speaker, but of a good man."2 At the termination, however, of the second session he lost all credit with the house, and incurred their censure by his conduct. After delivering a message from the king, ordering an adjournment, he refused to read a remonstrance against Tonnage and Poundage, proposed by Sir John Elliott, and left the chair. Upon being forced to resume it, he had again recourse to tears, saying, " I am the servant of the house, but let not the reward of my service be my ruin .... I will not say I will not, but I dare not." Sir Peter Hayman, a kinsman and a neighbour, called him " the disgrace of his country, and a blot to a noble family." 1 Rymer, xviii. 633. 866. - Pari. Hist. ii. 222. 281. 346. 402. 406. 1625—1649. JOHN FINCH. 313 The door of the house was locked, the usher of the black rod denied admittance, and the speaker was compelled to keep his seat while the resolutions were passed. Eight days after, March 10, 1629, the king angrily prorogued the parliament1, which was not destined to meet again for eleven years, when Sir John Finch presided over the Lords instead of the Com- mons. As a sort of confutation to Mr. Prynn's " Histriomastix," the four inns of Court resolved to unite in presenting a masque for the entertainment of the king and queen, the pre- parations for which were conducted by a committee formed by members of each society. Its magnificence may be esti- mated by the cost, which was said to exceed 20,000/. ; and the performance, on Candlemas Day, 1634, was so successful, that when Sir John Finch, who managed on the part of Gray's Inn, returned thanks to their majesties for their ac- ceptance of it, they not only praised it highly, but, at the queen's request, the masque was repeated in her presence at Merchant Taylors' Hall, by the invitation of the lord mayor.2 But soon Sir John was to act a more prominent part. ]SToy, the attorney-general, who had invented or revived the tax called ship-money, died in the following August, before the writ for the imposition was issued; the removal of Sir Robert Heath from the chief justiceship of the Common Pleas, without any alleged cause, took place in September, and on the 14th of October (1634) Finch, to the surprise of all, received the latter appointment, having taken the coif a few days before.3 The writ for ship-money being issued six days after, naturally induced the public to associate the re- moval, the substitution, and the writ, as in some way con- nected together. Lord Clarendon says that Finch " took up 1 Pari. Hist. ii. 487—492. 2 Whitelocke's Mem. 19—22. 8 Croke, Car. 375. Dugdale, by mistake, makes him a puisne judge at this date. 314 JOHN FINCH. Charles I. ship-money where Noy left it, and, being a judge, carried it up to that pinnacle from whence he almost broke his own neck ; having in his journey thither had too much influence on his brethren to induce them to concur in a judgment they had all cause to repent." Though he denied having known of the writ at the time of his appointment, he acknowledged having collected his brethren's opinions on the subject ; and when the case of Hampden came under discussion, he gave so absolute an opinion in its favour, and contended so strenu- ously against the argument of his brother judges, Hutton and Croke, that he confirmed the general feeling that he was elevated to the bench for the purpose of carrying through the obnoxious impost ; and, as Lord Clarendon says, by the judgment he delivered he made it " much more abhorred and formidable" than before.1 On his appointment in the place of Heath, and Sir John Banks succeeding Noy as attorney-general, the following spe- cimen of bar wit was circulated : — Noy's flood is gone, The Banks appear ; Heath is shorn down And Finch sings here.2 The prejudice against him was in no degree diminished by his heartless remark, when Mr. Prynn was brought up for sentence upon his second libel, " I had thought Mr. Prynn had no ears, but methinks he hath ears." Thus noticed, the hair was turned back, and the clipped members exposed; "upon the sight whereof the lords were displeased they had been formerly no more cut off." And the consequence was, that the unfortunate gentleman was condemned to lose the re- mainder, which was done so cruelly and closely, that a piece of his cheek was cut off with it.3 1 State Trials, iii. 1216.; Clarendon, 2 Wood's Athen. ii. 584. 127. 130. 8 State Trials, iii. 717. 749. 1625—1649. JOHN FINCH. 315 His conduct in the circuit in Eyre, when he is charged with extending the boundaries of the forest in Essex, and annihi- lating the ancient perambulations, excited the hatred and sus- picion of the people 1 ; and the feeling was confirmed by his subsequent declaration that an order of the Lords of the Council " should be always ground enough for him to make a decree in Chancery."2 Finch's unpopularity in the kingdom tended to advance his favour with the king, and accordingly within three days after Lord Coventry's death, he was appointed lord keeper 3, and on January 23, 1640, was sworn in court. He opened the parliament that met on April 1 3 (having been previously ennobled, on the 7th of that month, with the title of Baron Finch, of Fordwich in Kent) with a fulsome speech, in which, alluding to the royal condescension in calling them together, he says, that the king " is now pleased to lay by the shining beams of Majesty, as Phoebus did to Phaeton, that the distance between sovereignty and subjection should not barr you of that filial freedom of access to his person and counsels." His Majesty, however, felt it necessary to resume his beams in less than three weeks, and hastily dismissed the assembly on May 5. In the meantime the Commons had visited the lord keeper with a vote, declaring that his conduct as speaker at the close of the last parliament was a breach of privilege 4 ; and the offence was not forgotten when the king was compelled to summon a new parliament in the following November. Lord Finch, finding by the resolution then passed by the Commons against ship-money and those who advised it, that preparations were making for proceeding against him per- sonally, applied to the house, desiring to be heard in his own defence before it came to a vote ; and his request being granted, he delivered, on December 2 1 , an artful and inge- 1 Tail. Hist. ii. 095. 2 Clarendon, i. 131. 8 Rymer, xx. 3G4. ' Pari. Hist. iii. 528. 552. 571. 316 JOHN FINCH. Charles I. nious speech in his own vindication. But notwithstanding his grace of elocution, the Commons were not to be diverted from their purpose, a vote being immediately passed for his accusation before the Lords, and a demand of his committal. On the following morning the message was delivered; but his Lordship had taken advantage of the interval to escape, and, first sending the Great Seal to the king, to sail for Holland. The articles against him were introduced to the Lords by Lord Falkland, and charged him with endeavouring to sub- vert the fundamental laws of England, and to introduce an arbitrary tyrannical government against law ; and compre- hended, besides others, his refusal to put the question as speaker; his soliciting the judges' opinions on ship-money when chief justice; and his framing and advising the king's declaration after the dissolution of the last parliament.1 From a passage in Lord Clarendon's work, originally sup- pressed, it appears that many of the ascendant party were not desirous of urging the charges against Lord Finch to ex- tremity 2 ; and their refraining from pressing for any further proceedings on the impeachment seems to warrant the assertion. His lordship remained quietly at the Hague, and the governing powers were content with receiving from him a composition of 7000/. 3 It does not appear when he returned to England, but he received two affectionate letters from Queen Henrietta Maria, in 1640, and Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, in 1655, showing their continued interest in him.4 On Charles II. 's return to his throne, Finch was named in the commission for the trial of the regicides in October, 1660. Sir Orlando Bridgman, the lord chief baron, presided, but when Thomas Harrison in his defence asserted that the authority under which he acted was not usurped, but that it " was done rather in the fear of the Lord," he was interrupted by Lord Finch, who said, 1 Pari. Hist. iii. 686—698. ; Clarendon i. 310. 2 Clarendon, i. 525. 3 State Trials, iv. 18. * Archaeologia, xxi. 474. 1625—1649. JOHN FINCH. 317 u Though my lords here have been pleased to give you a great latitude, this must not be suffered, that you should run into these damnable excursions, to make God the author of this damnable treason committed." In two or three of the other trials he also made some remarks.1 Pie was then in his seventy-seventh year, which he did not live to complete, dying a month after on November 20, 1660. He was buried in the ancient church of St. Martin near Canterbury, in which parish his paternal seat, called the Moat, was situate ; and a splendid monument to his memory was erected there by his widow. However highly Lord Finch's talents and eloquence may have been spoken of, few have ventured to bear testimony to his independence as a judge or his wisdom as a statesman ; and the general character that has with apparent truth been assigned to him is that of an unprincipled lawyer and a time- serving minister. He was twice married : first to Eleanore, daughter of Sir George Wyat of Boxley in Kent ; and secondly to Mabella, daughter of Charles Fotherby, dean of Canterbury. As he left only a daughter (married to Sir George Radcliffe of the Privy Council of Ireland), the title became extinct.2 FOSTER, ROBERT. Just. C. P. 1640. See under the Reign of Charles II. GATES, THOMAS. Paul. B. E. 1648. See under the Interregnum. 1 State Trials, v. 986. 1025. 1045. 1067. ■ Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 448. ; Habted's Kent, xi. 162. 318 JOHN GODBOLT. Charles I. GODBOLT, JOHN. Parl. Just. C. P. 1647. About 1604, the principal of Barnard's Inn gave a certifi- cate to "the right worshipful the readers of Gray's Inn" that John Godbold of Toddington, Suffolk, was " admitted into the fellowship of Barnard's Inn the second day of May, and hath ever since his admittance very honestly and orderly used and behaved himself in the said house, and is a very good student, and hath done his exercises in learning for himself and others." ! This, no doubt, was preliminary to his admission into Gray's Inn, which took place on November 16, 1604 ; where after the usual seven years' study, he was called to the bar, and in due time took his place at the bench table. He was elected reader there in autumn, 1627 2; and soon ap- pears in Croke's Reports with considerable practice. He received the dignity of the coif at the great call in 1636 ; and it must have been from his professional reputation, for there is no account of his interfering in the political troubles of the time, that, when the parliament took upon them to appoint the judges, he was selected by them to fill a vacant seat in the Common Pleas. This occurred on April 30, 1647 3, and he was immediately added to the commission to hear causes in Chancery.4 He did not long retain his place, but died in the middle of the following year 5, the last case in his collec- tion of Reports (published soon after his death) being decided on June 16, 1648. In 1684, one of his descendants lived at Hatfield-Peverell in Essex, but the family appears to be now extinct.6 1 Barnard's Inn Book, ii. 6. 2 Dugdale's Orlg. 296. 8 Whitelocke, 245. 4 Journals. 8 Woolrych's List, 44. G Grandeur of the Law, 1684. 1625—1649. FRANCIS IIARVEY. 319 GREY, HENRY, Earl of Kent. Parl. Com. G. S. 1643. 1648. See under the Interregnum. GREY, WILLIAM, Lord Grey de Werke. Parl. Com. G. S. 1648. See under the Interregnum. HARVEY, FRANCIS. Just. C. P. 1625. See under the Reign of James I. The descendants of Sir Francis Harvey towards the end of the seventeenth century were residents in Suffolk1; but whether that was the native county of the judge does not appear. He is said to have commenced his legal studies at Barnard's Inn ; he completed them at the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar of the latter society, of which he became reader in autumn, 16 ll.2 Croke reports his name as an advocate in 1604; and on December 1, 1612 (at which time he resided at Northampton), he was chosen recorder of Leicester, with a fee of 51. a year, and 20s. at every assize, with all his charges borne when he visited the borough on business.3 He attained the degree of the coif in Michaelmas, 1614; and on October 18, 1624, he was constituted a judge of the Common Pleas, on Sir W. Jones's removal from that court to the King's Bench. On one of his circuits he fined a whole jury 10Z. apiece for giving perverse and wrongful acquittals in four different criminal cases ; and in another, he showed some indignation on hearing an assize sermon at Norwich, in which the preacher alluded to the corruption of judges, say- 1 Grandeur of the Law (16H1). 8 Dugdale'fl Orig. _'l!». '222. 8 Rous's Diary, 24, 62. 320 ROBERT HEATH. Charles I. ing in his charge to the grand jury, " It seems by the sermon we are all corrupt, but know that we can use conscience in our places as well as the best clergyman of all."1 He re- mained in that court till his death, which took place at Northampton in August, 1632.2 The Francis Harvey, who was treasurer of the Middle Temple in 1667, was probably his son. HEATH, ROBERT. Ch. C. P. 1631. Just. K. B. 1641. Ch. K. B. 1642. " Uppon the 20th day of May in the year 1575," says the chief justice in a short memoir of his life written a few months before his death, " I was borne at Brastid in Kent, of Robert Heath, gent., my father, and Jane his wife, my mother ; " who was daughter and coheiress of Nicholas Poner.3 Hasted says he was descended out of Surrey from John Heath of Limpsfield.4 He received the rudiments of his education at the free grammar school of Tunbridge, and at the age of fourteen was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he remained for three years. He was then admitted of Clifford's Inn, and at eighteen he removed to the Inner Temple, where after ten years' study he was called to the bar in 1603. In 1607 he was selected by his society to be reader of Clifford's Inn, and having performed that duty for two years, and acted as a practising barrister for several years more, he became a bencher of the Inner Temple in 1610, filling the post of reader there in the autumn in the next year, and that of treasurer in 1625.5 Of his studies or convictions during the greater part of this period no account is given. He had the fortune to be a 1 Borough MSS. Leicester. 2 Croke, Car. 268. 3 Presented by Evelyn Philip Shirley, Esq., to the Philo-Biblion Society. 4 Hasted's Kent, iii. 152. 5 Dugdale's Orig. 167. 171. 1625—1649. ROBERT HEATH. 321 favourite of the favourite, Buckingham, for whose use he re- ceived by patent the profits of the King's Bench office ; and thus ingratiated himself with the frequenters of the court. On the death of Richard Martin the recorder of London he was put up in opposition to James Whitelocke, and through the king's influence elected on November 10, 1618. This in- terference of the king did not, however, lessen <( the especial love and favour" of the aldermen, for they, on his being chosen reader of his inn in the following July, presented him with 100/., two hogsheads of claret, and one pipe of canary.1 The same patronage no doubt procured his nomination as solicitor- general on January 22, 1621 ; on which occasion he resigned the recordership, but was elected by the citizens to represent them in the parliament of that year. In it he was a frequent debater, trying to accommodate matters for the king, who knighted him, and retained him in his office during the rest of his reign. Soon after Charles's accession, Heath on October 31, 1625, was promoted to the attorney-generalship. In the following May he had to bring articles of impeachment against the Earl of Bristol 2, in the nature of a cross-bill to the charges which the earl had made against the Duke of Buckingham, who at the same time was also impeached by the House of Commons. All these proceedings were stopped by the sudden and intem- perate dissolution of the parliament. In the next year he had the invidious task of opposing the release of the knights who, having refused to contribute to the loan, had been committed to prison ; and in this difficult duty he displayed much learn- ing, ingenuity, and eloquence. In 1628, when the judges' refusal to bail or discharge them was taken up by parliament, Sir Robert Heath had again almost single-handed to maintain the argument against antagonists so powerful as Sir Edward Coke, Littelton, Selden, and Noy; and he did it with such 1 City List of Recorders. - Pari. Hist. ii. 80. VOL. VI. Y 322 ROBERT HEATH. Charles I. ability and courage, that though defeated he lost no credit by his exertions.1 The violent termination of this parliament in March, 1629, and the imprisonment of the members who for- cibly detained the speaker in the chair at its close, led to other proceedings in which Sir Robert Heath took a very prominent part. By the king's command, he obtained private opinions of the judges upon certain abstract questions ; and upon the answers he obtained filed informations against the offending members; and, on their refusing to plead, judgment of fine and imprisonment was pronounced against them. When the conduct of the judges in this matter came to be canvassed by the Long Parliament, Sir Robert Heath seems almost to have escaped censure, as merely performing the duty which de- volved upon him as the servant and advocate of the crown. In the exercise of his functions as attorney-general he was so zealous and active a partisan of the court, that the king could not but appreciate his services. On the death of Sir Nicholas Hyde, and Sir Thomas Richardson being constituted chief justice of the King's Bench in his room, Sir Robert was pro- moted to the vacant office of chief justice of the Common Pleas on October 26, 1631 2, having been two days before in- vested with the coif ; giving rings with the equivocal motto — " Lex Regis, vis Legis." The principal public act recorded while he was chief justice of the Common Pleas was the prosecution in the Star Cham- ber against Henry Sherfield for breaking a superstitious glass window in the church of Sarum, when, though it had been instituted while he was attorney-general, on information, as he stated, that the cause was much fouler than it appeared, he advocated a lenient sentence in opposition to Laud and other members of the council.3 This was in February, 1633, and on September 14, 1634, he was discharged from his place 1 State Trials, iii. 30. 133. 2 Rymer, xix. 346. 3 State Trials, iii. 540. 1625—1649. ROBERT HEATH* 323 without any cause being assigned. His removal may perhaps owe its origin to his opposition to Laud, and his disinclination to the extreme views which that prelate adopted in ecclesias- tical matters. Hacket seems to insinuate as much when de- scribing Laud's prosecution of Bishop Williams. He says : " Sir Robert Heath was displaced, and for no misdemeanour proved ; but it was to bring in a successor, who was more for- ward to undo Lincoln, than ever the Lord Heath was to pre- serve him."1 It was generally believed, however, that the ques- tion of ship-money, the writs to collect which were issued four days after the appointment of Sir John . Finch as Heath's successor, had some connection with the change.2 Anthony Wood, in his account of Noy, casually says that Sir Robert Heath was " removed from the Chief Justiceship of the King's Bench for bribery"3; but in his account of Heath himself he alludes in no way to his dismissal, and makes such mistakes in the courts to which he was appointed as to deprive his re- cord of any value.4 Whitelocke, who was not his friend, would not have omitted all notice of his removal could he have alleged such an imputation as the cause. Upon the foundation of Wood's loose statement merely, for no other can be cited, Lord Campbell makes this assertion : " The truth seems to be, that he [Heath] continued to enjoy the favour and confidence of the Government, but that a charge had been brought against him of taking bribes, which was so strongly supported by evidence, that it could not be over- looked, although no parliament was sitting, or ever likely to sit ; and that the most discreet proceeding, even for himself, was to remove him quietly from his office."5 Historians will be anxious for information of his lordship's authority for this statement ; fur they will be unwilling to suppose it to be 1 Hacket't Bp Williams, ii, 118. - Ruabwortb, ii Wood's Athen. Ozon. ii. 4 Woo ii. \B 6 Lord Campbell's Cb. Justices, i. 415, 324 ROBERT HEATH. Charles I. gratuitous scandal, although it seems to be contradicted by the very act of the government that displaced him. In the next term after he was ousted from the bench he resumed his practice at the bar as junior serjeant1, a privilege that the king would scarcely have granted, or that the fallen judge would have had the effrontery to ask, if his disgrace had been so notorious " that it could not be overlooked." That he was actually replaced on the bench, when the " parliament was sitting," — a parliament, too, that was ready enough to find any blot in the king's appointments, — sufficiently shows the inconsistency of the charge. The chief justice himself says, in his memoir before cited, written wThen he was in sorrow, and just before his own death : " At the end of three years, I was on a sudden discharged of that place of chief justice, noe cause being then nor at any time since shewed for my re- moval."2 Not only was he allowed to practise, but in little more than two years he was again taken into the service of the crown, his patent as king's serjeant being dated October 12, 1636.3 He is mentioned in that character not only in Croke's Re- ports, but in the government prosecution of the Rev. Thomas Harrison for falsely accusing Mr. Justice Hutton with high treason.4 He continued at the bar for four years more, when he was replaced on the judicial seat on January 23, 1641, as a judge of the King's Bench, in the place of Sir William Jones ; and was further favoured, on May 13, with the office of master of the Court of Wards and Liveries.5 When the king retired to York, Sir Robert joined him there, and on June 10, 1642, addressed a letter to the House of Lords, in- forming them that he had " left the Parliament to go to the king at York as by oath and duty bound : " whereupon they • Croke, Car. 375. 2 Memoir, p. 21. 3 Dugdale's Chron. Series. 4 State Trials, iii. 1371. 5 Rymer, ux. 448, 517. 1625—1649. ROBERT HEATH. 325 resolved to the contrary, and that his staying at the parlia- ment, being sent for from them, was not against his oath.1 On February 7, 1643, he was created doctor of civil law by the university of Oxford ; and on Sir John Bramston's removal, the king, being then in that city, appointed Sir Robert chief justice of the King's Bench in his place. Dugdale inserts the date as October 31, 1643, on the authority of the memo- randa of the clerk of the Crown, which cannot be supposed to have been kept very regularly in such disturbed times ; but the appointment must have taken place some months before, a letter being extant from the king to him as chief justice, dated Oxford, " the fourth day of July in the nineteenth yeare of our raigne " (1643), authorising him in the summer assizes "to forbear those places whither you conceave you may not goe, with convenient safety."2 Clarendon says that Bramston was removed because he stood bound by recogni- sance to attend the parliament upon an accusation depending there against him3: and this is confirmed by the "Auto- biography of Sir John Bramston," published by the Camden Society (p. 87), which fixes the date in October, 1642. Several complaints were made to the parliament against Chief Justice Heath and other judges who acted with him on the circuit. First, for indicting the Earl of Northumber- land and other peers and members of the House of Commons for high treason at Salisbury, when the bill was not found ; and next, for condemning Captain Turpin, a sea-officer, on a similar charge at Exeter, where he was executed in pursuance of his sentence. On these charges, and for adhering to the king, then in arms against the parliament, the Commons im- peached them on July 24, 1644; but as the chief justice never put himself in their power, he escaped trial. This, however, did not prevent the:n from venting their enmity. 1 Parry's Parliaments. Otea ami Queries, 1st S. xii. '259. 3 Clarendon, iii y :i 326 ROBERT HEATH. Charles I. On November 25, 1645, they passed an ordinance disabling him and four others from being judges, " as though they were dead;" and by another vote of October 24, 1648, they ordered that he should be excepted from pardon.1 His estate was sequestered, but was recovered by his son Edward at the Restoration. According to his own relation, the parliament gave him liberty "either to exile himself into a foreign country, or to run the hazard of further danger." 2 Of course he never took his seat as chief justice in Westminster Hall ; and the prothonotaries of the King's Bench, Henley and Whit- wick, took advantage of the distractions of the times to appro- priate to themselves the fees received for his use. They were brought to account by the chief justice's son in 1663, when, notwithstanding they pleaded the Statute of Limitations, they were forced by a decree in Chancery to refund the whole amount.3 Sir Robert fled into France in 1646, and survived his royal master just seven months, dying at Calais on August 30, 1649. His body was brought to England and entombed with that of his wife, who died nearly two years before him, under a stately monument in Brasted church. Among his papers, now in the possession of his noble de- scendant, has been found a jeu-d'esprit on the twenty -four links of the collar of SS., each link representing some judicial attribute commencing with the letter S. It is wholly in his handwriting, and was probably composed as an amusement of his exile. It not only shows great ingenuity, but exhibits in the strongest light with what solemn responsibility the writer regarded the qualifications, the virtues, and the duties of a judge.4 His short memoir also, written undoubtedly during his exile, gives pleasing evidence of an amiable and pious 1 Whitelocke, 78. 96. 181. 345.; Pari. Hist. iii. 285. » Memoirs, 22. 3 W. Nelson's Reports, 75. 4 Notes and Queries, 1st S. x. 357. 1625—1649. EDWARD HENDEN. 327 mind. It records that he married his wife on December 10, 1600, while yet a student, and that they had had a happy union of forty-seven years. She was Margaret, the daughter of John Miller, and by her he left one daughter, married to Sir William Morley, and five sons, Edward, John, George, Robert, and Francis. Some of his descendants became emi- nent in the law, among whom was Sir John Heath, of Brasted, attorney-general of the Duchy of Lancaster, whose daughter and heir, Margaret, married George Verney, fourth Lord Willoughby de Broke, and was the mother of the Hon. John Verney, master of the Rolls in the reign of George II., the grandfather of the present baron.1 HENDEN, EDWARD. B. E. 1639. The old Kentish family of the Hendens is supposed to have originally resided on an estate bearing its name in the parish of Woodchurch in Kent. At a much later period the mem- bers of a branch of it lived at Benenden in its neighbourhood, and were clothiers there, in great repute. Sir Edward Hen- den, the baron, was descended from this branch, and pur- chased and settled at Biddenham-place in the same locality. He possessed also several manors in the county, and con- siderable property in and about Maidstone. He was entered of Gray's Inn on April 27, 1586, and after passing through his legal studies there, his name appears as reader in Lent, 16 14.2 In Michaelmas, 1616, he was called to the degree of the coif. For the two and twenty years he was a serjeant he had an extensive practice, and earned so good a reputation as a lawyer that he was selected on January 22, 1639, to succeed Sir John Denham as a baron of the Exchequer *, on which occasion he was knighted. 1 Memoir; Wood's Fasti, ii. 45.; Collin's Peerage, vi. 701. 8 Dugdale's Orig. 89 a Kymur, xx. 306. r 4 328 HENRY HOBART. Charles I. When the parliament entered the field against the king they passed an ordinance assessing all who had not volun- tarily contributed to the army, in such sum as the committee meeting at Haberdashers' Hall should deem reasonable, not exceeding a twentieth part of their estate. In December, 1643, the Commons applied to the Lords to rate Baron Henden, as an assistant to their Lordships ; who accordingly assessed him at 2000Z. for the twentieth part of his estate, to be employed for the defence of Poole and Lyme. The baron not obeying this order, the house, on the 23rd of the same month, directed proceedings against him, but as he was ill at the time it seems that they were not then taken, and that he died very shortly afterwards ; the petition of his nephew and executor, on the 21st of the following February, being re- ferred to the committee to do therein as they should think fit to end the business.1 He was buried in the chancel of Bid- denham church. Leaving no children, he bequeathed the bulk of his property to his nephew. Sir John Henden, whose descendants continued to reside in the mansion at Biddenham till it was alienated in the reign of George I.2 HOBART, HENRY. Ch. C. P. 1625. See under the Reigns of James I. Henry VII.'s attorney-general, Sir James Hobart, was the great grandfather of this chief justice. He belonged to a family of ancient descent in Suffolk and Norfolk. His second son, Miles Hobart, who was seated at Plumsted in the latter county, died, leaving two sons, Thomas and John ; the former of whom succeeded to the Plumsted estate, and mar- 1 Lords' Journals, vi. 324. 328. 346. 350. 436. 2 Hasted's Kent, iv. 311., vii. 132. 139. 175. 230., viii. 496. Hasted says that he died in 1662 ; hut this is clearly a mistake. 1625—1649. HENRY HOB ART. 329 ried Audrey, daughter and heir of William Hare of Beeston in Norfolk, Esq. By her he had two sons, Sir Miles and Sir Henry, the subject of the present sketch. Henry having been admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn on August 10, 1575, was after a rather lengthened course, called to the bar on June 24, 1584. l In 1595 he was steward of Norwich2, and in 1597 was returned to parlia- ment as the representative for Yarmouth ; for which place and for Norwich, he had a seat on several succeeding occa- sions. In 1591 he became a governor of his Inn, and reader there in Lent, 1608; an honour which was repeated two years afterwards, on the occasion of his being called serjeant by Queen Elizabeth ; but, in consequence of her death, he was included in a new writ by King James.3 Having being knighted on the occasion, he was made at- torney of the Court of Wards in 1605, being first exonerated from the degree of the coif ; and on July 4, in the next year, he was created attorney-general, on the elevation of Sir Edward Coke. This office he held for above seven years, to the annoyance of Bacon, who served under him for six of them, and longed by his removal to take another step in pro- motion. Henry, Prince of Wales, made him his chancellor. In the case of the Post-nati, he of course took the part of the plaintiff4; and in the complaint raised by the Commons against Dr. CowePs book, claiming the superiority of the civil to the common law, it is stated that Sir Henry " did very modestly and discreetly lay open the offence of the party and the dangerous consequence of the book."5 Modesty seems to have been his characteristic ; and though a very learned, he was not by any means a sparkling lawyer. On the death of Sir Thomas Fleming the chief justice of the 1 Black Book, v. 199. 359 2 Blomelield's Norwich, i. 359. 3 Dugdale's Orig. 254, 202. * State Trials, ii. 009. 4 Pari. Hist. ii. 1121. 330 HENRY HOB ART. Chaiiles I. King's Bench, when Bacon cunningly recommended that Coke should be removed to that court from the Common Pleas, and that the attorney should succeed to the latter, in order that he himself might be promoted to the attorneyship, he gives this account of Sir Henry : « i The attorney sorteth not so well with his present place, being a man timid and scrupulous both in parliament and other business; and one that, in a word, was made fit for the late treasurer (Salis- bury's) bent, which was to do little, with much formality and protestation."1 Hobart accordingly received the appoint- ment of chief justice of the Common Pleas on November 26, 1613. He presided in that court with great credit as a sound lawyer and upright judge for twelve years, and with so little imputation on his honesty and independence, as to form one of the exceptions to the general subserviency of the bench. In delivering judgment against Wraynham for slandering Lord Bacon in a libel addressed to the king, he acknow- ledges the right of the subject to appeal to his majesty : " You may still resort to your sovereign for extreme remedy ; this is proper to a king, e Cessas regnare, si cessas judicare ; ' for it is an inherent quality to his crown."2 He was selected as chancellor to Prince Charles in 1617, and was obliged for the purpose of accepting the office to have his patent of chief justice revoked, and a new one granted, in order to en- able him " to take fee and livery " from any one besides the king 3 ; and on the disgrace of Bacon, he was one of the first who was designated to succeed as lord chancellor; no idea being entertained of the king's making choice of one then so inexperienced in law as Bishop Williams. But when Buck- ingham some years afterwards, wanted to persuade him to tell the king that the bishop was not fit for the place, because of 1 Bacon's Works (Montagu), vii. 340. 2 State Trials, ii. 1077. 8 Croke, Car. 1. 1625—1649. HENRY HOBART. 331 his inability and ignorance, Hobart excused himself, hand- somely saying, " My lord, somewhat might have been said at the first, but he should do the lord keeper great wrong that said so now." * Before Hobart's elevation to the Common Pleas, King James had changed his knighthood into a baronetcy ; he being one of those created on the institution of the order in May, 1611. King Charles on his accession renewed Sir Henry's patent of chief justice; but he survived King James only nine months, dying at his house at Blickling in Norfolk on De- cember 26, 1625. He was buried under a fair monument in Christ Church, Norwich. His house in London was that at St. Bartholomew's, in which Lord Chancellor Rich resided in the reign of Edward VI. Spelman says of him that he was " a great loss to the public weal ; " Croke reports him as u a most learned, prudent, grave and religious judge;"2 and there is an excellent character of him in the preface to 5 Modern Reports. His own Reports were published after his death, and are so well reputed as to have passed through several editions. By his wife Dorothy, a daughter of Sir Robert Bell, of Beaupre Hall, Norfolk, lord chief baron under Elizabeth, he had no less than sixteen children, of whom twelve were sons. From Sir Miles his third son, who succeeded to the estates on the death of his brothers, descended Sir John, who in 1728 was created a peer by the title of Baron Hobart of Blickling ; to which was added in 1746 the Earldom of Buckingham- shire.3 1 Hacket's Bp. Williams, 201. - Crokc, Car. 28. 8 Collins's Peerage, iv. 362. 332 RICHARD HUTTON. Charles I. HUTTON, RICHARD. Just. C. P. 1625. See under the Reign of James I. King Charles, although Sir Richard Hutton declared the imposition of ship-money to be illegal, called him " the honest Judge ; " and although royal authority is seldom taken on this point, the people returned the same verdict. He was the se- cond son of Anthony Hutton, of a good Yorkshire family re- siding at Penrith in Cumberland, and was born there about the year 1560. He was sent to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he devoted himself to the study of divinity ; but being induced by his friends, among whom was George, Earl of Cumberland (who, on his death in 1605, left him 100 angels), to pursue the law as a profession, he became a member, first, of Staple Inn, in the hall of which his arms are emblazoned on the south window, and next of Gray's Inn, where he was entered in 1580, and called to the bar on June 16, 1586. He is mentioned in Croke's Reports as an advocate in 1595 ; and when James came to the crown, he was added to the list of those whom Queen Elizabeth, just before her death, had sum- moned to take the degree of the coif at Easter, 1603, and was then knighted.1 In this character he was the leading counsel for the defendant in the case of the Post-natz.2 In 1608 he was made recorder of York3; and on the death of Mr. Justice Nicholls, Sir Richard Hutton was appointed to fill his place in the Common Pleas on May 3, 1617. Lord Chancellor Bacon's address to him on his being sworn in is memorable for the character it gives of him, and the advice it offers. " The king," it begins, " being duly informed of your learning, integrity, discretion, experience, means and repu- 1 Fuller's Worthies, i. 237.; Wood's Ath. Oxon. iii. 27.; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 2 State Trials, ii. 609. 8 Drake's York, 368. 1625—1649. RICHARD HUTTON. 333 tation in your country, hath thought fit not to leave you these talents to be employed upon yourself only, but to call you to serve himself and his people." Among the counsels he gave were "that you should draw your learning from your books, not out of your brain ; " — u that you should be a light to jurors to open their eyes, but not a guide to lead them by the noses ; " — " that your speech be with gravity as one of the sages of the law, and not talkative, nor with impertinent flying out to shew learning ; " — and particularly i( that your hands, and the hands of your hands, I mean those about you, be clean, and uncorrupt from gifts, from meddling with titles, and from serving of turns, be they of great ones or small ones." l Pity that his own precept was not followed by the lecturer as well as it was by his auditor. On the accession of Charles I., Sir Richard Hutton was the eldest puisne judge of the court, and on the death of Chief Justice Hobart, so much confidence was placed in his learning and integrity, that the vacancy was not supplied for nearly a year ; during which he presided as prime judge till Sir Thomas Richardson received the appointment.2 On February 19, 1632, the office of keeper of the Great Seal of the Bishoprick of Durham was granted to him while the see remained in the king's hands 3 ; which he held for four months. When Sir John Finch applied to each of the judges separately for their opinions with regard to ship money, Justice Hutton refused to subscribe ; and although he afterwards signed the united opinion which they gave in favour of its legality, he declared, when Hampden's case came judicially before him in 1637, that he had so subscribed only for conformity with the majority ; but that his private opinion was ever against it ; and he gave his reasons, as he said, " with as much perspicuity as those imperfections which 1 Bacon's Works (Montagu), vii. 270. ■ Crokc, Car. 56. 3 Itymer, xix. 346. 834 RICHARD HUTTON. Charles I. attend my age will give me leave," why judgment ought not to be given for the king.1 However King Charles might think it prudent tQ conceal his displeasure, there were some among the clergy who were indignant at this denial, as they called it, of the king's supremacy. Sir Richard, it seems, had repeated his interpretation of the law in his charge to the grand jury at Northampton ; and Thomas Harrison, a clergyman of that county, foolishly taking umbrage at this, came to the bar of the Common Pleas, and cried out in a loud voice, " I do accuse Mr. Justice Hutton of high trea- son." He soon suffered for his temerity. Being indicted for the offence he was fined 5000/. and imprisoned, and required to make his submission in all the courts at Westminster. The only point of the story that does not tell to the judge's credit, is that he also brought an action for damages against Harrison, and recovered 10,000Z.2 He lived not long after these events, dying in Serjeants' Inn, Chancery Lane, on February 2.5, 1638-9, in the seventy -ninth year of his age. He left a fair estate at Golds- borough in Yorkshire, and was buried at St. Dunstan's-in- the-West. Croke describes him as " a grave, learned, pious and prudent judge, and of great courage and patience in all his proceedings."3 He compiled " Reports of sundry Cases," which were published after his death. Three sons of his are mentioned : Sir Richard, who was killed on the king's side at Sherborne ; Thomas, to whom he left all his books in Serjeants' Inn ; and Henry, who mar- ried Elizabeth the second daughter of John Cosin, Bishop of Durham. He had also several daughters ; and one of his descendants was living at Goldsborough in 1684.3 1 State Trials, iii. 844. 1191. 2 Croke, Car. 503. 3 Ibid. 537. 4 Surtees's Durham, i. clxvi. ; Collins's Peerage, viii. 456. ; Wotton's Baronet. i. 78.; Burke's Landed Gent. 901.; Grandeur of the Law (1684), 257. 1625—1649. NICHOLAS HYDE. 335 HYDE, NICHOLAS. Ch. K. B. 1627. Norbury, in the county of Chester, had belonged in regular descent to the family of Hyde, from the time of the Con- quest. The third son of Robert Hyde of that place was Lawrence Hyde, who settled at West Hatch in Wiltshire, married Anne, daughter of Nicholas Sybill, Esq., of Chimb- hams in Kent, and widow of Matthew Somerton, Esq., of Claverton in Somersetshire. This Lawrence died in 1590, leaving several sons and daughters. Sir Lawrence, his second surviving son, was an eminent lawyer, and became attorney- general to King James's queen; Henry, the third, was the father of the Earl of Clarendon ; and Nicholas, the youngest, was the chief justice now to be noticed. The age of Nicholas at his father's death does not appear; but he was left dependent on his mother, except an annuity of 30/. for life, bequeathed to him by his father. Admitted to the Middle Temple, he was called to the bar by that society, who elected him their reader in Lent, 1617, and their treasurer in 1626.1 He had previously entered parliament in 1603 as member for Christchurch, Hants2; and he is first noticed in the Reports as an advocate in 1613. Though his professional progress is not recorded, he had sufficiently dis- tinguished himself to be employed by the Duke of Bucking- ham in preparing his defence to the articles of impeachment prepared against him by the House of Commons in 1626.3 The care and ingenuity evinced in that defence were so satis- factory to the duke, that on the removal of Sir Ranulphe Crewe, and the death of Sir John Davies his designated successor, Hyde, by the favourite's influence, was nominated chief justice of the King's Bench, though he had no claim » Dugdale's Orig. 219. 221. - Pari. Hist i. 974. 3 Pari. Hist. ii. 167.; Whitelocke, 8. 336 NICHOLAS HYDE. Charles L from previous official employment ; and the attorney and solicitor-general were passed over in his favour. To render his elevation more honourable, he was first made a king's Ser- jeant ; the date of the one being January 31, and of the other February 5, 1627 ;l and in the interim between the two he was knighted. His sudden advance naturally excited remark and some jealousy, and was food for the wits of the bar. At the Bury assizes in the following Lent these lines on him and his four predecessors were repeated by Drue Drury almost in his hearing : — Learned Coke, curt Montague, The aged Lea, and honest Crew: Two preferred, two set aside, And then starts up Sir Nicholas Hyde.2 He presided in the court for four years and a half only, and had no easy time of it. He and the other judges had to justify themselves before the House of Lords for refusing to discharge the five gentlemen who were imprisoned for re- fusing to contribute to the loan.3 He had also, in 1629, to adjudge the case of Stroud, Sir John Eliot, and the other members, for their violence to the speaker on the last day of the session. They were at first refused bail, unless they gave sureties for their good behaviour ; which they refusing, some of them were tried and sentence pronounced upon them. For these proceedings, the judges in the commencement of the Long Parliament in 1640 were called to account, and their judgment reversed. Though a motion was made that the parties might have reparation out of the estates of Chief Justice Hyde and the rest of the court, the compensation appears eventually to have been granted out of the general revenue.4 Long before this investigation took place Sir 1 Rymer, xviii. 835. 2 Walter Yonge's Diary, 101. 3 Pari. Hist. ii. 291. * State Trials, iii. 235—335.; Whitelocke, 38. 1625—649. NICHOLAS HYDE. 337 Nicholas was removed from the violence of the times. After taking a ride of fifty miles in a hot day, though " a spare, lean man of body, and of excellent temperate diet," he was seized with a fever, which, Lord Clarendon says, he got from the infection of some gaol in the summer circuit, and died at his house in Hampshire on August 25, 1631. In the opinions given by him and his colleagues, in answer to the king's questions, they seem to have acted an independent part, and also on several other occasions, in refusing to stop the course of justice at the king's command. Sir Nicholas is said to have been mean in his person and bearing, and was so unostentatious that he rode his circuits on horseback, accord- ing to Sir Symonds D'Ewes, in a whitish-blue cloak, " more like a clothier or a woolman than a Lord Chief Justice." As an instance of his simplicity and want of observation, Serjeant Maynard reports a trial on an appeal of murder before him, interesting for the superstitious belief it records, in which he asked a witness how he knew " the print of a left hand from the print of a right hand ? " l But Croke and Whitelocke, his contemporaries and col- leagues, and Lord Clarendon, his nephew, give evidence of the sterling points of his character. Croke calls him " a grave, religious, discreet man, and of great learning and piety."2 Judge Whitelocke says that " he lived in the place with great integrity and uprightness, and with great wisdom and temper, considering the ticklishness of the times. He would never undertake to the King, nor adventure to give him a resolute answer in any weighty business, when the question was of the law, but he would pray that he might confer with his Brethren." 3 Lord Clarendon thus describes him : — " He was a man of excellent learning for that province he was to govern, of unsuspected and unblemished integrity, of an ex- 1 Gent. Mag. July, 1851, p. 15., quoting a Day Hook of Dr. Sampson. • Croke, Car. 225. ■ Rushwortb, ii. 111. VOL. VI. / 338 WILLIAM JONES. ' Charles I. emplar gravity and austerity, which was necessary for the manners of the time, corrupted by the marching of armies and by the license after the disbanding of them ; and though upon his promotion from a private practiser of the law to the supreme judicatory of it, by the power and recommendation of the great favorite, of whose council he had been ; yet his behaviour was so grateful to all the judges, who had an entire confidence in him, his service so useful to the king in his government, his justice and sincerity so conspicuous throughout the kingdom, that the death of no judge had in any time been more lamented." 1 He married Margaret, daughter of Arthur Swayne, Esq., of Sarson, and left by her several children, whose descendants were settled at Marlborough and Hyde End in Berkshire.2 JERMYN, PHILIP, Parl. Just. K. B. 1648. See under the Interregnum. JONES, WILLIAM, Just. K. B. 1625. See under the Reign of James I. The Joneses are an ancient family of North Wales, whose lineage is traced by the "Welsh heralds from the princes and possessors of that country, and is equally honoured by claim- ing the judge as its descendant. Sir William Jones was the eldest son of William Jones, Esq., of Castellmarch in Car- narvonshire, where the family had long been seated. His mother was Margaret, daughter of Humphrey Wynn ap Me- redith, of Hyssoilfarch, Esq. At the age of fourteen, he was sent from the free school of Beaumaris to the university of Oxford, where he pursued his studies at St. Edmund's Hall for five years, and then was entered of FurnivaPs Inn, to be 1 Life of Clarendon, i. 3—13. 2 Sir R. C. Hoare's Wilts. 1625—1649. WILLIAM JONES. 339 instructed in the rudiments of law. After spending two years there, he removed to Lincoln's Inn, of which he was admitted a member on July 5, 1587, where, after the customary seven years' course, he was called to the bar on January 28, 15951, and became reader in Lent, 16 16.2 Although his name does not appear in any of the published Reports, he had acquired sufficient eminence in his profession to be selected in the fol- lowing year for the chief justiceship of the King's Bench in Ireland. For this purpose he was called to the degree of serjeant on March 14, 1617, and knighted. Lord Bacon addressed him on the occasion, and after alluding to his " suffi- ciency every way," recommended him w in that great place in which you are to settle " to " take unto you the constancy and integrity of Sir Robert Gardiner: the gravity, temper and direction of Sir James Lea; the quickness, industry and dispatch of Sir Humphry Winch ; the care and affection to the commonwealth, and the prudent and politic administration of Sir John Denham, and you shall need no other lessons."3 It is curious that no less than three out of these his four pre- decessors in office were afterwards placed on the English bench, and that Serjeant Jones ultimately received the same honour. After staying in Ireland for about three years, during which he was one of the commissioners of the Great Seal of that kingdom, on the vacancy in the office of lord chancellor, occa- sioned by the death of the Archbishop of Dublin, he resigned his seat in the King's Bench ; and in the patent of his suc- cessor June, 1620, the services of Sir William are thus en- comiastically alluded to. The king, while complying with his desire to be called from his charge, says, "he could wish, for the good of his service and his kingdom of Ireland, that a man so faithful, honest, and able would have affected 1 Line. Inn, Black Book, v. 410., vi. «). - Dugdale'fl Orig. Jur. '255. ron's Works ( Montagu), vii. 'JH'A. Z 2 340 WILLIAM JONES. Charles I. to continue in that office longer." l On returning to England, he resumed his practice at the bar, his name appearing as an advocate in his own and Croke's Reports from Michaelmas, 1620, to the same term, 1621. In that term he was placed on the English bench as a judge of the Common Pleas, the first fine levied before him fixing the date2, although his patent has not been found. He continued in that court for three years, during which he was also employed on a commis- sion in Ireland ; and was then, on October 17, 1624, transferred to the King's Bench, where he remained for the rest of his life. He never went any other than the Oxford circuit. In the great question, in 1628, as to the refusal of bail to the five gentlemen committed to prison for not contributing to the loan, Justice Jones, when called with his fellows before the House of Lords to assign his reasons for that judgment, adverted thus boldly, in his justification, to the antiquity of his house : (< I am myself," said he, " Liber Homo, my an- cestors gave their voice for Magna Charta. I enjoy that house still which they did. I do not now mean to draw down God's wrath upon my posterity ; and therefore I will neither advance the King's prerogative nor lessen the Liberty of the Subject, to the danger of either King or people."3 What his view of the king's prerogative was may be judged by his joining in the opinion of the bench in favour of ship-money, and by the reasons he gave in support of that opinion in 1637, in Hampden's case4; but, however erroneous his view of the case might be, there is no doubt that his decision was founded on a conscientious opinion of its correctness. By his death before the Long Parliament took up the ques- tion, he escaped the impeachment instituted against his col- leagues who pronounced the same judgment. That event occurred at his house in Holborn, on December 9, 1640, in 1 Law Off. of Ireland, 26. 88. 3 Dugdale's Orig. 48. 3 Pari. Hist. ii. 290. * State Trials, in. 844. 1181. 1625—1549. RICHARD LANE. 341 the seventy-fourth year of his age. He was buried under Lincoln's Inn chapel. Hearne describes him as " a person of admirable learning, particularly in the Municipal laws and British antiquities."1 His " Reports of Special Cases," from 18 Jac. I. to 15 Car. I., which were not published till after his death, have a good reputation in Westminster Hall, and to distinguish them from those of Sir Thomas Jones, a judge in the reign of Charles II., they are cited as " First Jones's Reports." At the age of twenty-one he married Margaret, eldest daughter of Griffith John Griffith, Esq., of Kevenamulch, by whom he left a numerous family of daughters. His only son, Charles, who was reader at Lincoln's Inn in Lent, 1640, died before him. Pie took a second wife, Catherine, daughter of Thomas Powys, of Abingdon, and widow of Dr. Hovenden, warden of All Souls' College, Oxford 2, but left no male issue by her.3 KENT, Earl of. See Henry Grey. LANE, RICHARD. Ch. B. E. 1644. Lord Kkefer, 1645. The last lord keeper of the Great Seal of Charles I. was Richard the son of Richard Lane of Courtenhall, near North- ampton, by Elizabeth, daughter of Clement Vincent of liar- pole in the same county. He studied the law at the Middle Temple, and having been called to the bar it may be inferred that his early practice was in the Exchequer, from his Reports of Cases in that court from the 3rd to the 9th James I. 1605 — 1612. He did not arrive at the post of reader to his inn till Lent 1630, nor to that of treasurer till 1637.4 He had, how- ' Curious Discourses, ii. -148. 2 Collins's Peerage, viii. 577, 3 Wood's Ath. Oxon. ii. 673.; Preface to his Reports, 1675. 1 Dugdule's Ofig. 220. 282. z 3 342 RICHARD LANE. Charles I. ever, so good a reputation in his profession as to be appointed successor of Sir John Banks in the office of attorney-general to the Prince of Wales in 1634,1 When the House of Com- mons impeached the Earl of Strafford, Mr. Lane was assigned to conduct the earl's defence, which he did so ably, especially in the legal argument, showing that none of the facts alleged against the earl were comprehended in the statute of treason, that the Commons, seeing the great probability of the earl's acquittal by the Lords, desisted from the trial, and effected their malicious purpose by a disgraceful bill of attainder, which by popular clamour was eventually passed.2 Officially con- nected with the court, he of course joined the king at Oxford ; where, having been previously knighted, he was appointed Sir Humphrey Davenport's successor as lord chief baron on Jan- uary 25, 1644; having been invested with the Serjeant's coif two days before, and being created doctor of civil law by the university six days afterwards. The first duty that Sir Richard had to perform was to act as one of the commissioners on, the part of the king in treating for an accommodation at Uxbridge, when he joined the other lawyers in resisting the demand of the parliament to have the militia entirely vested in them. There appearing no probabi- lity of satisfactorily settling this question, or that upon reli- gion which was violently debated, the treaty was broken off and the war proceeded.3 In the course of the next year Lord Lyttelton died, and within three days, on August 30, 1645, the Great Seal was placed in the hands of Sir Richard as lord keeper. The king, whose difficulties increased daily, was at last obliged to escape from Oxford, and that city was surrendered to the opposing army under General Fairfax on June 24, 1646, under articles in which the lord keeper was the principal party on the king's behalf. By one of them it 1 Clarendon's Life, i, 67. 2 State Trials, iii. 1472. 8 Clarendon, v. 37. 60. 1625—1649. EDWARD LYTTELTON. 343 was provided that the Great Seal and all the other official seals should be left for the victors.1 Thus deprived of the insignia of his office, nothing remained to him but its name, which he retained during the remainder of the king's life. There is no evidence that his patent was renewed by Charles II., though he lived for nearly two years after that monarch's nominal reign began. Like the king he became an exile from his native land, and died in 1650 in France ; as appears by the commission, dated April 22, 1651, to his relict the Lady Mar- garet, to administer to his personalty. A somewhat impro- bable story is told that when he joined the king at Oxford he entrusted his chambers, his library, and bis goods to his inti- mate friend Bulstrode Whitelocke; who, when they were applied for by the lord keeper's son, denied that he had ever known such a man as Sir Richard.2 LEEKE, THOMAS. Cuksitor B. E. 1642. See under the Reign of Charles II. LENTHALL, WILLIAM. Paul. M. It. 1643. Com. G. S. 1646. LINCOLN, Bishop of. See John Williams. LYTTELTON, EDWARD. Ch. C. P. 1640. Lord Keeper, 1641. More than a century had elapsed between the death of Judge Lyttelton, the eminent author of the Treatise on Tenures,3 and the birth of his descendant, the chief justice and lord keeper of Charles I. John Lyttelton, incumbent of Mounslow in Shropshire, who was the son of Thomas the youngest of the three sons of the judge, was the father of two sons, named 1 Whitelocke, 210, ■ Wood's Fasti, ii. 63. 3 See Vol. IV. p. 436. Z 4 344 EDWARD LYTTELTON. Charles I. Thomas and Edward. Thomas's grandson, Sir Adam, of Stoke Milburgh, was honoured with a baronetcy in 1642, which failed in 1710 by the death without issue of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, who was speaker in the parliament of 1698. Ed- ward, seated at Henley, in Shropshire, became chief justice of North Wales, was knighted, and married Mary, the daugh- ter of Edmund Walter, chief justice of South Wales, and sister to Sir John Walter, the distinguished lord chief baron of the Exchequer in the reign of James I. The connection of this lady with the law was somewhat remarkable; for, besides being the daughter, the wife, and the sister of judges, she was the mother of two ; Edward, the eldest of her eight sons being the subject of this memoir, and the seventh, Timothy, becoming a baron of the Exchequer under Charles II. William, another son, also, was a serjeant at law.1 Edward Lyttelton wTa3 born at Mounslow in 1589, and, becoming a gentleman commoner of Christ Church in the university of Oxford in the beginning of 1606, took his first degree in arts on April 28, 1609.2 At the Inner Temple, the school in which his ancestors studied, he commenced his legal career, and in due time was called to the bar. Lord Claren- don describes him as " a handsome and proper man, of a very graceful presence, and notorious for courage, ^vhich in his youth he had manifested with his sword. He had taken great pains in the hardest and most knotty part of the law, as well as that which was more customary ; and was not only very ready and expert in the books, but exceedingly versed in records, in studying and examining whereof he had kept Mr. Selden company, with whom he had great friendship, and who had much assisted him ; so that he was looked upon as the best antiquary of the profession who gave himself up to practice."3 His early reputation in his profession is proved ' Wotton's Baronet, ii. 61. - Wood's Fasti, i. 333. 3 Clarendon, ii. 4yl. 1G25— 1649. EDWARD LYTTELTON. 345 by his being, on his father's death in 1621, appointed to suc- ceed him as chief justice of North Wales. Returned in 1626 to the second parliament of Charles I., he took an active part in the proceedings against the Duke of Buckingham, arguing that common fame was a sufficient ground for the house to act upon. It being so determined, articles of impeachment were exhibited ; but he was not one of the managers selected to conduct it. In the midst of the inquiry, the king, to save his favourite, dissolved the parliament. When it met again in March, 1628, Lyttelton was placed in the chair of the committee of grievances, and on April 3 presented to the house their report, upon which was founded the famous Petition of Right. In the subse- quent conferences with the Lords, he ably enforced the reso- lutions, and replied to the objections of the crown officers with temper and point. He was designated by the lord pre- sident in reporting the arguments, as " a grave and learned lawyer ;" and great must have been his elation when he heard the king's answer to the petition, " Soit droit fait comme il est desire." On the dissolution of this parliament in the following March, several members were imprisoned for their violence in holding the speaker in the chair, while the pro- testation against Tonnage and Poundage was passed. On their application to the court of King's Bench, Lyttelton appeared for John Selden, who was one of those arrested, and learnedly contended for his right to be discharged on bail.1 The well-known result of these arbitrary proceedings has been related in another place. Though a strenuous advocate for the liberty of the subject, he had never exhibited any asperity in his language, nor shown himself a violent partizan of those who opposed the measures of the court. His learning and eloquence secured 1 Pari. Hist. ii. 53. 239. 259. 319-323. State Trials, iii. 85. 252. 346 EDWARD LYTTELTON. Charles 1. him extensive professional employment, and naturally placed him in the rank of those lawyers destined for promotion. The king could not fail to see the benefits which would re- sult from his services, and accordingly earnestly recommended him, on the death of Sir Heneage Finch, as recorder of the city of London, to which he was elected on December 7, 1631. About the same time, he was appointed counsel to the uni- versity of Oxford, and in autumn of the next year he arrived at the post of reader to the Inner Temple.1 His popularity in London obtained for him on this occasion, a present from the aldermen of 100/., two hogsheads of claret, and a pipe of canary.2 It was not till October 17, 1634, that he received a further mark of the king's favour, when he was made soli- citor-general in the room of Kichard Sheldon, whom Clarendon calls " an old, useless, illiterate person," and was soon after knighted. This office he held above five years, and princi- pally distinguished himself by his elaborate argument against Hampden in the case of ship money, in delivering which he occupied three days.3 While he held this office an extraordinary compliment was paid by his inn of court to the name of his illustrious ancestor. The solicitor-general having applied for a chamber, then vacant over his own, to be assigned to his kinsman, Mr. Thomas Lyttelton, " the whole company of the bench with one voice " not only granted his request, but desired that the (i admittance should be freely without any fine, as a testimony of that great respect the whole society doth owe and acknow- ledge to the name and family of Lyttelton." 4 On the elevation of Sir John Finch to the office of lord keeper, that of chief justice of the Common Pleas was con- ferred on Sir Edward Lyttelton on January 27, 1640, he having received the degree of Serjeant nine days before.5 ' Dugdalc's Orig. 168. 2 City List of Recorders. 3 State Trials, iii. 923. 1 Inner Temple Books; Gent. Mag. Dee. 1856. p. 717. '■' Rymcr, xx. 380. 1625—1649. EDWARD LYTTELTON. 347 This, according to Clarendon, was an office " which he was wont to say, in his highest ambition, in his own private wishes, he had most desired ; " but though it was the sphere " in which," says the same author, " he moved most grace- fully and with the most advantage1," it was not his fortune to remain in it above a year. In the April following his ap- pointment a new parliament was called, and after sitting barely three weeks was dissolved. Another, the Long Parlia- ment, met in November, and one of its first inquiries was into the conduct of Lord Keeper Finch, who, dreading the consequences, fled the country. The Seal, being thus deserted, was delivered to Lyttelton (who had, by the recommendation of Strafford, been previously admitted into the Privy Coun- cil), with the title of lord keeper, on January 18, 1641 2, and on the 18th of the following month he was created Lord Lyttelton of Mounslow. This advance did not add to his reputation or his peace. In the Common Pleas he had pre- sided with great ability ; in the Chancery he was only an indifferent judge. At the council and in parliament he felt himself out of his element, and was so disturbed with the unhappy state of the king's affairs that he fell into a serious illness, and was absent from his place for some months. One of the first duties which the new lord keeper had to perform was to express the thanks of the Lords and Com- mons to the king for passing the act for triennial parliaments. Then came the impeachment and attainder of his friend, the Earl of Strafford, in behalf of whom he was prevented from pleading by his illness, the Earl of Arundel acting for him as speaker in the House of Peers.3 Soon after, on May 18, the lord keeper was placed at the head of a commission to execute the office of lord high treasurer. On his resuming his seat he had the difficult duty of presiding during all the violent tarendon, u, iukc, Car. 5< ' State Trials, ii. 956. 348 EDWARD LYTTELTON. Charles 1. measures that occupied the house the remainder of that year and the beginning of the next. His conduct, while it could not but be displeasing to the king, raising doubts of his fidelity, was so satisfactory to the Commons, and so ap- parently compliant with their wills, that on their nomination of lieutenants for the several counties they placed him at the head of his native shire.1 In March, 1642, the king, offended by the parliamentary proceedings, retired to York. He had been for some time suspicious of the lord's keeper's devotion to him, and was particularly disgusted with his vote in favour of the ordinance for the militia, and his arguments in support of its legality.2 Lord Lyttelton, however, took an oppor- tunity of explaining to Mr. Hyde (afterwards Lord Cla- rendon), who was secretly in the confidence of the king, that he was in great perplexity how to act, that he had no person to confer with or to confide in, and that he had given this vote and others, which he knew would be obnoxious to the king, for the purpose of disarming the rising distrust of the Commons, and of preventing their proposed intention of taking the Seal from him. He thereupon planned with Mr. Hyde that he would take advantage of the customary recess of the house, between Saturday and Monday morning, to send the Great Seal to the king, and himself to follow after. This important service, as it was then deemed, was success- fully effected, and on May 23 the lord keeper's escape was reported to the Lords, who immediately ordered him to be taken into custody ; but at the end of the third day after his departure he kissed the king's hand at York.3 This statement would seem to be contradicted by his subsequent letter to the Lords, in which he says that Saturday was the first time that he ever heard of going to York, and that he did so by the king's absolute commands. He incloses an affidavit showing his inability, from illness, to travel to 1 State Trials, 10S5. 2 Whitelocke, 59. 3 Clarendon, ii. 494—504 1625—1649. EDWARD LYTTELTON. 349 Westminster, as ordered ; and at the same time proves the evasiveness of the excuse by " taking the boldness " to inform the Lords that he has the king's express commands upon his allegiance not to depart from him. In another letter to Lord Willoughby he denies having voted for the militia ordi- nance ; but his disavowal is contradicted, with circumstance, by the entry on the Journal, as well as by Lord Clarendon and Whitelocke.1 Such weakness of purpose, and such use- less attempts to be well with both parties, sufficiently account for his not being respected by either. It was not till a year afterwards that the parliament voted, That, if Lord Keeper Lyttelton did not return with the Great Seal within fourteen days, he should lose his place ; and what- ever should be sealed with that Great Seal afterwards should be void 2 : and the two houses passed an ordinance for a new Great Seal on November 10, 1643.3 The king was, at first, much dissatisfied with Lyttelton, whose hesitation and fears were rather annoying. But Hyde convinced his Majesty of his lord keeper's fidelity, and prevented his being removed from his place, though he was not for some time entrusted with the actual custody of the Seal.4 According to the allegations of the Commons, it had been frequently in the hands of Mr. Porter, Sir George Ratcliffe, and others 5 : but this no doubt was in order to secure its safety, and to prevent its getting into the possession of the parliament. Of Lyttelton's loyal devotion to the crown, all suspicion was at last removed. On January 31, 1643, he received, with other of the king's adhe- rents, the degree of doctor of the civil law from the uni- versity of Oxford 6 : in March he was again appointed first commissioner of the Treasury 7 : and on May 21, 1644, he was 1 Pari. Hist. ii. 1319. 1366. 2 Whitelocke, 70. 3 Pari. Hist. Hi. 180. * Life of Clarendon, i. 146. 5 Pari. Hist. iii. 178. 8 Wood's Fasti Oxon. ii. 44. 1 4 Report, Pub. lice. A pp. ii. 1H7. 350 EDWARD LYTTELTON. Charles I. actually entrusted with a military commission to raise a regi- ment of foot-soldiers, consisting of gentlemen of the Inns of Court and Chancery, and others. Of this regiment, the ranks of which were soon filled, he acted as colonel. Two centuries had elapsed since a keeper of the Seal and a soldier were united in the same person ; and in the two centuries that have since passed, no other person has served the king in a like double capacity. Notwithstanding this ebullition of zeal and spirit, Lyttelton was an altered man. The sad position of public affairs de- pressed him ; he became melancholy, and the vigour of his mind and the strength of his body gradually decayed ; so that he could not contend against an attack of illness, which car- ried him off on August 27, 1645. He was buried in the cathedral of Christ Church, Oxford, the place of his educa- tion, where his only daughter, Anne, erected a monument to his memory. That he was a learned lawyer, powerful advocate, and an excellent judge ; that in his private character he was highly esteemed ; that he was incorrupt amidst corruption, and mo- derate among the violent ; and that he never used power for the gratification of private malignity, nor for the prosecution of party purposes, both friends and enemies readily acknow- ledge. Desertion of the popular party for place, is somewhat harshly alleged against him. He had, as a member of parlia- ment, manfully resisted the increasing encroachments upon the constitution ; and when he had succeeded, as then appeared, in securing the liberty of the subject, and the parliament was dissolved, he became again a simple barrister. The country was then comparatively quiet, and he naturally received the gradual promotion to which his eminence as a lawyer entitled him. He had been already a Welsh judge; in 1631 he became recorder, in 1634 solicitor-general, and it was not till 1640 that he was selected as chief justice ; and there is nothing in 1625—1649. EDWARD LYTTELTON. 351 his conduct in cither office that can justify the condemnation of the party in whose ranks he had fought the battle of free- dom. His subsequent career in his higher place must rather be blamed as weak than stigmatised as treacherous ; and his flight with the Great Seal from the parliament, so dangerous, and, indeed, so fatal to himself, if he had been stopped, showed a degree of personal courage that must dissipate all doubts as to the principles by which he was guided. He felt it to be his duty to resist the encroachments on the constitution, and he did resist them ; he felt it equally to be his duty to sup- port the sovereign when his power was threatened ; and he flew to him for that purpose. But he was not a man for the times he lived in. He was not made for power ; he could not cope with the spirits of the day ; he was weak and wavering ; and by endeavouring to be the friend of all parties, he expe- rienced the usual consequence of being confided in by none. But he had dear friends on both sides who did not doubt his integrity. Hyde, who knew him well, was his friend to the last. Whitelocke, of the parliament side, always speaks kindly of him, and even in relating his flight calls him " a man of courage and of excellent parts and learning ; " and, when in 1645 the Commons seized his books and manuscripts, White- locke induced them to bestow them on him, with the intention, lie asserts, to restore them to the owner or his family, when " God gave them a happy accommodation." l A volume of Reports in the Common Pleas and Exchequer, from 2 to 7 Charles I., was published with his name in 1683 ; but doubts have been raised as to their being of his composi- tion. His peerage died with him, as he left no surviving son to succeed him. By his first wife, Anne, daughter of John Lyttelton of Frankley, he had a son and two daughters, who all died while infants. His second wife was Elizabeth, one of 1 Whitelocke, 17 J. 352 JOHN OR WILLIAM PAGE. Charles I. tlie daughters of Sir William Jones, the judge of the King's Bench, and widow of Sir George Calverley of Cheshire. By her he had an only daughter, Anne, who was married to her cousin, Sir Thomas Lyttelton, of Stoke Milburgh, Bart.1 MALET, THOMAS. Just. K. B. 1641. See under the Reign of Charles II. MANCHESTER, Earl op. See E. Montagu. MONTAGU, EDWARD, Earl op Manchester. Parl. Com. G. S. 1646. See under the Interregnum. PAGE, JOHN or WILLIAM. Cursitor B. E. 1638. Dugdale calls this baron William, and Rymer christens him John ; and which is the real name has not been discovered, for there is no account of his birth, parentage, or education, or whether he was of any university or inn of Court, or had any practice or took any degree in law, before he is inserted in the Chronica Series as being appointed a baron of the Exchequer on October 29, 1638. That he was a cursitor baron there is no doubt, for he is never mentioned in the judicial proceedings of the court; and two years after his nomination, his name as baron appears in a commission to the lord treasurer and others, at a distance of five from the regular barons. In another commission, also, to the lord treasurer and barons of the Exchequer, two months after- wards, the four regular barons are mentioned without him, with the further expression, (( to the Chief Baron and other 1 Wood's Athen. Oxon. iii. 175. 1625—1649. JAMES PAGITT. 353 the Barons of the Exchequer for the time being." He evidently succeeded Cursitor Baron Pagitt, who died in September, 1638 ; but only held his office for four years, dying suddenly on November 9, 1642.1 One of his daughters married Bernard Walcot of Oundle in Northamptonshire.1 PAGITT, JAMES. Cursitor B. E. 1631. The branch of the Pagitt family, to which the baron of the Exchequer belonged, was settled in Northamptonshire, where his great-grandfather, Thomas, is described of Barton- Segrave, and his grandfather, Richard, of Cranford. His father was Thomas Pagitt, an eminent lawyer, twice reader at the Mid- dle Temple, and treasurer there in 1599. 2 His mother, Bar- bara Bradbury, died in 1583, and was buried in St. Botolph's, Aldersgate.3 James was born about the year 1581, and re- ceived his legal education at the same Inn of Court as his father, and was called to the bar on November 26, 16024 ; but never arrived at the dignity of reader. Apparently placed at an early age in the Exchequer, he is described as comp- troller of the pipe in 16185; and on October 24, 1631, he was raised to the office of a baron of the court.6 It is manifest, however, that this office was not that of one of the judicial barons. There was no vacancy among them at the time of his nomination ; and during the whole of his career he neither took part in the business of the court, nor is ever mentioned in the conferences of the judges. He is not noticed as an advocate by the reporters ; and not having been called to the degree of the coif, he could not go the circuits. Neither 1 Dugdale's Chron. Ser. ; Rymer, xx. 409. 433. ; Peck's Desid. Cur. B. xiv. 19.; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1486. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 218. 221. 3 Maitland's London, 1076. 4 Middle Temple Books. ' His 2nd wife's monument at Tottenham. (i Rymer, xix. 347. In Dugdale be is miscalled John. VOL. VI. A A 354 JAMES PAGITT. Charles I. was he ever knighted ; an honour conferred on all the other members of the court. Anthony Wood calls him, " puisne baron of the Exchequer ; " * the precise title given to Sir Thomas Caesar, with the addition, "commonly called the Baron Cursitor."2 To this latter office no doubt he was ap- pointed, being conversant with the fiscal department of the Exchequer, as the successor to the second John Sotherton, of whom nothing is heard after Michaelmas, 1630. Baron Pagitt died on September 3, 1638, at his house at Tottenham, in the church of which parish is a monument to his memory. He married three wives, but had issue only by the first. She was Katherine, daughter of Dr. William Lewin, dean of the Arches, and died in 1628. The second was Bridget, daughter of Anthony Bowyer, of Coventry, draper, and widow of. . . . Moyse, of London. She died in 1626. The third was Mazaretta, daughter of Robert Harris, of Reading and Lincoln's Inn, who had previously had two husbands as he had had two wives ; viz., Richard Vaughan and Zephaniah Sayers, both of London. She died in 1666, aged eighty- eight. Besides two daughters, he left two sons. 1. Justinian, of Hadley, Custos Brevium of the King's Bench, and after- wards knighted, who had a large family. 2. Thomas, a lawyer, who was a great friend to Elias Ashmole, whose mother was sister to the baron's second wife, Bridget. u Old Father Ephraim Pagitt, above 40 years Rector of St. Edmond, Lombard Street, which, it is said, upon the breaking out of the civil war, he was forced to quit merely for quietness sake," was the son of Eusebius Pagitt, the brother of the baron's father.3 1 Ath. Oxon. iv. 354. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 149. 3 Oldfield's and Dyson's Hist, of Tottenham, 48. ; Ashmole's Antiq. of Berks, iii. 88. ; Wotton's Baronet, ii. 33. ; with additional information kindly communicated by Arthur Pa vet, Esq. of Cranmore Hall, Shepton Mallet. 1625—1649. EDMOND PRIDEAUX. 355 PHESANT, PETER. Parl. Just. C. P. 1645 See under the Interregnum. PRIDEAUX, EDMOND. Parl. Com. G. S. 1643. Descended from an ancient and honourable family, which traces its lineage as far back as the Norman conquest, when it was seated in Prideaux-castle in Cornwall, Edmond Pri- deaux was the second son of an eminent lawyer of the same name, by Catherine, daughter of Piers Edgecombe, Esq., of Mount Edgecombe in Devonshire. The father in 1622 re- ceived from King James the dignity of a baronet, which sur- vives at the present day.1 Edmond was born at his father's residence at Netherton, near Honiton, and seems to have received his education in the university of Cambridge, and to have taken his master's degree there; since, some years after, in July 1625, he was admitted ad eundern, at Oxford. His legal course is traced with greater certainty ; having been entered as a student at the Inner Temple on May 12, 1616, and been called to the bar on November 23, 1623.2 His name does not appear in the Reports of Charles's reign, his practice being chiefly in Chancery ; but at one time he was recorder of Exeter.3 The electors of Lyme-Regis in Dorsetshire returned him in 1640 as a member of the Long Parliament, where he took the po- pular side, and subscribed in June, 1642, 100/. towards its defence.4 Though he did not mix much in the debates, he was evidently looked upon as an active partizan ; for when the two houses adopted a Great Seal of their own, he was one of the four members of the House of Commons, who with two 1 Wotton's Baronet, i. 517. 2 Inner Temple Books. • Wood's Fasti, i. 424., ii. 66. * Notes and Queries, 1st 8, xii. 359. A A 2 356 EDMOND PRIDEAUX. Charles I. peers were nominated commissioners. The ordinance appoint- ing them was dated November 10, 1643. He filled the post for nearly three years ; the parliament then changing the cus- tody of the seal and placing it in the hands of the speakers of the two houses on October 30, 1646. While holding this office he still kept his place in the House of Commons, and was employed in 1644 to urge their reasons for passing the ordinance for secluding such members of both houses as had deserted the parliament. He was also named as one of the commissioners who assembled at Uxbridge in January, 1645, to negotiate a treaty of accommodation with the king. On his removal from the Great Seal the Commons ordered that, as a mark of honour and of their acknowledgment of his ser- vices, he should practise within the bar, and have precedence next after the solicitor-general.1 Prideaux then resumed his professional practice till 1648, when the parliament, on filling up the vacancies on the bench, named him solicitor-general on October 1 2, and he was sworn in on November 25. When he saw, however, what proceed- ings were adopted for taking the king's life, it is evident that he threw up the office ; for on Charles's trial in the succeed- ing January William Steele acted as attorney, and John Cook as solicitor-general2: and also on the subsequent trials of the Duke of Hamilton and others.3 That he lost no favour with the parliament by his conduct in avoiding these trials is ap- parent from his receiving the appointment of attorney-general on the 9th of the following April ; and from his retaining it during the remainder of his life, through all the different changes that took place in the government; — under the Council of State ; under all the three parliaments of Crom- well; under that of Richard his son; and again under the Rump Parliament. During the whole of this time he con- 1 Journals; Whitelocke, 92. 125. 226. 2 Whitelocke, 342. 357. 368. 3 State Trials, iv. 1167. 1209. 1625—1649. EDMUND REEVE. 357 tinued member for Lyme Regis.1 The dignity of baronet was conferred upon him on May 31j 1658, "in respect of his voluntary offer for the mainteyning of 30 foot-souldiers in his Highnes army in Ireland."2 He survived Cromwell about a year, dying on August 19, 1659. Whitelocke describes him as w a generous person, and faith- ful to the Parliament's Interest. A good Chancery lawyer." This is not great praise ; and it seems that he was equally faithful to his own interest. Besides his practice at the bar, which was worth about 5000/. a year, he was postmaster for all the inland letters, an office which, at sixpence a letter, is said to have netted him 15,000Z. a year.3 No wonder, there- fore, that he made a large fortune, and that he was enabled to purchase Ford Abbey in the parish of Thorncombe, Devon, and to build on its ruins a noble mansion. He married two wives ; the first was a daughter of Collins, Esq., of Ottery St. Mary in Devonshire, by whom he had no children ; the second was the daughter and coheir of Every, Esq., of Cottey in the county of Somerset, by whom he left an only son, also named Edmond, whose education was superintended by Mr. (afterwards Archbishop) Tillotson. Edmond took his wife's name of Fraunceis, and left an only daughter, who married Francis Gwyn, Esq., of Lansanor in Glamorganshire ; in the possession of whose re- presentatives the Prideaux estates are still remaining.4 REEVE, EDMUND, Just. C. P. 1639. Edmund Reeve was of a Norfolk family, and is rightly claimed by the society of Barnard's Inn as having commenced * Whitelocke, 394.; Pari. Hist. iii. 1429. 1480. 1532. * 5 Report Pub. Ilec. A pp. 273. 3 Pari. Hist. iii. 160C. * Wotton's Baronet i. 513.; Haated'a Kent, xii. 27. a A :J 358 EDMUND KEEVE. Charles I. his legal studies there.1 He completed them at Gray's Inn, where he was admitted a member on October 8, 1607, and attained the post of reader in autumn, 1632.2 His arguments as a barrister are not reported by Croke till 1629 ; but it may be presumed that he was a prosperous lawyer in 1624, when, in conjunction with Mr. Francis Bacon, also afterwards raised to the bench, he repaired the font of St. Gregory's church at Norwich.3 He was called serjeant on May 30, 1636 ; and on the death of Mr. Justice Hutton was promoted to the bench of the Common Pleas, his patent being dated March 24, 1639.4 In the propositions made to the king in February, 1643, he was one of the judges whom the parliament requested to be continued ; and in Michaelmas Term of that year he sat alone in his court at Westminster, when the king's proclama- tion to adjourn it to Oxford was delivered to him. In sub- servience to the parliament he caused the apprehension of the messenger, who was tried by a council of war, and condemned and executed as a spy.5 The judge retained his seat till his death, on March 27, 1647 ; when his remains were interred in the church of Estratuna, in Norfolk.6 Lord Clarendon speaks of him as " a man of good reputation for learning ; who in good times would have been a good judge: " and re- presents him as giving some prudent counsel to the king on his coming to Leicester during the assizes in July, 1642.7 Phillips states that Sir George Peeve of Thwaite in Suf- folk (who obtained a baronetcy in 1663, which failed about 1688 by the death of his son without issue), was descended from him.8 1 Barnard's Inn Book, i. p. 16. 3 Blomefield's Norwich, ii. 274. 5 Clarendon, iii. 407., iv. 342. 7 Clarendon, iii. 145 — 149. 2 Gray's Inn Books. 4 Rymer, xx. 381. 6 Gent. Mag. lxxxviii. p. i. 396. 8 Grandeur of the Law (1684), 87. 1625—1649. THOMAS RICHARDSON. 359 RICHARDSON, THOMAS. Ch. C. P. 1626. Ch. K. B. 1631. Dr. Thomas Richardson, a clergyman of Mulbarton, Nor- folk, was the father of the chief justice, who was born at Hard wick in the same county on July 3, 1569. His place of early education is not recorded, but on March 5, 1587, he was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar on January 28, 1595.1 Though he is not introduced into the Reports till Hilary, 1612, it is evident that he had long acquired some eminence in his profession, for he had been elected recorder, first of Bury, and afterwards of Norwich ; having been previously under-steward of the dean and chapter of that cathedral.2 He was appointed reader of Lincoln's Inn in Lent, 1614, on occasion of his being called Serjeant ; which degree he took in the following Michaelmas.3 His next advance was to be chancellor to the queen ; and soon after her death, being elected member for St. Albans, he was chosen speaker of James's third parliament, which met in January, 1621, and was remarkable for the proceedings which resulted in the disgrace of Lord Chancellor Bacon ; against whom Mr. Speaker Richardson had to demand the judgment of the Lords. During this parliament he received the honour of knighthood; and after two noisy sessions, in which he pru- dently abstained from any prominent interference, his duties as speaker were terminated by its dissolution in December following.4 He was not replaced in the speaker's chair in the next parliament ; but on February 20, 1625, he received the appointment of king's serjeant. On the place of lord chief justice of the Common Pleas becoming vacant by the death of Sir Henry Hobart at the end of that year, eleven months were allowed to pass before it was filled up. It was then given to Sir Thomas Richardson on 1 Black Book, v. 410., vi. 9. - Blomefieldt Norfolk, i. 684. Dugdale'i Orig. 255.; Chroc. Ser. * Pari. Hift. i. 1181—1571. A A 4 360 THOMAS ltlOHAKDSON. Chakles I. November 22, 1626 ; not without suspicion that its acquisi- tion cost him 17,00c)/.1 His marriage in the next month with his second wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Beaumont of Staughton in Leicestershire, and widow of Sir John Ashburnham2 , sister of the Duke of Buckingham's mother, more probably accounts for the elevation.3 When, two years afterwards, the duke was assassinated, Sir Thomas, on a question put to hiui by the king, whether the murderer might not be put to the rack, had the gratification to convey the judges' unanimous opinion that torture was not known or allowed by the law. On two or three other occasions he showed himself moderate in his sentences and independent in his prin- ciples 4 : but he was considered by the parliament to be a fa- vourer of the Jesuits.5 After presiding for five years in the Common Pleas, he was removed, on October 24, 1631, to the chief justiceship of the King's Bench, where he sat during the remainder of his life. He died on February 4, 1635, at his house in Chancery Lane ; and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where his monument may still be seen. Although esteemed a good lawyer, he was not respected on the Bench. Evelyn calls him "that jeering judge ; " 6 and no doubt he carried his inclination to humour and jocularity too much into court. Fuller had not a more favourable opinion ; for in treating of him he says, " coming now to our own times .... seeing many ready to carp, it is safest for me to be silent 7 : " a cautious reserve, which he does not practise with regard to other contemporaries of whom he can speak in praise. The chief justice was inclined to the Puritans. His sentence against Sherfield for breaking a painted glass window was more lenient than that of other members of the court ; and he made an order while on the Somersetshire circuit, to sup- 1 Walter Yonge's Diary, 97. 2 Collins's Peerage, iv. 253. 8 For an account of the Wedding Dinner, see Notes and Queries, 1st S. i. 99. * State Trials, iii. 359. 371—374. 5 Pari. Hist. ii. 475. s Evelyn's Diary, i. 10. 7 Fuller's Worthies, ii. 130. 1G25— 1649. THOMAS UICHARDSON. 361 press wakes and other pastimes on Sundays. For this the bishops, who considered it an intrusion on their power, en- couraged Archbishop Laud to complain ; and the chief justice received a reprimand from the Council.1 Even then he could not refrain from joking ; as he passed out he declared, that " the lawn sleeves had almost choked him." To remove, per- haps, all suspicion of his principles, he was as violent and ab- surd as any of his colleagues in the Star Chamber, in the unjustifiable sentence pronounced shortly after against Wil- liam Prynne for writing his " Histrio-mastix." 2 And upon Prynne's being brought before the council on a subsequent occasion, and the question being, whether he might go to church and be allowed books, the chief justice, not being able to restrain his joke, said, " Let him have the Book of Martyrs, for the Puritans do account him a martyr." While attending at the assizes at Salisbury, a prisoner, whom he had condemned to death for some felony, threw a brickbat at his head; but, stooping at the time, it only knocked off his hat. On his friends congratulating him on his escape, he said : u You see now, if I had been an up- right judge, I had been slaine."3 The additional punishment upon this offender is thus curiously recorded by Chief Justice Treby, in the margin of Dyer's Reports, p. 188, b. : — " Richardson, C. J. de C. B. at Assizes at Salisbury in Summer 1631, fuit assault per Prisoner la condemne pur Felony ; — que puis son con- demnation ject un Brickbat a le dit Justice, que narrowly mist. Et pur ceo immediately fuit Indictment drawn pur Noy envers le Prisoner, et son dexter manus ampute et fixe al Gibbet, sur que luy mesme immedi- ntement hange in presence de Court." He could not resist joking even with a witness on a trial. In a case between two parties, where one coming upon the other's land without leave for the purpose of hawking, the 1 Wliitelocke, 17. ' Rushworth, ii. 234. 248. 1 Anecdotes and Traditions (Camden Soc), 5:3. 362 THOMAS RICHARDSON. Charles I. owner provoked him so much by his rude language, that he horsewhipped him and spit in his face. The chief justice said to a witness of the assault, " Friend, I forgot to ask thee one question of much importance in this cause ; whether did the defendant hawke before he spit, or spit before he hawked?'''' Another time, seeing an attorney over-busy in the court, he called him to him, and asked him his name ; and being told it was Rapier, he said, ' ' Well that's something to the point yet ; but what profession?" "An attorney." — "An attorney," said the judge, seeing he was in a light-coloured suit, " I'm ashamed on't. Well, sirrah, unless you get an handsomer coloured scabbard, and speedily, I'll scour your blade for you, and that thoroughly too." The natural consequence of this habit was that he lost the respect of all, even of his servants. One of them, whom he reprimanded for being at a tavern, saying, " I saw you well enough, sirrah, at the window to day," had the impudence to answer, M I am sorry at my heart that I did not see you, for if I had, I would have given you a quart of sack." And one day, at the time he was a barrister, asking a merry carman " why his fore horse was so lusty and pampered, and all the rest such lean jacks?" the man replied, " Why, the reason is very plain ; for my fore horse is the counsellor, and all the rest are his poor clients."1 By his first wife, Ursula, daughter of John Southwell, Esq., of Barham Hall in Suffolk, he had a large family. His second wife, Lady Ashburnham, brought him no issue. She, in 1628, Sir Thomas being then chief justice of the Common Pleas, was created a baroness of Scotland, by the title of Lady Cra- mond, with remainder to his children.2 None of his sons surviving her ladyship, his grandson, on her death in 1651, 1 Harl. MSS. 6395. 2 A similar instance occurred in our own time ; the wife of Sir John (after- wards Lord) Camphell, then attorney-general, and since lord chief justice, having been raised to the peerage by the title of Lady Stratheden. 1625—1640. OLIVER ST. JOHN, EARL OF BOLINBROKE. 363 succeeded to the title, which became extinct from the failure of male issue in 1735.1 ROLLE, HENRY. Parl Jcjst. K. B. 1645; Ch. K. B. 1648. See under the Interregnum. St. JOHN, OLIVER, Earl of Bolinbroke. Parl. Com. G. S. 1643. Oliver St. John, fourth Lord St. John of Bletsoe, suc- ceeded his father in September, 1618. He was created Earl of Bolinbroke by King James I. on December 28, 1624, and is no otherwise famous than for being one of the very few peers (who, Wood says, were " all of the presbyterian dye ") remaining with the parliament after Charles I. retired to York, and concurring with the House of Commons in the violent votes and ordinances then passed. It was from this contraction of choice rather than from any special ability in him, that he was selected, in 1643, as one of the two members of the House of Lords, to be united with four commoners, in whom the custody of the new Great Seal was to be placed. They were accordingly appointed commissioners on Novem- ber 10. He occupied this position about two years and a half, and died in possession of it in June or July, 1646, the Earl of Salisbury being nominated in his place on the 3rd of the latter month. The title was held by his two grandsons in succession ; and upon the death of the last without issue in 1711, the earldom became extinct, but the barony of St. John of Bletsoe survived, and still flourishes.2 St. JOHN, OLIVER. Pari. Com. C>. S. 1643. Ch. C. P. 1648. See under the Interregnum. 1 Blomefield's Norfolk, i. 684. j Collint'i Peerage, iv. 853. 2 Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 398.; Wood's Athen. iii. 134. j Journals. 364 JOHN SOTHERTON. Charles I. SALISBURY, Dean of. See J. Williams. SALISBURY, Earl of. See W. Cecil. SOTHERTON, JOHN. Cursitor B. E. 1653. See under the Reign of James I. There are three barons of the Exchequer of the name of Sotherton, two of whom, John and Nowell, have been already- mentioned. The former of these, who died in 1605, aged eighty, was probably father of the baron now to be noticed, by his second wife, Maria, daughter of Edward Woton, M. D.1 In Dugdale's " Chronica Series," this John Sotherton is entered as baron on 24th October, 1610; and in his " Origines Juridi- ciales," p. 149, he is allowed by an order of the Inner Temple of the 6th of November following, to "have his place at the Bench Table above all the Readers in such sort as Sir Thomas Caesar, Knight, late Puisne Baron of the Exchequer, had." This proves that he had not been a reader to the society, and that he was not of the degree of the coif, because if he had been, he would no longer have been a member of that house, but of Serjeants' Inn. On December 5, he was one of the commissioners with the lord mayor who tried Mackalley's case at the Old Bailey2; but as he is never mentioned as sitting in the Exchequer Court, nor as joining in the confer- ences of the other judges during the remainder of James's reign, it would seem, in connection with the above facts, that he held the office which is now called cursitor baron. This impression derives greater weight from the fact that in a special commission to inquire into defective titles, issued in 1622, he is named after the attorney-general, though two other barons of the Exchequer, Denham and Bromley, are 1 Stow's London, H32. 2 9 Coke's Rep. 62. 1625 — 1649. LAURENCE TANFIELD. 365 inserted previous to that officer. The same order of preced- ence is preserved in another commission in the following year on the same subject : and in a commission relative to nuisances in London in 1624, several knights and the recorder of Lon- don intervene between the other barons and him.1 The same remark applies also to the reign of Charles, in which he lived several years. The Reports never mention him but once, and then only as transacting business which was "of course" (cursitor). In the year 1630, the plague raging in London, Michaelmas Term was adjourned from one return to another ; and it is recorded that the essoigns of one of them was kept by Mr. Baron Sotherton 2, which was a mere formality. He died or resigned in the course of the next year, his successor, James Pagitt, being appointed on October 24, 1631. He married Elizabeth, widow of Sir John Morgan of Chil- worth, Surrey.3 TANFIELD, LAURENCE. Ch. B. E. 1625. See under the Reign of James I. Gayton in Northamptonshire was the residence of this family, and Francis Tanfield of that place was the father of the judge.4 Laurence Tanfield, destined to the law, after passing through the usual course of the Inner Temple, of which he was admitted a member in 1569, became reader there in Lent, 1595.5 He had long before acquired pro- fessional fame, for the Reports introduce his name as an advo- cate as early as 1579. On January 28, 1603, he received a summons to take upon him the degree of the coif in the fol- lowing Easter ; but Queen Elizabeth dying before that time, 1 Rymer's Feed. xvii. 388. 512. 540. a Croke, Car. 200. 3 Manning and Bray's Surrey, ii. 118. * Wotton's Baronet, ii. 173. 5 Dugdale's Orig. Jur. 166, 366 LAURENCE TANFIELD. Charles I. a new writ was issued by King James with the same return. He was member of the first parliament in that reign ; and on January 13, 1606, he was constituted one of the judges of the King's Bench in the room of Mr. Justice Gawdy. He did not long remain in that position, being advanced on June 25, 1607, to the office of chief baron of the Exchequer, over which court he presided with much credit for integrity, inde- pendence, and learning during the remainder of his life. In the public acts of his time in which was he engaged, viz. in the case of the Post-nati, the proceedings against the Countess of Shrewsbury for contempt, the trial of the Countess of Somerset for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, and the prosecution of Mr. Wraynham for slandering Lord Chan- cellor Bacon, no record is preserved of the part he took, ex- cept with regard to the latter, in which the judgment he pronounced is distinct and impressive.1 That he was a favourite with his contemporaries may be inferred from the name of his residence in the Temple, there- tofore called Bradshaw's Rents, being changed to Tanfield Court in compliment to him.2 He survived King James about a month, and dying on April 30, 1625, was buried under a costly monument in Burford church, Oxfordshire.3 He had purchased the Priory there with the manor of Great Tew and other lands, which he left to his only daughter Elizabeth, who married Sir Henry Cary of Aldenham, first Viscount Falkland ; and Lucius Cary, the second viscount, whose virtues are so eloquently celebrated by Lord Claren- don, was her son. Burford Priory afterwards became the property of Sir William Lenthall.4 1 State Trials, ii. 96. 609. 770. 952. 1076. ; Dugdale?s Chron. Ser. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 146. s Gent. Mag. lxiv. 1196. 4 Clarendon's Life, (ed. 1827.) i. 42. ; "Wood's Ath. Oxon. iii. 604. 1625—1649. THOMAS TREVOR. 367 TOMLINS, RICHARD. Parl. Curs. B. E. 1645. See under the Interregnum. TREYOR, THOMAS. B. E. 1625. Thomas Trevor was the youngest of five sons of John Trevor, Esq., of Trevallyn in Denbighshire, of an ancient and noble Welsh family, by Mary, daughter of Sir George Bruges of London. The second of these sons, Sir John, was the ancestor of the first Lord Trevor, chief justice of the Common Pleas in the reigns of Queen Anne and George I. Thomas was born July 6, 1586, and having lost his father when three years old, was brought up to the law, being the first of the family who adopted that profession. He was admitted a member of the Inner Temple, and became reader there in autumn J620.1 He was soon after knighted, and made solicitor to Prince Charles, who, when he ascended the throne, called him to the degree of the coif, and nominated him one of his Serjeants on April 8, 1625. On the 12th of the following month he was advanced to a seat of the Exche- quer2, in the place of Baron Snigge, who died in the last reign. Nothing is told of him for the first ten years of his judicial life, except that at the Bury assizes trying a cause about wintering of cattle, and thinking the charge immoderate, he said, " Why, friend, this is most unreasonable ; I wonder thou art not ashamed, for I myself have known a beast wintered one whole summer for a noble." " That was a bull, my lord, I believe," retorted the man, to the infinite amusement of the auditory.3 1 Dugdalc's Orig. Jur. 167. - Kymcr, xviii. 637. * Anecdotes and Traditions (Camden Soc), 79. 368 THOMAS TREVOR. Charles I. But more serious matters soon occupied him. The impo- sition of ship money was attempted, and Baron Trevor united with the rest of the judges, in 1636, in subscribing a joint opinion in favour of its legality, which he afterwards sup- ported in a most foolish inconclusive speech in the case of Hampden.1 On the meeting of the Long Parliament, in 1640, proceedings were commenced against him and five of the other judges, who were eventually impeached for the judg- ment they had delivered. Trevor was sentenced to imprison- ment and a fine of 6000Z., but upon payment he was discharged and permitted to resume his duties. In 1643 the king had issued proclamations to adjourn the term from Westminster to Oxford, but as these had been hitherto fruitless " for want of the necessary legal form of having the writs read in court," the judges at Oxford could not proceed to business there till that formality had been observed. The parliament, having then assumed the sovereign power, had published orders to the contrary; yet the king, thinking that the judges remain- ing in London would obey him rather than the parliament, sent messengers in Michaelmas Term with directions to deliver them the writs. There were only three judges then sitting in London; Justice Bacon in the King's Bench, Justice Reeve in the Common Pleas, and Baron Trevor in the Exchequer. The two latter were served, but immediately ordered the apprehension of the messengers, who, being tried by a council of war, were condemned as spies, and one of them was actually executed as an example. The fears that then influenced Trevor seem to have been dispersed by the tragic termination of the king's life. On February 8, 1649, he was one of the six judges who boldly refused to accept the new commission offered them by the then ruling powers.2 He lived nearly eight years after his retirement, and dying 1 State Trials, iii. 1152. 3 Clarendon, iv. 287. 342.; Whitelocke, 47. 76. 378. 1625—1649. GEORGE VERNON. 369 on December 21, 1656, was buried at Lemington-Hastang in Warwickshire, the manor of which belonged to him. He was twice married : first, to Prudence, daughter of Henry Butler, Esq.; and, secondly, to Frances, daughter and heir of Daniel Blennerhasset, Esq., of Norfolk. He survived both these ladies, who were buried in St. Bride's, London. An only son he had by the former, named Thomas, was created a baronet in 1641, but dying without issue in 1676, the title became extinct, and the estate was bequeathed by him to Sir Charles Wheler, baronet, the grandson of Mr. Baron Trevor's sister. This family still enjoy the estate, and preserve the memory of the donor by the use of his name.1 VERNON, GEORGE. B. E. 1627. Just. C. P. 1631. Descended from the noble and ancient family of Vernon in Normandy, which established itself in this country at the Con- quest, Sir George Vernon was the son of Sir Thomas Vernon of Haslington in Cheshire and his wife Dorothy, the daughter of William Egerton, Esq., of Betley. Nothing is related of him till he became a member of the Inner Temple in 1594. He was called to the bar by that society in 1603, and was elected autumn reader in 1621.2 His name does not appear in the Reports, but on July 4, 1627, he was raised to the de- gree of the coif, an honour which Judge Whitelocke states that he paid for, — dedit aurum.3 In four months, no doubt as part of the bargain, he was made a baron of the Exchequer, his patent being dated November 13. After remaining in that court three years and a half, he was removed to the Com- mon Picas on May 8, 1631, to supply the vacancy made by 1 Collins's Peerage, vi. 294., where Sir Thomas is mistakingly described as a judge of the Common Pleat, and chief baron of the Exchequer, Stow's Lon- don, 875. ; Wotton'i Baronet, iii. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 168. I; to>n\ Works ( Montaguj, wi. cccix. VOL. VI. l; B 370 JOHN WALTER. Charles I. Judge Davenport's appointment as chief baron of the Exche- quer.1 In the great case of ship money in 1637 he abstained from stating his reasons on account of his want of health ; but delivered his opinion not only in favour of the charge, but also asserting that a statute derogatory from the preroga- tive did not bind the king, and that the king might dispense with any law in cases of necessity.2 For these ultra senti- ments Sir George Vernon escaped the retribution which in the parliament of 1640 visited those of his colleagues who pronounced a similar judgment, by his death, which occurred on December 16, 1639, at his chambers in Serjeants' Inn, Chancery Lane. He was buried in the Temple church. Croke, his brother judge, describes him as being "a man of great reading in the Statute and Common Law, and of extra- ordinary memory ;" but says nothing of his integrity or inde- pendence.3 His first wife was Jane, daughter of Sir George Corbett of Morton CorbetJ in Shropshire. By her he had an only daughter and heir, Muriel, who was married to his relative Henry Vernon of Sudbury in the county of Derby, the great- grandfather of the first Lord Vernon ; a title which still exists in their descendants.4 Of Sir George's second wife nothing- is known, except that she produced no issue. WALTER, JOHN. Ch, B. E. 1625. Edmund Walter of Ludlow in Shropshire, the father of the chief baron, was an eminent counsel in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and chief justice of South Wales. He was descended from the ancient family of Walter of Warwick- shire, an offshoot of the Norman baronial line to which 1 Rymer xix. 348. - State Trials, in. 1125. 3 Croke, Car. 565. * Brydges's Collins's Peerage, vii. 399. 406, 1625—1649. JOHN WALTER. 371 Theodore and Hubert Walter belonged.1 By his first wife, Mary, the daughter of Thomas Hackluit, Esq. of Eyton in Herefordshire, he had four sons and three daughters. John Walter, the second son, was born at Ludlow in 1563; and after completing his education at Brazenose College, Oxford, was admitted a member of the Inner Temple on April 24, 1583. In 1590, he was called to the bar, and be- came reader there in Lent, 1607.2 Previously to this time he had sufficient reputation as a barrister to be employed with Serjeant Altham and Mr. Stevens, before the council and the judges, in defence of the rights and privileges of the Court of Exchequer. For this service he received on March 13, 1605, "in reward for his pains and attendance," 13/. 6s. 8c?.; and in the next year he was paid 10/. for the pains he took as counsel before the Peers in defending the King's title to Alnage.3 He was also counsellor for the university of Oxford, and received from it on July 1, 1613, the degree of M.A. In the same year he was selected as attorney-general to Prince Charles, and was knighted on May 18, 1619. He still held this place, when on a brief being sent to him against Sir Edward Coke, then prosecuted by the court, he had the courage to decline it, saying, " Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, when I open it against Sir Edward Coke."4 This generous conduct, forming such a contrast with Bacon's, on a similar occasion, did not prevent his advancement. Immediately on Charles's coming to the crown he appointed Sir John Walter one of his Ser- jeants ; and on the death of Sir Laurence Tanficld, a month after, he raised him to the chief seat in the Exchequer ; his patent being dated on May 12, 1625.5 The new chief baron, however, did not answer the king's 1 See vol. i. 423.; vol. ii. 123. - Timer Temple Hooks. Avon's Issues of Exob. 82. 64. ' Brit. Biog. iv. 179. 6 ltymer, xviii. D B 2 372 JOHN WALTER. Charles I. expectations. He was too independent and too honest to suit the royal will. For some cause or other, which is not pre- cisely described, the king was dissatisfied with his conduct, and would have discharged him, had he submitted to be thus thrown aside. But he alleged that by his patent he held his office " quamdiu se bene gesserit," and he refused to retire without a scire facias to show " whether he did bene se gerere, or not ; " a course which the king did not think proper to adopt, but was obliged to be contented with forbidding him to sit in court. Before this event had taken place, viz. on February 14, 1628-9, he and the other barons had given the somewhat equivocating answer to the House of Commons for refusing to deliver back the goods seized for tonnage and poundage.1 But the immediate cause of his disgrace was said to be that he disagreed with the rest of the judges as to the legality of proceeding criminally against a member of parlia- ment for acts done in the House.2 Sir W. Jones says be received his prohibition to sit in court in the beginning of Michaelmas Term, 1630; and that he forbore till he died.3 The interval between the two events was but short, for his decease took place on November 18, at his house in the Savoy ; to the poor of which place he left 207. He was buried in the church of Wolvercote near Oxford ; where there is a splendid monument to him and his two wives.4 His contemporary Judge Croke describes him as " a pro- foundly learned man, and of great integrity and courage ; " 5 and Fuller joins his testimony to the same effect, adding that he " was most passionate as Sir John, most patient as Judge Walter;" and that such was his gravity, that once when Judge Denham said to him, " My Lord, you are not merry," he answered, " Merry enough for a judge."6 In the year 1 Pari. Hist. ii. 472. - Whitelocke, ii. 16. 3 Sir W. Jones's Reports, 228. 4 Wood's Fasti Oxon. i. 355. 5 Croke, Car. 203. 6 Fuller's Worthies, ii. 260. 1625—1649. JAMES WESTON. 373 after his elevation he obtained a curious licence for himself and his wife, and any four friends invited to his table, to eat meat on the prohibited days, on payment of 13s. 4d. per annum to the parish where he resided.1 His first wife was Margaret, daughter of William Offley, Esq., an eminent London merchant; his second was Anne, daughter of William Wytham, Esq., of Leastone in York- shire, and relict of Sir Thomas Bigges of Lenchwike in the county of Worcester, baronet. By the latter he left no issue ; but by the former he had four sons and four daughters. His eldest son was created a baronet in 1641, but the title became extinct in 1731.* WESTMINSTER, Dean of. See J. Williams. WESTON, JAMES. B. E. 16:51. James Weston was the nephew of Sir Richard Weston, the judge of the Common Pleas in the reign of Queen Eliza- beth, being the third son of James, Weston, of Lichfield (the judge's brother), who died in 1589. His mother, Margeria, daughter of Humfrey Lowe of Lichfield, died in 1587. He was then very young ; but three years after his father's death he was entered of the Inner Temple, where, having been called to the bar in 1600, he attained the post of reader in autumn 1G18.3 He was summoned to take the degree of Serjeant on March 19, 1631, evidently for the purpose of being made a baron of the Exchequer ; to which office he was ap- pointed on the 16th of the following May4, and knighted, 1 Ilymer, xviii. 2 I am Indebted for much information relative to this family to the kindness of Robert Edmond Waters, Esq. This mode of spelling the name is adopted by some branches. 3 Inner Temple Hooks. ' ll\mer, xix. 256. 348. n u 3 374 RICHARD WESTON. Charles I. probably through the interest of his relative Lord Weston. His career as a judge was of very short duration, for in the vacation between Michaelmas, 1633, and Hilary, 1634, he died in his chamber in the Inner Temple, being described by Croke as a " wise and learned man, and of courage."1 By his wife Maria, daughter of William Weston, Esq., of Kent, he had an only daughter, who married Nicholas, son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Bart., of Redgrave, Suffolk.2 WESTON, RICHARD. B. E. 1654. Of the same family as Richard Weston, the judge of the Common Pleas in the reign of Elizabeth, and the last-men- tioned Sir James Weston, the baron of the Exchequer, who were both descended from John Weston of Rugeley, this Richard Weston was the son of Ralph Weston of Rugeley, the grandson of John, by Anna, daughter and heir of George Smith, of Apleton in Lancashire. Like his relative, he pursued his legal studies in the Inner Temple, where he was elected reader in autumn, 1618.3 On May 25, 1632, he became a judge on the Welsh circuit; and on Sir James Weston's death he was appointed, no doubt by the interest of Lord Weston, to succeed him as baron of the Exchequer, his patent for that office being dated April 30, 1634; the degree of the coif having been conferred upon him a few days before.4 He thereupon received the honour of knighthood. In his argument in favour of ship-money, which was delivered four years after, though it evinced some learning, he was more technical than conclusive.5 He was consequently one of the six judges who were impeached by the Long Parliament in 1641, and though he was not 1 Croke, Car. 339. 2 Erdeswicke's Staffordsh. (Harwood), 136. 8 Dugdale's Orig. 168. 4 Rymer, xix. 433. 528. 607. 3 State Trials, iii. 1065. 1G25— 1649. KfeS WTTITELOCKK. 375 brought to trial, he was, by a vote of the Commons on Oc- tober 24, 1645, disabled from being a judge "as though he was dead."1 He lived till March 18, 1651, leaving by his wife Kathe- rine a son, Sir Richard, who joined the army of Charles I., and was slain in the Isle of Man. He had also another son named Ralph, and a daughter Elizabeth.2 WIIITELOCKE, BULSTRODE. Parl. Com. G. S. 1648. See under the Interregnum. WHITELOCKE, JAMES. Just. K. B. 1625. See under the Reign of James I. The younger son of an ancient and respectable family, seated at the Beeches, near Oakingham, in the county of Berks, Richard Whitelbcke was brought up to commercial pursuits, and became a merchant in London. By his wife Joan, the daughter of John Colte of Little Mundem, Herts, and widow of ... . Brockhurst, he had two sons, twins, who were born on November 23, 1570, a few months after their father's death. The youngest of these posthumous children was James, the future judge. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, whence he was elected a scholar of St. John's College, Oxford, in 1588, and eventually became a fellow. He took the degree of bachelor of civil law in 1594, and held his fellowship till June, 1598, residing principally at the university. During the same period, however, he kept his terms at the Middle Temple, to which society he was admitted in March, 1592, having previously spent a year of preparation at New Inn; and after the usual term of probation, he was called to the 1 Whiteloeke's Mem. 17. 181. - Erdeswicke'a Staffbrdsh. 136. it is I 376 JAMES WHITELOCKE. Charles I. bar on October 24, 1600.1 Not only did his college appoint him steward of their lands, but he soon obtained an honour- able and profitable practice ; and going the Oxford circuit, he was elected recorder of Woodstock, for which borough he was returned member in 1609, to the parliament which was dissolved in 1611. It was probably some freedom of language in which he in- dulged in that parliament that excited the king's displeasure ; for it is difficult otherwise to understand the reason of his prosecution in 1613. His " simply giving a private verbal opinion as a Barrister," as the charge is generally represented, is too absurd and incredible even for those arbitrary times. From the whole tenor of the Attorney- General Bacon's speech, and weak enough it was, it would rather appear that Whitelocke had urged in court an elaborate argument, con- tending that some commission which the king had issued was not strictly according to law — an argument which any coun- sel might assuredly use, whether by private opinion or in open court, without blame, if he did it in a decent and unobtrusive manner. The account, however, is very slight, and the cause is left in much uncertainty. Little more is known than that he was taken before the council, and committed to the Fleet, in May, 1613, that he was heard in June, and upon making his submission, was discharged from custody. His son, in a speech to the Long Parliament, publicly and without contra- diction attributed his father's imprisonment to " what he said and did in a former Parliament."2 That this incident had no injurious effect on his character is evidenced by the fact that in the short parliament that met in April, 1614, to be dissolved in June, he was not only re- turned for Woodstock, but for Corfe Castle also. But the court cloud still hovered over him ; for on the death of Richard 1 Middle Temple Books. 2 Bacon's Works, vii. 381.; State Trials, ii. 165. ; Whitelocke, 39. 1625—1649. JAMES WRITELOCKE. 377 Martin, the recorder, in 1618, he was opposed in his endea- vours to obtain the place by the king's influence being exerted against him in favour of Robert Heath, who was elected. In autumn, 1619, he was chosen reader of the Middle Temple, and took for his subject the Statute 21 Henry VIII. c. 13, his reading upon which is now preserved in MS. in the Ash- molean Museum at Oxford. He again represented Wood- stock in James's third parliament, in 1621. In the meantime his political offences had been atoned for cr overlooked. On June 18, 1620, he was called Serjeant, and, on the 29th of the following October, wTas knighted, and made chief justice of Chester. Sir Thomas Chamberlayne, whom he succeeded, was promoted to a judgeship of the King's Bench, but in four years resumed his post on the Welsh Cir- cuit, and Sir James Whitelocke was appointed a judge of the King's Bench in his room on October 18, 1624 *, a few months before King James's death. His patent was renewed by Charles ; and, as junior judge, he had in the first year to adjourn Michaelmas Term to Reading on account of the plague then raging in London. The state of that city, and the terror of those who approached it, are depicted by his son in his description of the judge going from his house in Buckinghamshire, and arriving early the next morning at Hyde Park Corner, " where he and his retinue dined on the ground, with such meat and drink as they brought in the coach with them, and afterwards he drove fast through the streets, which were empty of people and overgrown with grass, to Westminster Hall, where the officers were ready, and the Judge and his company went strait to the King's Bench, adjourned the court, returned to his coach, and drove away presently out of town."2 He retained his place till his death ; and in the seven years that intervened, the two great cases of habeas corpus came before the court. 1 Dugdale's Orig. 219. j Cliron. °- Whitulocke's Mem. 2. 378 JAMES WIIITELOCKE. Charles I. For the first judgment, which was against those who refused to contribute to the loan, he and the other judges gave their reasons to the Lords in the next parliament1, which led to the Petition of Right. On the second, when the court re- fused to discharge the members imprisoned for their conduct in the previous parliament, without sureties for their good be- haviour, and afterwards, upon their refusing to plead, fined and imprisoned them, the judges were called to account by the Long Parliament. On a motion that reparation should be made out of their estates, Judge Whitelocke, who had been long dead, on the representation of his son, confirmed by se- veral other members, that he was of the same opinion with Judge Croke, was excused from censure.2 Judge Whitelocke died on June 22, 1632, at his house at Fawley in Bucks, which, with the manor, he had bought sixteen years before, and was buried there with his wife, who died a year before him, under a stately monument erected by his son. Though an advocate for the rights of the people, he was a conscientious supporter of the king's prerogative. King Charles said of him " that he was a stout, wise, and learned man, and one who knew what belongs to uphold magistrates and magistracy in their dignity ; " and even designed him for the place of lord chief baron on the re- tirement of Sir John Walter ; but Sir Humphry Davenport was appointed instead of him. All authorities allow him to have been an able lawyer and a deeply learned man. Of his skill in the Latin tongue he gave a remarkable proof when sitting as judge of assize at Oxford. Some foreigners of dis- tinction coming into court while he was addressing the grand jury, " he repeated the heads of his charge to them in good and elegant Latin, and thereby informed the strangers," his son adds, " of the ability of our judges, and the course of our 1 State Trials, iii. 161. 2 Whitelocke's Mem. 39. 1625-1649. JOIIN WILLIAMS. 379 proceedings in law and justice."1 He was an excellent gene- alogist, and was not only deeply versed in Jewish history, but conversant with that of his own country ; being one of the early members of the Society of Antiquaries in the reign of Elizabeth, to which he contributed papers on the " Antiquity of Heralds," of " Places for the Students of the Law," and of " Lawful Combats in England." His wife, whom he married in 1602, was Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward Bulstrode of Bulstrode in Upton, Esq., and Cecilia, daughter of Sir John Croke, of Chilton, so that he was closely connected with both the Judges Croke. Besides two daughters, he had only one surviving son, Bulstrode Whitelocke, who will be noticed as lord commissioner of the Great Seal under Cromwell.2 WIDDRINGTON, THOMAS. Pari,. Com. G. S. 1648. See under the Interregnum. WILDE, JOHN. Parl. Com. G. S. 1643. Ch. B. E. 1648. See under the Interregnum. WILLIAMS, JOHN, Dean of Salisbury and Westmi \ Bishop op Lincoln, and Archbishop of York. Lord Keeper, 1625. See under the Reign of James I. John Williams, the youngest of five sons of Edmund Wil- liams, Esq., a gentleman of an ancient Welsh family, by Mary, the daughter of Owen Wynne, Esq., was born at Abercon- way in Carnarvonshire, the residence of his father, on March 1 Whitelocke's Mem. 11. 17.; Sir W. Jones's Reports, 9SQ. 2 Ilearne's Curious Discourses, i. 55. 78., ii. 190. 389. 447. 380 JOHN WILLIAMS. Charles T. 25, 1582. From the grammar school of Kuthin, where he received the rudiments of his education, he was removed in 1598 by his relative Dr. Vaughan, afterwards Bishop of London, to St. John's college, Cambridge. There he pur- sued his studies so diligently, taking it is said but three hours' sleep out of the twenty -four, and acquired such com- mendation for his proficiency, that when he commenced bachelor of arts in 1603 he was immediately elected fellow of his college. His degree of master he took in 1605, and about the same time was admitted into clerical orders, for in a letter written in that year to his relation Sir John Wynne of Gwydir he speaks of a small benefice he had got1, which Hacket, his biographer, supposes to have been Fakenham. He soon after was called to preach before the king at Royston ; and was so much admired for his learning and eloquence that Lord Chan- cellor Ellesmere in 1611 appointed him one of his chaplains. In the next year he became proctor to the university, and, though he performed its duties with general applause, he in- curred the enmity of the Vice-chancellor, Dr. Gouch, by the activity and earnestness he displayed in the elections of the headship of St. John's and the chancellorship of the univer- sity ; both of which became vacant in his year of office.2 At its termination he resumed his position as chaplain, and sat in the convocation of 1613 as one of the archdeacons of Wales. The livings of Walgrave and Grafton-XJnderwood in North- amptonshire were soon presented to him, to which were added a residentiary ship in Lincoln cathedral, and a choral place in those of Peterborough, Hereford, and St. David's. Increasing in favour, he was treated with the greatest confidence by the lord chancellor, who frequently discussed with him the causes before the court ; entrusted him during his illness with various messages on state affairs to the king ; and, just previous to his death in 1616, presented him with his manuscript collections 1 Yorke's Royal Tribes of Wales, 149. 2 Ibid. 153. 1625—1649. JOHN WILLIAMS. 381 for the regulation of parliament and the council board, and the different courts over which he presided, as w tools to work with:" — a legacy of which Williams soon learned the value. Bacon offered to retain him in his service, but he declined the honour, and was forthwith, by the king's order, sworn one of the royal chaplains. In 1617 he disputed in the schools for his doctor's degree, on the occasion of the Archbishop of Spa- lato's visit to the university. From this time, except when duty called him to the court or to his canonry, he resided on his living at Walgrave ; until in September 1619 he was presented with the deanery of Salisbury. In his personal attendance on the king, from being at first conversed with for his learning and his wit, he came by degrees to be consulted for the wisdom of his counsel. He ingratiated himself with Buckingham by forwarding the fa- vourite's marriage with Lady Katherine Manners, and con- verting her from the Romish faith. Thus favoured, he was advanced on July 12, 1620, to the deanery of Westminster: and when the parliament that met in the following January began to cry out against the oppressions of the people, and to proceed against Sir Giles Mompesson and other offenders, Buckingham, who feared that he himself might be hit, and the king, who knew not where the bolt might fly, appealed for advice to the dean. He gave them this counsel : " Swim with the tide, and you cannot be drowned ; . . . Throw the cormorants overboard in the storm ; . . . Cast all Monopo- lies and Patents of griping projections into the Dead Sea after them ; . . . Damn all these by one Proclamation, that the world may see that the King, who is the Pilot that sits at the helm, is ready to play the pump to eject such filth as grew noysome to the nostrils of his people." Acting on this advice the storm passed over with only one other victim, Lord Chancellor Bacon. thicket with regard to this event exhibits a somewhat sus- 382 JOHN WILLIAMS. Charles I. picious reserve, stating merely the fact of Bacon's downfall, and the dean's surprise at his own elevation. There seems, however, to be no sufficient ground for charging Williams with assisting in the chancellor's disgrace, and still less with advising the king and Buckingham to prevent him from de- fending himself. Any defence was hopeless, and Williams's recommendation not to dissolve the parliament for the purpose of stopping the proceedings, appears to have been as honestly, as it was wisely, offered. Ben Jonson, whose partiality for Bacon is evident more than once in his works, both in prose and verse, would scarcely have addressed a complimental epi- gram to Williams on his removal from the Seal1, had he been suspected of any underhand or unfriendly dealing towards Bacon. The Seal, for the next two months, was placed in the hands of commissioners ; and, according to Hacket, the dean was con- sulted as to the different candidates for the office, and was him- self selected by the king and Buckingham in preference to all of them without any application on his own behalf. The latter fact is confirmed by the record itself, which, in stating his appointment on July 10, 1621, as lord keeper, adds, "prse- ter suam expectationem." In the previous month he had been sworn of the Privy Council, and designated for the bishoprick of Lincoln. His consecration was delayed by the unfortunate occurrence which happened to Archbishop Abbot in acci- dentally killing a man while aiming at a buck ; and at last, in consideration of the lord keeper's scruples, that ceremony was performed by four bishops on November 11. Being al- lowed to retain his deanery, his canonry in Lincoln Cathedral, and his living of Walgrave, he was fairly subject to the remark made of him, "that he was a perfect diocese in himself, being at the same time Bishop, Dean, Prebendary, and Parson." He took his seat in the Court of Chancery on October 9, the 1 Giffbrd's Ben Jonson, viii. 452. 1625—1649. JOHN WILLIAMS. 383 first day of Michaelmas Term f, no ecclesiastic having pre- sided there since Archbishop Heath in the reign of Queen Mary. In the performance of his legal functions he supplied his want of knowledge of the rules of the court by obtaining the frequent assistance of two of the judges. His industry was extraordinary, leaving him scarcely any leisure ; and though he was in the habit of checking any unnecessary argument, he became soon a general favourite with the bar. At first some of the advocates endeavoured to take advantage of his inexperience, and one of them, to puzzle him, (t trouled out a motion crammed like a granado with obsolete words, coins of far-fetched antiquity, which had long been disused." The lord keeper, nothing baffled, answered him " in a cluster of most crabbed notions, picked out of metaphysics and logic, as cate- gorematical and syncategorematical, and a deal of such drum- ming stuff; " so that the motioner was foiled at his own weapon, and well laughed at by the court. In the Star Chamber he was ever merciful in his judgments, and where they were heavy for the sake of example, he inter- ceded with the king to lighten the penalty. He would not only with soft words turn away wrath, but would often ven- ture on a facetious jest to pacify the royal displeasure. By his leniency he incurred by turns the suspicions of the anta- gonistic religious parties ; at one time being stigmatised as a favourer of Roman Catholics, and at another as one of the Puritans. The former charge may be answered by his oppo- sition to the erection of Titular Popish Prelates in the king- dom; and the latter, by his addition of four scholars to Westminster College, with a liberal endowment to St. John's College, Cambridge, and two fellowships to be chosen out of them, with four rich benefices for their ultimate provision. In the parliaments over which he presided, his speeches were 1 ltyuier, xvii. 297. 318. 330. 384 JOHN WILLIAMS. Charles 1. marked with ingenuity and wit ; the customary flattery to the king not being altogether omitted, but more delicately administered. In his address to that which met in February, 1624, he alluded to his Majesty's speech thus : " A Lacede- monian being invited to hear a man that could counterfeit well the notes of a nightingale, put him off with these words, ' I have heard the nightingale herself.' And why should you now be troubled with the croaking of a chancellor, that have heard the loving expressions of a most eloquent king?" But the brightness of his fortune began to be obscured. The fickleness of Buckingham, and his jealousy of the reliance shown by the king on the lord keeper's judgment, with pro- bably, too, his displeasure at Williams's occasional insubjection to his will, were soon exhibited in his attempts to sink the man whom he had aided to raise. His favour had been transferred to Bishop Laud ; and taking pretended offence at some of the lord keeper's proceedings, and indignant at some expressions of confidence which the king had used, all. the cunning of the duke was exerted to hasten Williams's ruin. It was ineffectual, however, during the life of King James, who, appreciating his keeper's loyalty and prudence, and admiring his learning and wit, acted steadily as his friend, and preserved him in his office to the end of his reign. But some of the ill effects of the want of the favourite's coun- tenance could not fail to be experienced. As soon as it was perceived that Buckingham's eye began to look frowningly on the lord keeper, disappointed suitors were ready to corn- plain of his decrees, and accusations accumulated against him in both houses of parliament. He triumphed over them all. The Commons dismissed seven and thirty in one day, and the Lords punished one with the pillory for slander.1 King James died in March, 1625, and Williams preached his funeral sermon, drawing a parallel between him and Solomon. 1 Pari. Hist. i. 1399. 1625—1649. JOHN WILLIAMS. 385 Though King Charles, on his father's death, retained Wil- liams as lord keeper, the latter soon felt the instability of his position. Buckingham was more than ever resolved to effect his ruin, and endeavoured to induce Chief Justice Hobart to complain of his unfitness for his place on account of his ignorance and inability. The honest judge, though tempted with the promise of the post on Williams's removal, answered, " My Lord, somewhat might have been said at first ; but he should do the Lord Keeper great wrong, that said so now." Buckingham was not easily thwarted. The king was already prejudiced against Williams, and the grave advice which he gave to his majesty and the favourite not to quarrel with the parliament, completed his disfavour. The Seal was taken from him on the 25th of October, and placed in the hands of Sir Thomas Coventry. There was a kind of reconciliation with Buckingham just before his assassination in 1628; but Bishop Laud, whom Williams had formerly befriended, then became his bitter enemy, under the supposition that he was a promoter of the Petition of Right, and, what was considered worse, an en- courager of the Puritans. Continuing thus in disgrace at court, vexatious complaints were made against him, all of which failed in their object until 1637, when his enemies succeeded in procuring a conviction in the Star Chamber for a pretended offence committed nine or ten years before, in having revealed the king's secrets, and on a false accusation of tampering with the witnesses ; for which he was sentenced to pay a fine of 10,000/., to be imprisoned, and to be sus- pended from his ecclesiastical functions. This sentence was executed with the greatest rigour. 1 Lis property was wantonly despoiled under pretence of raising his fine, his person was incarcerated for three years and a half, and his desire to offer sul (mission was met by the demand of such degrading and ruinous terms that he felt compelled t<> VOL. vi. 0 386 JOHN WILLIAMS. Charles 1. reject them. He only procured his liberation at last by pre- senting a petition to the House of Lords in November, 1640, detailing his grievances and demanding his writ. On his dis- charge he forgot his personal complaints in the distress of the State, and boldly stood up for his order and the monarchy. His conduct of course pleased as much as it surprised the king, who not only erased all memorial of the proceedings against him, but admitted him to his favour, took counsel of him in the difficulties that surrounded the throne, and on December 4, 1641, translated him to the Archbishoprick of York. The cry against the bishops at that time ran high ; and twelve of them, of whom the archbishop was at the head, were soon after his translation committed to the Tower under a ludicrous accusation of high treason for presenting a petition to the Peers, complaining that the mob prevented their access to the House, and declaring that whatsoever was done there during their forced absence was invalid and of none effect. The act excluding the bishops from parliament having passed during their confinement, the prosecution dropped, and the archbishop and his colleagues wrere released, after being de- tained for eighteen weeks, in the course of which Williams was reconciled to Archbishop Laud, then an inmate of the same prison. Retiring to his diocese, the archbishop was soon obliged hurriedly to leave his castle of Cawood, in consequence of the advance of Sir John Hotham's son against it ; and after having supplied the king with what aid in men and money he could, he fled to his native country, where he exerted himself to defend the royal cause. After fortifying Conway Castle at his own expense, he attended the king at Oxford, where he is said to have cautioned his majesty particularly against Cromwell, and to have urged his being either won by great promises or cut off by stratagem. His subsequent advice to 1625—1649. JOHN WILLIAMS. 387 the king to submit to the parliament on terms not being relished, he returned to Conway Castle, in the government of which he was superseded the year after by Sir John Owen, under a commission from Prince Rupert. Those who had deposited their money and jewels there were refused restitu- tion, and the archbishop's appeal to the king on their and his own behalf was slighted ; so that when Colonel Milton with an overpowering force came into the country on the part of the parliament, they represented their case to the colonel, and, upon his promise to restore to them their property, agreed to assist him in obtaining possession. In doing this they were aided by the archbishop, whose conduct on the occasion subjected him to the imputation of having deserted the king and assisted the rebels. He defended himself by asserting that, as the king's cause in Wales was past hope, he was justified in obtaining the restoration of the property of his friends, and in making the best terms he could for his countrymen's immunities. u From the fidelity of the king he never," says Bishop Hacket, " went back an inch ; " and when the last scene of the tragedy was over, he deeply mourned his royal master's death in solitary retirement; his cheerfulness forsook him, and he seldom spoke. He survived the king little more than a year, and died on his birthday, March 25, 1650, at Glod- ded, in the parish of Eglwysrose, Carnarvonshire, the house of his kinswoman, Lady Mostyn. His body was removed for burial to the church of Llandegai, where his nephew and heir, Sir Griffith Williams, erected a monument to him, to which his former chaplain, Bishop Hacket, supplied the inscription. It is difficult to form a just estimate of the character of any individual who lived in the times during which Arch- bishop Williams flourished. Men's passions were so strong, their prejudices so great, and their animosity against opposite cc 2 388 JOHN WILLIAMS. Charles I. opinions so violent, that acts in themselves indifferent were frequently misinterpreted, and what was lauded by one party was abused by the other. Clarendon and Heylin, enemies of the archbishop, look with a jaundiced eye on his whole career ; and Bishop Hacket, his chaplain and friend, and Wilson the historian, give perhaps too partial a colouring to everything he did ; so that entire reliance is not to be placed on either. The weight of evidence, however, clearly preponderates in his favour ; though it must be allowed that, as a counsellor of state, he was too much of a temporiser, and no excuse can justify the casuistry with which he recommended Charles to consent to Strafford's death. But he was honest and sincere, and generally wise, in the advice which he offered ; and to the monarchs whom he served he was faithful and true. In person he was dignified and comely ; in manner affable and kind ; and though in temper he was warm, as most Welsh- men are, yet his anger was quickly mollified; and, not- withstanding the oppressions which he suffered, he showed no wish for revenge. He was laborious in the performance of his duties, both political and clerical, and refined in the choice of his relaxations ; music, in which he was a proficient, being his delight. His learning was undoubted ; and his eloquence, according to the fashion of the times, was superior to that of most of his contemporaries, his allusions and illus- trations being more apt and ingenious, and his wit more lively and delicately pointed. He was profusely hospitable in his household, and liberal to learned poverty ; and the sums which he expended in repairing Westminster Abbey, and in building the library at St. John's College, Cambridge, and the chapel at that of Lincoln, in Oxford, witness his generous munificence. His works were principally on clerical subjects, but that which excited the most observation was entitled, u The Holy Table, Name, and Thing," published in opposition to 1625—1649. HENRY YELVERTON. 389 the innovations introduced by Archbishop Laud, which Bishop Warburton commends as abounding in wit and satire.1 YELVERTON, HENRY. Just. C. P. 1625. Two members of this family have already been noticed as occupying judicial seats, Sir William, and Sir Christopher Yelverton, judges of the King's Bench, the first in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., the last in that of James I.2 Sir Henry Yelverton was the eldest son of the latter, by his wife Margaret, daughter of Thomas Catesby, Esq., and was born, as some say, at his father's seat at Easton-Mauduit in Northamptonshire ; or, as others assert, at Islington near London, on June 29, 1566. He was educated in the Uni- versity of Oxford, but Anth. Wood does not state at what college ; and then became a member of Gray's Inn, where his ancestors had pursued their legal studies. Having been in due course called to the bar, he attained the honour of being reader to the society in Lent, 1607.3 But long before that time, he had been elected recorder of Northampton, and is mentioned frequently in Coke's, and Croke's, and his own Reports from 1602. To the first parliament of James I. he was returned as member for Northampton ; and as a representative of the people, he took an independent, but not a factious part. He supported the subsidy, but advocated its gradual, instead of its immediate payment, and in all questions brought before the house, he freely expressed his real opinions, without con- sidering whether they were acceptable to either party, and without weighing over nicely the expressions with which he urged them. But he was popular as an advocate, and con- 1 Lives of the archbishop, by Bishop Ilacket and A. Philips; Clarendon's Rebellion; and Heylin's Reformation (Robertson). * See Vol. IV. p. 461.; and ante, p. 203. * Dugdale's Orig. 296. c c 3 390 HENRY YELVERTON. Charles I. sequently had professional enemies jealous of his fame. His plain dealing and the freedom of his language were accord- ingly misrepresented at court, and phrases were singled out of his speeches to prove that he hated the Scotch, and had no respect for the king. These reports gradually made their way to James's ear ; and Yelverton found after some time that he was looked upon with a suspicious and unfriendly eye, not only by his sovereign, but by the Scotch nobles around him. George Hume, Earl of Dunbar, the lord treasurer of Scotland, took offence, when a question arose in parliament as to the con- firmation of certain land granted to the earl on the confines of Scotland, contiguous to Lord Hume's land on the confines of England, at Yelverton's using the cumulative words t( Humus super humum" conceiving they were intended as a personal reflection. The king also felt himself grievously offended, because one of Yelverton's arguments for the naturalization of Lord Kinloss was, that he was not all Scot, but half English ; and he was " much enraged " that on another occa- sion Yelverton had said, " that he would weigh the king's reasons as he did his coin." It was natural, therefore, that a man, all whose intentions were loyal, should be desirous of understanding and explaining the charges made against him ; and Yelverton took the straightforward course of seeking an interview both with the earl and the king. This he effected through the means of the Lady Arabella and the lord chan- cellor of Scotland, the Earl of Dunfermlin ; and he gives a very interesting and curious account of his interviews, in which he was successful in satisfying both. He stated that so far from opposing the union, he refused the employment, when assigned, to argue the case of the Post-nati on the part contrary to his majesty's desire. The whole transaction of the reconciliation is very creditable to all the parties. The grounds of complaint are openly avowed, and the ingenious justification generously admitted. No unfair compromise of 1625—1649. HENRY YELVERTON. 391 principle is demanded or promised, and on a subsequent visit to Robert Cecil, the lord treasurer, that nobleman says that he shall assure himself that Yelverton, to please the king, will not speak against his conscience.1 These scenes were enacted in January, 1609-10, and nothing can better prove that they were not intended, and did not operate, to restrain Yelverton from expressing any views he might have with regard to pending discussions, than his composition, a few months after, of a learned and unanswerable argument against the impositions of the crown on merchandise, without the assent of Parliament.2 This argument, though written at the time, was not published till 1641, eleven years after the author's death. Yelverton had to wait nearly four years before he reaped any fruits of his reconciliation with the king. His father, the judge, died in 1612 ; and on October 29, 1613, through the patronage of Carr, Earl of Somerset, he was made soli- citor-general, and knighted ten days after. In little more than two years, the earl was indicted for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury ; but Sir Henry, though this was a state prosecution, and he held an office under the crown, is said to have declined to appear against his patron ; and he is not recorded as having taken any part in the trial. Bacon, who was the attorney-general at the time, must have felt this courageous refusal as a reflection on his own conduct with regard to the Earl of Essex, especially as it was not visited by any evil consequences, such as he had pretended to fear. Yelverton had always acted a friendly part towards Bacon. When the House of Commons showed some hesitation in allowing the attorney-general to sit as a member, Yelverton 1 This narrative is given in Archaeologia, vol. xv. p. 27-52., communicated by James Cumming, Esq., F.S.A., who has not stated from what source ho obtained it. 2 State Trials, ii. 478. c C 4 392 IIENRY YELVERTON. Charles I. came to the rescue and Bacon was admitted ; and when Bacon had become lord keeper, and had got into temporary disgrace both with the king and Buckingham for his interference in respect to the marriage of Sir John Villiers with Sir Edward Coke's daughter; Yelverton, who had succeeded as attorney- general on March 12, 1617, wrote him a letter of excellent advice how to act under the circumstances.1 But whether Bacon was offended at Sir Henry for not following his ex- ample in pleading against the Earl of Somerset, or for his presumption in offering counsel to his superior, or more probably because he wished to ingratiate himself with Buck- ingham, he frequently speaks injuriously of Yelverton in his correspondence with that nobleman.2 Yelverton was no fa- vourite with the duke, who was prejudiced against him from his connection with Somerset, from his being suspected of implication in Bacon's interference in regard to the marriage, and particularly from his declared independence of the duke's protection. Judge Whitelocke gives a curious account, which he had from Yelverton 's own mouth, of the " manner of his coming to the place " of attorney-general. Though pressed by the courtiers to apply to Buckingham, who " was agent to another, and did crosse him," he refused "to deal with him about it nor speak to him," but protested "he would leave it to the king, who he knew had judgment enough to chuse his own servants." At last Buckingham sent to him to bring his warrant, and expostulated with him that he had not used his help, telling him that he looked not for any recompence, though Sir James Ley had offered 10,0007. for the place. Yelverton protested to Whitelocke, " that he neither gave to the erl, or to any other subject in the king- dom, one farthing to cum to the place, . . . but when the businesse was done, he went privately to the king, and told him he did acknowledge how like a good master and worthye 1 Bacon's Works (Montagu), xii. SSI. - Ibid. 263, 264, 265. 387. 1025—1649. HENRY YELVERTON. 393 prince he had dealte with him ; and although there was never mention, speech, or expectation of anything to be had for his having of this place, but he came to it freely, yet out of his duty he wolde give him 4000/. reddye money. The king," proceeds the relation, " tooke him in his armes, thanked him, and commended him muche for it, and told him he had need of it, for it must serve even to buy him dishes."1 One of the first public duties Yelverton was called upon to perform, was to pray an order of the court for execution of Sir Walter Raleigh, on the judgment pronounced against him fifteen years before ; and the language in which he did it forms a strong contrast with that adopted by Sir Edward Coke on his trial.2 He held his office for three years supported by the favour of the king ; but Buckingham, whom he further displeased by his opposition to some of the illegal patents which were afterwards the subject of enquiry, was resolved to remove him. An opportunity was at last found. A new charter had been granted to the city of London, into which the at- torney-general was charged with having introduced certain clauses not comprehended in the king's warrant. Yelverton's submission not being considered satisfactory by the council, they recommended that he should be sequestered and pro- ceeded against in the Star Chamber.3 He was accordingly superseded on June 27, 1620, and the proceedings in the Star Chamber commenced, in which Yelverton cleared himself of any corruption, but acknowledged himself guilty through ignorance; and Bacon making a Jesuitical speech against him, and Coke pressing him hard, he was sentenced to imprison- ment during pleasure, and to a fine of 4000/. Bacon's letters, and his expression u how I stirred the court, I leave it to 1 Whitclocke's Liber Famelicus, in Bacon's Works (Montagu), xviii. cccviii. 2 State Trials, ii. 33. * Bacon's Works (Montagu), xii. 394 HENRY YELVERTON. Charles 1. others to speak," show his mean endeavours to aid Buck- ingham's inveteracy.1 Yelverton was committed to the Tower, and while there, the parliament by which Bacon was condemned met. In the course of their investigations into the grievances of patents, the Commons implicated Yel- verton ; who, in his answer to the Lords, cleared himself from the charge, boldly asserting his innocence, and attribut- ing his present imprisonment to the course which he had taken in the Patent of Inns. The king thereupon took the matter up, and though in his speech he acquitted Sir Henry, who he acknowledged disliked and resisted the proceedings intended against the innkeepers, yet, because in his defence he had inferred that " all the punishment upon him was for his good service done to his majesty," he called upon the lords " who are able to do him justice, to punish Sir Henry Yel- verton for his slander." Yelverton, on being afterwards brought up again, made this inference more clear, by directly charging Buckingham with being "ready, upon every occa- sion, to hew him down," and with threatening that he " should not hold his place a month, if he did not conform himself in better manner to the Patent of Inns," and by roundly assert- ing, "that he suffered unjustly by his lordship's means." This was naturally deemed an aggravation of his offence, and on May 16, 1621, he was sentenced to be imprisoned, and to pay 10,000 marks to the king, and 5000 to Buckingham, who immediately remitted his part of the fine, and the prince and the lords agreed to move his majesty to mitigate the other.2 He did not long continue a captive in the Tower. It is related that Buckingham came to him there in disguise, and from the result of the interview (the very improbable details of which Sir Anthony Weldon professes to give), he made 1 Bacon's Works (Montagu^ xii. 446-449. 2 Pari. Hist. i. 1 239-1235. 1243-1248. 1255-1259. 1625—1649. HENRY YELVERTON. 395 his peace, and procured his immediate release.1 He resumed his practice at the bar in the following Michaelmas Term, when his name appears in Croke's Reports, and for the remain- ing four years of the reign. That the reconciliation was complete is apparent from the fact that, within six weeks after King Charles came to the crown, Buckingham procured for him a seat on the bench of the Common Pleas, not to supply any vacancy, but in addition to the court as a fifth judge. He received his patents as serjeant on April 30, and as judge on May 10, 1625 ; and, according to Bishop Hacket, there were rumours of his being made lord keeper by the removal of Lord Co- ventry, which was only prevented by the assassination of the Duke.2 What foundation there was for these rumours cannot now be known ; but within eighteen months of the duke's murder, Sir Henry's own career was closed by his death on January 24, 1630, at his house in Aldersgate Street. His remains were removed for interment in the church of Easton-Mauduit, where a monument is placed with recumbent effigies of himself and his lady. He was much respected and admired by his contemporaries, for his eloquence, his courage, his integrity, and his learning. His reputation as a lawyer was very great, and was not diminished by the subsequent publication, by Sir W. Wylde, of his " Reports of Special Cases." Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, at an early period of his career, gave this testimony of him to his face. " Indeed, I must say your father's education of you, that have made you so lively resemble himself, for you have good elocution and sound reason, whereby the appre- hension of them that hear you is made more active, and so hath your father, which is a great merit in the professors of the law."3 1 Court of James (1650), 157. * Life of Bishop Williams, ii. l[). * Archaeologia, xv. 51. 396 HENRY YELVERTON". Charles I. He married Margaret, daughter of Robert Beale, Esq., clerk of the council to Queen Elizabeth, who had the un- pleasant duty of reading the warrant for the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, at the scaffold on which she suffered. He left several children, the eldest of whom, Christopher, was created a baronet in 1641, and was succeeded in the title by his son, Sir Henry, who married Susan, in her own right Baroness Grey de Ruthyn. Their two sons, Charles and Henry, successively came to this title, and the latter of whom being created Viscount Longueville in 1690, his son re- ceived the earldom of Sussex in 1717. These two additional titles failed by the death of the third earl in 1799 without male issue ; but the barony of Grey de Ruthyn descended to Henry the son of his daughter Barbara, by Edward Thoro- ton Gould, Esq. He took the name of Yelverton, and his daughter now enjoys the title, together with that of Baroness Hastings of Ashley.1 YORK, Archbishop of. See J. Williams. 1 Wood's Ath. Oxon. ii. 476, ; Collins's Peerage, vi. 624, 397 INTERREGNUM Of 11 years, 2 months, and 29 days ; from January 30, 1649, to May 29, 1660. SURVEY OF THE PERIOD. The interval of little more than eleven years that elapsed between the decapitation of Charles I. and the restoration of his son, though generally called the Commonwealth of Eng- land, was signalised by no less than eight changes in the government of the country. I. That adopted on the king's death was a republic, without any king or House of Lords, under the nominal rule of the House of Commons and a Council of State. The style or title assumed was " The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England : " the teste of the writs was in the name of the " custodes Libertatis Anglige, authoritate Parliamenti ; " and indictments were framed "contra pacem publicam." This system lasted for four years and nearly three months. II. After the parliament had been violently expelled by Cromwell on April 20, 1653, he exercised absolute power as lord general of the army, and on July 4 he called together, as a convention or parliament, a certain number of persons no- minated by himself, to whom t( the great charge and trust of the peace, safety, and good government of the common- wealth was committed," according to the language of the sum- mons. This trust they executed by surrendering back their powers to him from whom they had received them, on the 398 CHANGES OP GOVERNMENT. Inter. 12th of the next December; thus ending the second form of government after about eight months' continuance. III. The government was then declared to be and reside in one person and the people assembled in parliament, and Cromwell received the title of " Lord Protector of the Com- monwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland " for life. The office was to be elective and not hereditary ; and he was to be assisted by a council of twenty-one, and a parliament of 460. The first parliament under this new regime met on September 3, 1654, but not being sufficiently compliant with the protector's will, he dissolved them in the following Janu- ary, and called another in September, 1656, in which he pre- vented the entry of any unyielding members, by requiring all who were elected to be armed with a certificate of approval by his council. Having thus got rid of more than ninety stiff- necked representatives, the Protector's influence over a ma- jority of the remainder was unbounded. They offered him the title of king, which he, upon a broad hint from the army, most reluctantly refused. Thereupon they proposed a new settlement of the government, which was adopted on May 25, 1657, — this limited protectorate having lasted three years and five months. IV. By the new constitution Cromwell was again appointed lord protector and chief magistrate, with exclusive authority and power to appoint his successor, and to nominate not ex- ceeding seventy, nor less than forty, members of what was called " the other House." By virtue of this power he created sixty-three peers ; but the Commons, quarrelling as to the appellation to be given to the " other House," Cromwell dis- solved them on February 4, 1658. He died on the 3rd of the following September, his reign under this constitution having lasted only one year and little more than three months. V. Richard, his son, was then proclaimed protector under 1649—1660. JUDICIAL CHANGES. 399 the same settlement ; but at the end of eight months he dis- solved the parliament he had summoned ; and soon after was dismissed from his office. VI. The Long Parliament resumed its sittings on May 7, 1659, and those members who were in it when it was expelled by Cromwell continued to meet for nearly five months, when on October 13 they were again ejected. VII. The army then assumed the government, and ap- pointed what they termed a Committee of Safety, which in its turn by the influence of General Monk was contempt- uously discarded, after ruling for two months, and VIII. The Long Parliament was again restored on De- cember 26, 1659. After being obliged by Monk to admit the members who had been formerly excluded as malignants, and sitting for nearly three months more, they dissolved them- selves on March 16, 1660. The Convention Parliament met on April 25, and prepared the way for the peaceful restoration of Charles II. In most of these changes the reappointment of official and judicial officers was required, and in some of them new oaths were imposed. This will account for the frequent alterations occurring in the courts of justice during this short period, by the removal of some of the judges, and the substitution and transfer of several, and the refusal of others to act. In Chancery Richard Keeble was removed from the cus- tody of the Great Seal when Oliver Cromwell became Pro- tector ; and Whitelocke and Widdrington were displaced by the Protector's authority. When Richard succeeded his father, Whitelocke was restored, but went out on Richard's dismissal ; and the Long Parliament on its recall appointed new commissioners, superseded in turn on the subsequent changes. In the Upper Bench two chief justices resigned, — Rolle from a disinclination to go to the lengths that Cromwell de- 400 JUDGES. Inter. sired ; and Glynne on the return of the Long Parliament. Of the puisne judges, Nicholas was removed by the Protector to the Exchequer, and restored by the parliament, which had first appointed him, to his original court. Newdigate was turned out by the Protector for " not observing his pleasure," notwithstanding the " quamdiu se bene gesserit " of his patent ; but was again restored by the same power, and was eventually made chief justice on Glynne's resignation. In the Common Pleas, Peter Warburton wras transferred from this court to the Upper Bench. Edward Atkyns, ap- pointed by the Long Parliament, retired when it was turned out by the army ; and Matthew Hale, induced to take a seat on the bench by Cromwell, upon the death of the Protector refused a new commission from Richard his successor. In the Exchequer, Chief Baron Wilde was removed with- out any cause assigned when Cromwell became Protector, but was restored to his place seven years afterwards by the Long Parliament by whom he had been first nominated. Baron Nicholas was reinstated in his original seat on the Upper Bench by the Long Parliament on its last restoration, to make room for Francis Thorpe, who had five years before been dismissed by Cromwell for non-compliance with his com- mands ; and Baron Hill was transferred to the Upper Bench at the same time to make up the complement of judges there ; which just before the return of Charles II. was three in each court, including the chief. It has been customary to take the names of the judges and the order of their appointment from " Whitelocke's Memo- rials." But his diary is necessarily deficient in this informa- tion while he was engaged in his Swedish Embassy, from November 6, 1653, to June 30, 1654, during which Crom- well became protector, and made several changes. Some confusion also arises from his noticing some judges as if they were newly appointed on one or other of the changes of go- 1649—1660. COMMISSIONERS OF GREAT SEAL. 40 1 vernment, when they only received the customary new patent. From the Reports of the time, however, though very few in number, and from various other sources, it is hoped that these deficiencies have been supplied, and that the list now offered gives the succession on each bench with as much accuracy as can now be attained. The salary to each of the judges was 1000Z. per annum, being the same as that of the lords commissioners of the Great Seal; and by an ordinance of January 27, 1652, they were prohibited from taking any fee, perquisite, or reward, either by themselves or their servants.1 The sittings of the court were early, and the judges were sometimes kept to a late hour. One cause, Colt v. W. Dutton, occupied them from eight in the morning till eight at night.2 Commissioners of the Great Seal. At the end of the reign of Charles I., the commissioners who had been previously appointed by parliament were : — 1649. Jan. 29. Henry Grey, Earl of Kent, William Grey, Lord Grey de Werke, Sir Thomas Widdrington, and Bulstrode Whitelocke, who remained in office little more than a week after Charles's death. Feb. 8. Bulstrode Whitelocke, John L'Isle, and Richard Keeble, then succeeded, and continued till Oliver Cromwell be- came protector : soon after which, 1654. April 5. Bulstrode Whitelocke, Sir Thomas Widdrington, and John LTsle, were entrusted with the Seal. The protector removed the two first of these, and placed it in the hands of 1 Whitelocke, 520. Siderfin, 3. VOL. VI. D D 402 COMMISSIONERS OF GREAT SEAL. Inter. 1656. June 15. Nathaniel Fiennes, and John L'Isle, •who retained it during the rest of Oliver's life. The Pro- tector Richard granted a new commission to 1359. Jan. 22. Bulstrode Whiteeocke, Nathaniel Fiennes, and John L'Isle ; and they remained till the Long Parliament, on its revival, appointed May 14. William Lenthall, M.R., the speaker, for about three weeks ; and then, June 3. John Bradshaw, Thomas Tyrrell, and John Fountaine. But upon the second expulsion of the Long Parliament the Committee of Safety nominated 1659. Nov. 1. Bulstrode Whitelocke, sole keeper. He kept it till the Long Parliament met again ; who delivered it for a few days to 1660. Jan. 13. William Lenthall, M.R., their speaker, and then appointed new commissioners, viz., „ 17. Sir Thomas Widdrington, Thomas Tyrrell, and John Foentaine. On the meeting of the Convention Parliament, May 5. Edward Montagu, Earl of Manchester, was added to these ; and the Seal remained in the pos- session of these four commissioners till it was defaced and broken by the House of Commons, on May 28, the day before the return of the king. During all these changes, commissions were issued to the master of the Rolls, with some of the judges and masters in Chancery, to hear causes in the absence of the lords commis- sioners. Whitelocke says that the commissioners " found their meet- ings to be more convenient out of Term and in the afternoons in the Middle Temple Hall, both for them and the counsel."1 1 Whitelocke, 388. 1649—1660. GREAT SEAL. 403 Master of the Kolls. William Lenthall, during the whole period from the death of Charles I. to the restoration of Charles II., kept possession of this office. Masters in Chancery. William Lenthall, M.R.- ... - 1649 to 1660 Edward Leech - - - - - - 1649 to 1652 John Page - - - - - - 1649 to 1655 Sir Thomas Bennett, LL.D. - 1649 to 1660 Robert Aylett, LL.D. ----- 1649 to 1655 William Child - - - - « - 1649 to 1659 Sir Justinian Lewen, LL.D. - - - - 1649 to 1651 John Sadler - - - - - - 1649 to 1656 Arthur Duck, LL.D. ----- 1649 to 1650 Edwin Rich - - - - - - 1649 to 1660 William Hakewell - - - - - 1649 to 1652 Edward Eltonhead - - - - - 1649 John Bonde ------ 1650 to 1655 Robert Keilway - - - - - - 1651 to 1660 Thomas Estcourt - - - - - 1652 to 1660 Nathaniel Hobart - - - - - 1652 to 1660 Arthur Barnardiston ----- 1655 William Harrington ----- 1655 to 1660 William Glasscocke - - - - - 1655 to 1659 Edmund Gyles - - - - - - 1655 to 1660 Thomas Bulstrode - - - - - 1656 to 1660 Robert Warsup - - - - - - 1659 to 1660 William Eden - - - - - - 1659 to 1660 Some of these were removed in consequence of an ordi- nance of May 2, 1655, limiting the number to six. The six clerks were reduced to three ; and the office of registrar was no longer to be executed by deputy, but four were appointed. The Great Seal and its emblems shared in the variations of the revolution. The Seal which had been substituted by the parliament for that which Lord Lyttelton took away to Oxford in 1642, and which it imitated in all its insignia and i) i> 9 404 GREAT SEAL. Lvter. inscriptions, was, immediately after the death of the king, brought into the House of Commons, and there broken up, and the pieces given to the two commissioners, Widdrington and Whitelocke, to be disposed of at their pleasure. The Seal adopted by the Commonwealth, which had been previously ordered, was then delivered to the new commis- sioners. The order in the journals describes that it shall be " graven with the addition of the kingdom of Ireland and of Jersey and Guernsey together with a map of England, and in some convenient place on that side the arms by which the kingdoms of England and Ireland are differenced from other kingdoms. — That on the map side of the Great Seal the In- scription shall be « The Great Seal of England, 1648.' — That the inscription on the other side of the Seal, on which the Sculpture of the House of Commons is engraven, be this, viz. fIn the first year of freedom by God's blessing restored, 1648.'" Whitelocke adds that the design was the fancy of Mr. Henry Martin.1 In December, 1651, another new Great Seal was delivered to the commissioners by the parliament, which seems in no respect to have differed from the former, except that the date was altered to 1651, and the " first year" to the "third year ; " but it was far more elaborately engraved. On the expulsion of the House of Commons in 1653, there was no alteration in the Great Seal ; and in the Bare- bone's Parliament, soon after summoned, a bill was brought in and nearly carried for taking away the Court of Chancery. The Great Seal of the Protectorate, after Cromwell's second investiture in May, 1657, is thus described in Prest- wich's " Respublica : " — " A large circle, having thereon the protector bare headed, mounted on mareback, attired in a short coat or jacket of mail, over which was a military sash, placed over his right shoulder and under the left arm, tied 1 Journals; Whitelocke, S67. 380. 1649—1660. UPPER BENCH. 405 behind; pendant to his left side, a large and broad sword, his right hand grasping the head of a truncheon, which he holds before him, one end resting on the pommel of the saddle, his left hand holding the bridle. Behind, on the space on the sinister side, and near the top, was a civic shield, with four quarters ; the first and fourth, with the Cross of St. George for England; 2d. the Saltier or Cross of St. Andrew for Scotland ; and 3d. the Harp of King David for Ireland. On the margin of this side the seal these words, 6 Olivarius, Dei Gra. Reip. Anglias, ScotiaB, et Hibernian, &c. Protector.' On the other side the like arms as that for pro- clamations, only with this difference, the mantling lamber- quin'd with four doublings or folds ; on the margin, f Magnvm Sigillvm Reipub. Anglia3, Scotia3, et Hibernise.' " 1 When the Long Parliament resumed its sittings in May, 1659, they ordered that a new Great Seal should be pre- pared according to the form made in 1651. This seems to have been used, even after the meeting of the Convention Parlia- ment and the proclamation of Charles II., up to the day before the king's return, when it was " defaced by a smith " in the House of Commons, and the pieces given to the late commissioners as their fee.2 With the abolition of the monarchy the name of King's Bench became inapplicable and obnoxious. The court which was so called received the designation of the Upper Bench, and the oath of the judges was no longer to be taken in the name of the king, but in that of the people. Chief Justices of the Upper Bench. Henry Rolle, named three months before the king's death, was the first chief justice. He occupied the seat for the next six years, when, on his resignation, Cromwell ap- pointed 1 Burton's Diary, ii. 515. " Journals; Pari. Hist. iii. [551, i) n 3 406 COMMON PLEAS. Inter. John Glynn e, serjeant at law and late recorder of London, on June 15, 1655. He resigned the place soon after the return of the Long Parliament, who supplied it by the promotion of Richard Newdigate, one of the judges of the same court, on January, 1660. He continued to preside till Charles's return in May. Justices of the Upper Bench. Of the three puisne judges who were in office at the death of the king, two, Francis Bacon and Samuel Browne, refused to act, one only consenting to exercise his functions under the new government, viz. : — 1649. Feb. Philip Jermyn. June 1. Robert Nicholas. Richard Aske. 1654. June 2. Richard Newdigate, loco R. Nicholas. Newdigate was removed the next year, but restored in 1657. 1655. June. Peter Warburton, loco P. Jermyn. 1660. Jan 17. Robert Nicholas, loco P. Warburton. Roger Hill, loco R. Aske. The judges of this court at the time of the Restoration, were — Richard Newdigate, chief justice, Robert Nicholas. Roger Hill. Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Oliver St. John, the chief justice at the death of the king, was continued in his place, and retained it till the restoration of Charles II. Justices of the Common Pleas. Thomas Bedingfield and Richard Cresheld, two of the 1649. Feb. June 1. Oct. 19. 1654. ? June 2. 1659. May 15. 1660. Jan. 17. 1649—1660. EXCHEQUER. 407 former judges of this court, refused to be resworn. The Peter Fhesant. John Puleston. Peter Warburton. Edward Atkyns, loco P. Phesant. Matthew Hale, loco (?) J. Puleston. Hugh Wyndham, loco P. Warburton. John Archer, loco M. Hale. Edward Atkyns, retired. The judges of the Common Pleas who were in office when Chailes II. returned, were — Oliver St. John, chief justice, Hugh Wyndham, John Archer. Chief Barons of the Exchequer. John Wilde kept his place as lord chief baron, to which he had been appointed in the October previous to the death of Charles I., till Cromwell became protector, in December, 1653. The office then remained vacant for above a year, when William Steele, formerly attorney-general to the Com- monwealth, and then recorder of London, was sworn chief baron on May 28, 1655. In the next year, on August 20, he was made lord chancellor of Ireland, and there was no other chief baron for nearly two years. Sir Thomas Widdrington, serjeant at law, who had been one of the commissioners of the Great Seal, was ap- pointed on June 26, 1658. On his restoration to the com- missionership of the Great Seal, John Wilde was replaced on January 17, 1660, and presided in the court till the Restoration. Barons of the Exchequer. Two also of the old barons of this court, Thomas Trevor D D 4 408 CHANCERY. Inter. and Edward Atkyns, declined to hold office after the king had been beheaded. There only remained — 1649. February. June 1. 1654. January. June 2. 1655. ? 1657. Before Easter. 1660. Jan. 17. Thomas Gates. Richard Tomlins, cursitor Baron. Francis Thorpe. Alexander Rigby. Robert Nicholas, loco T. Gates. Richard Pepys, loco A Rigby. John Parker, loco F. Thorpe. Roger Hill, loco R. Pepys. Francis Thorpe, loco R. Nicholas. Roger Hill, transferred to Upper Bench, At the restoration of Charles II., he found the court thus constituted : — John Wilde, chief baron, Francis Thorpe, John Parker. Richard Tomlins, cursitor baron. Table of the Lord Commissioners of the Great Seal and Master of the Rolls. Date. Lokds Commissioners. Mastkr of the Rolls. 1649, Feb. 8 Bulstrode Whitelocke . . ~) John L'Isle William Lenthall. Richard Keeble J 1654, April 5 Bulstrode Whitelocke Sir Thomas Widdrington . John L'Isle } — 1656, Jan. 15 Nathaniel Fiennes j John L'Isle 1659, June 22 Bulstrode Whitelocke Nathaniel Fiennes John L'Isle ] — May 14 William Lenthall, M. R. — June 3 John Bradshaw Thomas Tyrrell John Fountain } — Nov. 1 Bulstrode Whitelocke — 1660, Jan. 13 William Lenthall, M. R. — 17 Sir Thomas Widdrington Thomas Tyrrell John Fountain . i — May 5 Edward Montagu, Earl of Man- chester, added to the last three King Cha rles II. returned to England on Ma y 29, 1660. 1649—1660. UPPER BENCH. — COMMON PLEAS. 409 Table of the Chief Justices and Judges of the Upper Bench. 1649, February June 1 1654, January June 2 1655, March 18 June 15 1656, June 23 1657, before Mich, 1659, before Trin 1660, Jan. 17 Chief Justices. Henry Rolle John Glynne Richard Newdi- gate Judges of the Upper Bench. 1'hilip Jermyn died Peter Warb urton. died Robert Nicholas Robert Nicholas transferred to Ex Richard Newdi- gate restored made Ch. J. Richard Aske. died. Roger Hill. Table of the CniEF Justices and Judges of the Common Pleas. Date. Chiep Justice. Judges of the Common Pleas. 1649, February Oliver St. John Peter Phesant June 1 — - John Puleston Peter Warburton. Oct. 1 - died — — 19 - Edward Atkyns - — 1654, ? - - Matthew Hale June 2 - - -- HughWyndbam. 1658, Sept. - retired — 1659, May 15 - - John Archer — 1660, Jan. 17 — retired ~ - 410 EXCHEQUER. Inter. & w W o t*l w H Eh O CO I pq Q z o .5 pq S 0 1 i i 1 I M o Eh 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 H ■a B BS D c a ia o O -a a _rt "3 P5 5 P B £1 o 5] 5 1 £ 1 1 1 >■» 1 T3 0) pi o o c * 5 '■3 Pv a 5 ■ s © «2 Of B ■ b M H 1 ■a M 0 6 B X fl | 1 | 9 £ I I 1 1 1 H 7-1 2 3 fc. .'" ■2 Ph 5 a "9 a O) g a o £ i M pq ■ a> ■ 2 a o 1 o 1 8 5 o a 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 O H 1 ~ e £ >tj & z I a ^C o M 4 '5 3 S| ■a "3 PQ 2 1 1 1 I & Cfl 1 1 3 £ E 2 5 I S a T3 3 B % u c 0 a a a s s Jz o 15 h o ^ c a 2 H s V S DC >, a a 9 >> CV- p 3 bO B .c Q 9 5 3 < a 1-9 5 s >n 3 9 a 1-5 o O Jf iq to l» tc O S s CO 35 to 1 g "- "■ ■ ■"' "" "" ~ 1649—1660. DISCONTENTS. 411 The people showed no inclination to be satisfied with the decisions of the courts, and were often greatly inconvenienced by the delay of justice. In November, 1652, Whitelocke complains that the business of the Chancery * was full of trouble, and no man's cause came to a determination, how just soever, without the clamour of the Party against whom Judgment was given." The expulsion of the parliament put a stop for a time to legal business ; and in the following October the hearing of causes in Chancery was suspended for a month, while the bill for the suppression of the court was under discussion.1 In the summer of 1654 the assizes were delayed by an ordinance of council that none of the judges should go out of town till further order; and in the disordered state of the nation, after the return of the Long Parliament, there were no less than three terms lost ; all writs, fines, and assurances were stopped, and there was danger of having no assizes. These were given as reasons for using the Seal of the commonwealth, just before the return of the king2 ; and it is clear they were well-founded, for all the circuits for the Lent assizes had been put off, and commissions of Oyer and Ter- miner to clear the gaols had been issued to the justices of the peace for the several counties, thus leaving the civil causes without trial3 ; and an order was issued for putting off Easter term.4 For some time after the death of the king the law and its professors were very unpopular. So many of the profession had sided with the king till his death, and were known still to retain monarchical principles, that the parliament in Octo- ber, 1649, made an order " that all such persons as were heretofore judges, and likewise all Serjeants at law, counsel- lors, doctors of the civil lawe, attorneys, clerks, and solicitors in the respective courts, who have beene against the Parlia- 1 Whitelocke, 548. 555. 567. ■ Council Books; Journals. ' Mereuriua Politicus, No. 609. 4 Mercurius Publious, No. 19. 412 SOLICITOR -GENERAL. Inter. ment, and adherent to or beene ayding and assisting to the Enemy, be removed from their chambers respectively within either of the Serjeants' Innes, or any of the Innes of Court or Chancery, and from the Doctors' Commons."1 In the next month also, " There was a great peek against the Lawyers, insomuch as," according to Whitelocke, te it was again said, as it had been formerly, ' That it was not fit for Lawyers who were Members of Parliament (if any Lawyers ought to be of the Parliament) to plead or practise as Lawyers during the time that they sit as Members of Parliament.' " Upon which the memorialist made a learned speech in their defence, and by his eloquence stifled the opposition.2 Gratitude is due to the parliament for the suggestion of some improvements of the law, which were afterwards adopted. One of their greatest and most beneficial innovations in the proceedings of the courts, was the introduction of English into all the process and pleadings ; and Style reports that the first rule in the Upper Bench made in English was in Easter term, 1651. in a cause between White and Kibble- white.3 Attorney-General. 1649. February. William Steele. April 9. Edmond Prideaux, till his death ; receiving new Patents from the protectors, Oliver and Richard, in 1653 and 1658. 1659. Robert Reynolds, till the Restoration. Solicitor-General. 1649. February. John Cook. 1650. Robert Reynolds. 1654. May 24. William Ellis. 1 Journals. 2 Whitelocke, 430. s Style's Reports. 261. 1649—1660. SERJEANTS. 413 Serjeants-at-Law. It may be as well to repeat here the names of those Serjeants who were called by the parliament in the October before the king's death, The added initials mark the Inn of Court to which they belonged; and those who became judges are distinguished by a * 1648 * Thomas Widdrington (G.), * Thomas Bedingfield (G.), * Richard Keeble (G ), * Francis Thorpe (G.), * John Bradshaw (G.), * Oliver St. John (L.), * Samuel Browne (L.), * John Glynne (L.), Erasmus Erie (L.), * Bulstrode Whitelocke (M.), William Conyers (M.), * Peter Warburton, * Alexander Rigby, Evan Seys. * Richard Pepys (M.), Thomas Fletcher (L.), * Matthew Hale (L.), * William Steele (G.), * Richard Newdigate, (G.), * Roger Hill (I.), William Shephard, * John Fountaine (L.), * Thomas Tyrrell (I.), — Steel, ? Thomas Waller, — Wroth, — Finch, 1649. ? 1654. 1655. 1656. 1658. 1659. * John Puleston (M.), Thomas Chapman (I.), * Thomas Gates (I.), William Littleton (I.), William Powell (L.), John Clerke (L.), John Eltonhead (M.), * Robert Nicholas (I), * John Parker (G.), Robert Bernard, Robert Hatton (M.). * Richard Aake (I.). Thomas Twisden (I.), Hugh Wyndham (L.), ! John Maynard (M.), Unton Croke (I.). * John Archer (G.). — Lynne, .John Corbet. — Hyde. SKK.FE ANTS FOR THE COMMONWEALTH. 1650. ♦ Thomas Widdrington ((!.), 1654 * John Glynne (L 1058. * John Maynard (M.). John Green (L.). Erasmus Erie (L.). 414 COUNSEL. Inter. Serjeants' Inn, Fleet Street. — In October, 1649, the parliament ordered that the contractors for the sale of the lands of the late deans and chapters should " forbear to contract with any person for sale of . . . Serjeants' Inne in Fleet Street, where divers of the Judges and Serjeants at Lawe have for a long time resided, and still reside, until the residue of the said lands shall be contracted for and sold." Serjeants' Inn, Chancery Lane. — The rector of St. Dunstan's was accustomed to receive a gratuity of 3s. 4.d. for each judge and serjeant of this house, which in the early entries is called indifferently " for his Tithes," and " Tenths." There was a curious custom attached to the payment. In the application by the rector in Easter term, 1653, giving notice of a sermon on Ascension Day, and claiming the above sum wfin lieu and satisfaction of all manner of Dues and Duties ecclesiastical whatsoever to the rector on reasonable request," he acknowledges that it " was and is of ancient Custom and Duty to present the Society upon Ascension Eve yearly with a good dish of fresh Fish ready dressed, as of Lobsters, Plaice, or some other choise fresh Fish, and with a Bottle of French Wine, White, or Claret of the best." Counsel. The initials show the courts to which those who became judges were first appointed : — — Adams, — Bernardiston, — Deves, — Allen, — Boynton, — Dormer, J. Archer, C. P., J. Bradshaw, Com.G.S. , — Edgar, R. Aske, U. B., E. Bulstrode, W. Ellis, R. Atkyns, — Carew, J. Eltonhead, W. Ayloff, K. B. T. Chapman, E. Erie, — Babington, C. Chute, S. Evre, F. Bacon, J. Clerke, — Fell, N. Bacon, J. Coke, H. Finch, L. K., — Baldwin, W. Conyers, T. Fletcher, — Barry, J. Corbet, J. Fountaine, Com. G. S., F. Bernard, U. Croke, — Foxwist, 1649—1660. INNS OF COURT AND CHANCERY. 415 — Freeman, G. Gerrard, M. R., — Gibs, J. Glynne, Ch. U. B., J. Green, — Griffith, M. Hale, C. P., B. Hall, T. Hardres, A. Harris, R. Hill, B. E., — Holbead, — Hooper, B. Hoskins, — Howell, — Hurst, R. Hyde, E. Johnson, E. Jones, W. Jones, — Latch, — Lechmere, W. Littleton, L. Long, — Lynne, T. Manby, — Manley, J. Maynard, Com. G. S., — Merrifield, W.Montagu, Ch.B.E., — Moseley, R. Newdigate, U. B. R.Nicholas, U.B. — Norbury, — Panel, J. Parker, B. E., — Parsons, R. Pepys, B. E., W. Powell, — Powis, E. Prideaux, — Proby, — Reeves, R. Reynolds, A. Rigby, B. E. — Scrogg, J. Sedgwick, E. Seys, — Shaftoe, R. Siderfin, — Starkey, — Steel, W. Steele, Ch. B. C. — Stephens, — Thomas, F. Thorpe, B. E , — Trever, — Tucke, C. Turner, J. Turner, T. Twisden, K. B , T. Tyrrell, Com. G. 8., — Vaughan, — Walker, G. Waller, P. Warburton, C. P., — Webb, B.Whitelocke,Com.G.S., T. Widdrington, Com. G.S., — Wild, — Williams, — Wilmot, — Wroth, — Wylde, H. Wyndham, C. P., W. Wyndham, K.B. — Yard. During the troubles of this period, the regular exercises of the inns of Court were greatly interrupted, and the readings discontinued. In June, 1657, Cromwell's parliament ordered " that it be recommended to his Highness and the Council, to take some effectual course upon advice with the Judges, for reforming the Government of the Inns of Court . . . and also for reviving the readings in the several Inns of Court, and the keeping up of exercise by the students there."1 Few and short are the entries found of any of these societies. Inner Temple. — The only account of this inn during this eventful period is that Brick Buildings, between Inner Temple Lane and Hare Court, were erected in 1657. 2 Burton's Diarv. ii. 313. 2 DugdaK-'s Orig. 117. 416 ATTORNEYS. Inter. Middle Temple. — This society seems also to have em- ployed its leisure, anticipating more peaceful times, in erect- ing " a good fair fabrick " in Middle Temple Lane, in 1653, and " a very large, high, spacious brick building in Essex Court," in 1656.1 Gray's Inn. — This society took advantage of the times to relieve themselves from the payment of the rent of 67. 13s. 4d. to the crown, by purchasing it of the commis- sioners of the commonwealth in 1650 for 867. 19s. lOd. ; but the sale was repudiated when legitimate government was restored.2 Barnard's Inn. — That attorneys and students usually wore gowns when attending the courts at Westminster appears from an order of this inn in 1658, that no companion shall come into the hall of the society at dinner or supper time without such gowns. Disorderly meetings held by the young gentlemen of the house under the name of " initiations," were prohibited under a penalty of 40s. By the orders in the reign of James I., attorneys and soli- citors were expressly excluded from each of the four inns of Court ; and by the renewal of the prohibition under Charles I. in more stringent terms, it appears to have been sometimes evaded. The admission of this branch of the profession into the inns of Chancery seems to have been gradually recognised ; and in Michaelmas, 1654, by a rule of the Court of Upper Bench, it was made absolutely indispensable for every mem- ber of it to be admitted in one of the inns of Court or Chan- cery. It declares " That all officers and attorneys of this court be admitted of some Inn of Court or Chancery, at the begin- ning of Hilary Term next, or in the same term wherein they shall be admitted officers or attorneys, and be in commons one week in every Term, and take chambers there, &c, under pain of being put out of the Roll of Attorneys."3 1 Dugdale's Orig. 100. 2 Report on Inns of Court, 1855. p. 76. 3 Adolphus and Ellis, 1 9. 417 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF THE JUDGES IN THE INTERREGNUM, ARCHER, JOHN. Just. C. P. 1659. See under the Reign of Charles II. ASKE, RICHARD. Just. U. B. 1649. Richard Aske belonged to a younger branch of an ancient Yorkshire family settled at Richmond. His grandfather Robert Aske of Aughton was high sheriff of the county in 1588 ; his father was John Aske of the same place, and his mother was Christiana, daughter of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Denton, knight.1 Richard, when he was admitted a member of the Inner Temple on January 27, 1606, was described as of Rides Park in that county. . He was called to the bar on January 29, 1614, but did not reach the post of reader till Lent, 1636.2 His connection with the Fairfaxes — for besides his mother, two of his father's sisters had married into that family — probably introduced him to the notice of the parlia- mentary leaders. He was employed by Mr. Stroud, one of the imprisoned members in 1629, to argue against the return to the habeas corpus* On October 18, 1643, the Commons 1 Whittaker's Richmondshire, i. 216.; Harl. MSS. 1394. 1487. 2 Inner Temple Books. :) Rushwortli, i. App. 18. VOL. VI. E E 418 JOHN BRADSHAW. Inter. specially recommended him to the lord mayor and aldermen of London to be elected one of the four pleaders ; and in June, 1644, both houses presented him with the valuable office of coroner and attorney of the king in the King's Bench.1 He was next selected as junior counsel on the trial of King Charles; and on June 1, 1649 2, as a reward for his pains, the parliament nominated him one of the justices of the Upper Bench, making him a serjeant for the purpose.3 For a short time in June, 1655, he was the only judge in the court4; and on the 23rd day in the same month in the follow- ing year his death is recorded.5 ATKYNS, EDWARD. Just. C. P. 1649. See under the Reigns of Charles I. and II. BRADSHAW, JOHN. Com. G. S. 1659. The parentage of John Bradshaw has been the subject of some uncertainty, arising partly from his leaving no imme- diate descendants, but principally from the disrepute that attached to his name as the president of the court that con- demned Charles L to the block. It is now satisfactorily esta- blished that he was a younger son of Henry Bradshaw of Marple Hall, in a township of that name in the parish of Stockport in Cheshire, descended from a family of consider- able respectability in Derbyshire, and that his mother was Catherine, daughter and coheir of Ralph Winnington, Esq., of Offerton. Born at Marple in 1602, and baptised in the parish church of Stockport on December 10 in that year, he received his 1 Com. Journ. iii. 280. 521. 535. 2 State Trials, iv. 1054. 3 Whitelocke, 405. * Style's Reports, 452. 5 Peck's Desid. Cur. B. xiv. 29. 1649—1660. JOHN BRADSHAW. 419 education first at the free school there, and then at Bunbury and Middleton, to all of which he bequeathed large sums for their endowment. Designed for the law, he commenced his legal studies at Gray's Inn on March 15, 1620, and was called to the bar on April 23, 1627, and to the bench of that society on June 23, 1645 ], when appointed judge of the Sheriffs' Court in London. He probably acted for some years as a provincial counsel, as he lived at Congleton, and served the office of mayor there in 1637, and was afterwards high stew- ard2; and at one time of his life he resided in Bradshaw Hall in Bolton, on a stone over the door of which his family arms remain.3 In the year 1643 he became a candidate for the office of one of the judges of the Sheriffs' Court of the city of London, then vacant, his antagonists being Richard Proctor and William Steele, afterwards chief baron. The right of election was claimed by both the Courts of Aldermen and Common Coun- cil, and Bradshaw was chosen by the latter on September 21, and sworn in on the 24th.* Immediately afterwards the Court of Aldermen elected Proctor, who thereupon brought an action in the King's (afterwards the Upper) Bench, which, however, did not come to a final hearing till February, 1655, when the right was determined to be in the Common Council, with whom it has ever since continued. Bradshaw, in the meantime, had performed the duties of the office, for in February, 1649, he was permitted to appoint a deputy at Guildhall " in regard of his employment in the High Court."5 Clarendon says he was " not much known in Westminster Hall, though of good practice in his chamber and much cm- ployed by the factious."6 The absence of his name from all the Reports seems to confirm this account. The earliest men- 1 Gray's Inn Books. 2 Gent. Mag. lxxxviii. i. 328. tineas Lancashire, i. 540. • Coin. Council Bks. xl. 74, 7.7. ■ Whitelocke, S77. ■ Clarendon, vi. 217, £ E 2 420 JOHN BRADSHAW. Inter. tion of him is in October, 1644, when he was assigned as one of the counsel against Lord Macguire for the rebellion in Ire- land1; and he probably assisted Pry nne in his argument to prove that Irish peers were amenable to trial by an English jury. In December he was appointed high sheriff of Lancashire.2 He next appears in the following year as leading Lilburn's appeal to the House of Lords for reparation against the ini- quitous sentence of the Star Chamber in 1638 3; and in the discussions which arose in the two houses in 1646, as to plac- ing the custody of the Great Seal in commissioners who were not members of parliament, he was among those voted by the Commons, but objected to by the Lords.4 The appoint- ment of chief justice of Chester, however, was given to him in March, 1647 ; in June he was retained as one of the counsel to assist in the prosecution of Judge Jenkins; and on October 12, 1648, he was included in the batch of Ser- jeants then made by the parliament.5 When the Lords rejected the ordinance for the trial of the king, and the Commons determined to proceed without their concurrence, the names of the peers and judges who had been appointed were struck out of the commission, and those of Bradshaw, Nicholas, and Steele were substituted ; and Bradshaw was dignified with the title of lord president of the so-called high court of justice.6 The selection of a man of so little weight in his profession can only be accounted for by the supposition that the concocters of the tragedy could not prevail on any of the more eminent lawyers to undertake the obnoxious service ; and that they had discovered in Bradshaw a nature exactly suited to their purpose — bold and resolute, with a small organ of veneration, and a great lack of modesty, and not encumbered with any nice delicacy 1 Wlritelocke, 106. 2 Godwin's Commonwealth, ii. 79. 3 State Trials, iii. 1347. 4 Journals; Whitelocke, 224. 4 Whitelocke, 238. 240. 255. 342. s Ibid, 366. 368. 1649—1660. JOHN BRADSHAW. 421 of feeling. Whitelocke and Widdrington had refused the commission ; neither Rolle nor St. John, the two chief justices, nor even Chief Baron Wilde, could be entrusted to obey their behest ; and their own law-officer, Prideaux, either from objections on his part, or want of confidence on theirs, was displaced, while creatures of their own were appointed temporary attorney- and solicitor-general to conduct the charge. The trial began on January 20, 1649 ; and Brad- shaw's conduct throughout its continuance fully answered the description of Clarendon, that he administered the office u with all the pride, impudence, and superciliousness imagin- able."1 Whatever may be the differences of opinion on the material point of the trial — and great will be the differences among men — no doubt can be entertained that it was ordained by usurped authority, that its end was determined before its commencement, that its proceedings were illegal and undig- nified, and that the conduct of the president was insolent and overbearing. During the sittings of the court, lodgings were provided for him at Sir Abraham Williams's house in New Palace Yard, and all provisions and necessaries were ordered to be supplied. He was treated with all the forms of judicial state; decorated with a scarlet robe, a sword and mace were borne before him, and twenty gentlemen were appointed to attend him with partizans. When, after a long speech, he had pronounced the sentence, he was the first to sign the warrant for execution. But, however willing an instrument, he was not altogether a free agent ; for all that he did, and almost all that he said, seems to have been directed and dictated by the majority of the commissioners, consisting of the king's most determined enemies.2 In the subsequent trials of the Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Hol- land, and others, he was continued lord president of the court ; and the dean's house at Westminster was given to him for 1 Clarendon, vi. 218. 2 State Trials, iv. 1008—1154. SB 3 422 JOHN BKADSHAW. Inter. ever for his residence and habitation, with a donative of 5000/. He became one of the council of state, and, being elected its president, is noticed by Whitelocke for his length- ened arguments, and the inconvenience they occasioned. A vote to settle 2000/. a year in lands out of the Earl of St. Alban's and Lord Cottington's estates on him and his heirs was passed ; and his appointment of chief justice of Chester was renewed, to which the chancellorship of the duchy of Lancaster was afterwards added.1 He does not seem to have acted as lord president of the high court of justice beyond 1650, Serjeant Keeble presiding in 1651, and Serjeant L'Isle in 1654.2 Bradshaw was a staunch republican, and looked with a jealous eye on Cromwell's attempt to gain the sole authority. When the ambitious general ejected the Long Parliament on April 20, 1653, and came to the council of state to put an end to its sitting, Bradshaw, who still presided, rose and boldly addressed him in these words: — " Sir, we have heard what you did at the House in the morning, and before many hours all England will hear it ; but, sir, you are mistaken to think the Parliament is dissolved, for no power under heaven can dissolve them but themselves ; therefore take you notice of that."3 He was not, of course, one of the members selected by the general to sit in what was called Barebone's Parlia- ment ; but in it an act was passed for continuing in him the jurisdiction of the county of Lancaster.4 Cromwell, when he became protector, summoned him to the council, and re- quired him to take out a new commission for his office of chief justice of Chester ; but he refused to do so, alleging that he held that place by a grant from the parliament of England, to continue quamdiu se bene gesserit ; and whether he had carried himself with that integrity which his com- 1 Whitelocke, 390. 414. 420. 529. 2 State Trials, v. 43. 518. * Ludlow, 1 95. « Whitelocke, 565. 1649—1660. JOHN BRADSHAW. 423 mission exacted of him, he was ready to submit to a trial by twelve men to be chosen by Cromwell himself. Cromwell was silenced, and, though an order was actually signed dis- missing him from the office, did not think it safe to prevent him from proceeding on his circuit.1 In Cromwell's parlia- ment of 1654 Bradshaw was elected member for Cheshire, notwithstanding the protector's attempts to keep him out, and distinguished himself against the court party in the debate whether the government should be in one single person and a parliament.2 That parliament was soon dis- solved; and on summoning another in September, 1656, Cromwell was more successful in his efforts, and Bradshaw was not returned. The distaste between them continued to increase, and Bradshaw was omitted from the list of peers nominated by the protector. On the death of Cromwell, Bradshaw was returned for Cheshire to Richard's parliament of January, 1659. With its dissolution in April, the protectorate terminated from mere imbecility, and the remnant of the Long Parliament, nicknamed the Rump, resumed its sittings. Bradshaw, a determined commonwealth's-man, was named on the council of state3, and on June 3 was appointed one of the com- missioners of the Great Seal, in conjunction with Tyrrell and Fountaine. He had been for eight months suffering from the ague, and was then in the country. His attendance, there- fore, was dispensed with at that time ; but in July 22 he took the oaths in the house.4 Ere four months had elapsed this Rump was again dismissed by the army, and Bradshaw, still sick and suffering, attended in the council of state, and almost with his last words expressed "his abhorrence of that detestable action," as he called it.5 He then withdrew, and 1 Ludlow, 240— 244.; Godwin, iv. 270. 2 Pari Hist. iii. 1428. 1445. 3 Ludlow, 261. 277. 4 Whitclockc, 680. 681. s Ludlow ■ a 4 424 NATHANIEL FIENNES. Inter. survived the scene about a fortnight, dying on October 311, with the declaration that if the king were to be tried and condemned again, he would be the first man that should do it. His death occurred in the Deanery at Westminster, and he was buried with great pomp in the abbey, his funeral sermon being preached by John Rowe.2 On the restoration of Charles II. his body, and those of Cromwell and Ireton, which had been deposited in the same place, were disinterred, and, with every mark of obloquy, were dragged on sledges to Tyburn, where they were hanged on the several angles of a triple gibbet, then beheaded, their trunks thrown into a hole under the gallows, and their heads exposed on poles at top of Westminster Hall.3 The partisans of the royal and the republican party of course differ essentially in their estimate of Bradshaw's cha- racter. The laudation of it during his life by Milton 4 (whom he had patronised, and to whom he bequeathed 10/. 5), is too exaggerated, and Clarendon's description of him after his death is perhaps too severe. Whitelocke's (with whom he was evidently no favourite) is pithy, and nearer the mark : " A stout man, and learned in his profession, no friend to monarchy." The best part of his character is his consistency ; for he showed as much resistance to the semblance of royalty as to the reality, opposing the usurpation first of Cromwell, and then of the army, as firmly as he had stood against the king. FIENNES, NATHANIEL. Com. G. S. 1655. The Great Seal having in former times been occasionally en- trusted to members of the military profession6, Cromwell no 1 Whitelocke, 686. 2 Wood's Ath. Oxon. iii. 1129. 3 Harris's Lives, iii. 520. 4 Defensio pro propulo Anglic. (1651.) 8 Bradshaw is stated to have been a kinsman of Milton, by the mother's side. 9 See Bousser, vol. iii. 400.; De la Pole, Scrope, Segrave, Beaufort, and Nevill, vol. iv. 70. 80. 86. 151. 344. 1649—1660. NATHANIEL FJENNES. 425 doubt considered that he might follow the precedent when he appointed Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes to be one of his lords commissioners. But from the disgrace that the colonel had previously incurred, the lawyers might well congratulate themselves that he had no claim to be regarded as a brother. He was the second son of William, Lord Say and Sele, who was created a viscount in 1624, and who became a great supporter of the discontented party, by Elizabeth, daughter of John Temple, Esq., of Stowe in Buckinghamshire. He was born about 1608 at Broughton in Oxfordshire, and after receiving the rudiments of his education at Winchester, was admitted in 1624 fellow of New College, Oxford, as founder's kin.1 He remained there about five years, and then spent some time abroad, " in Geneva and amongst the cantons of Switzerland, where," says Clarendon, " he improved his dis- inclination to the church, with which milk he had been nursed." From his travels he returned through Scotland in 1639, at the time of the tumults there, which he assisted in fomenting.2 In 1640 he was elected a member of the Long Parliament as representative for Banbury, close to the place of his birth, and soon became a leader of the party called "root and branch." He strongly supported the bill against the bishops, and so little had the consequences been considered that, in a conversation with Clarendon, in answer to the question, what government they meant to introduce instead, he said, u There would be time enough to think of that."3 He was appointed of the committee to attend the king on his journey to Scot- land in 1641.4 When the parliament took up arms in the following year, Fiennes not only undertook to find one horse and bring 100/. in money as his subscription towards the 1 Wood's Athen. Oxon. iii. 877. 2 Clarendon's Rebellion, i. 325. 510. 8 Ibid. i. 410.; Life, i. 90. 4 Rebellion, i. 494. 426 NATHANIEL FIENNES. Inter. cause l, but accepted a commission of colonel of their forces. His first exploit, the defeated attempt to surprise Worcester 2, did not speak much to the credit either of his courage or military skill ; and his conduct at Bristol, the governorship of which was entrusted to him in April, 1643, confirmed the bad impression he had made. Professing great zeal for the parliament, he had removed the former governor on suspicion of disaffection, and had condemned and executed two prin- cipal citizens on the charge of plotting to give up the place to the king ; and yet, after laying in stores of ammunition and provisions sufficient to sustain a siege of three months, no sooner had Prince Rupert invested the city, than, after a slight show of resistance, he demanded a parley, and surren- dered it to the royalists, to the great advantage of their cause in the west, and the infinite discouragement of the parliamen- tarians. On the colonel's return to parliament " every one looked strangely on him with a discontented aspect," so palpably showing their suspicion of either treachery or cowardice, that he felt it necessary to make his apology openly in the house, concluding with a desire that his conduct might be examined by a council of war. This relation being published by him- self was answered and exposed by Mr. Walker and Mr. Prynne, in a book called " Rome's Masterpiece ; " for the publication of which the writers were summoned before the council to make good their accusation. The consequence was that Colonel Fiennes was called upon to defend himself; and after a solemnlrial conducted most ably by Mr. Prynne, which by reason of frivolous obstacles and objections raised by the colonel lasted no less than nine days, he was convicted by the council of war, and condemned to lose his head. The sen- tence, however, was not put in execution ; by his family inte- rest and connections, and perhaps by the consideration of his 1 Notes and Queries, 1st Ser. xii. 338. 2 Rebellion, iii. 234. 625. 1649—1660. NATHANIEL FIENNES. 427 great civil ability, and the eminent services and zeal he had previously shown in the cause, the general was induced to grant him a pardon. His military career, for which he was totally unfitted, thus ended in infamy, and he quitted the kingdom to cover his disgrace.1 Returning after some years' retirement, he resumed his at- tendance in parliament and almost his former ascendancy. He was one of the committee formed for the safety of the kingdom in January, 1648 2; and on the 1st of the following December he made a speech in favour of receiving the king's answers from the Isle of Wight as satisfactory. In conse- quence he was, a few days after, one of the first victims of Pride's Purge, and, after being imprisoned for a short time, was secluded from the house.3 In the parliament which Cromwell called after he was de- clared protector in September, 1654, he was elected one of the members for Oxfordshire. Though he of course sub- scribed the recognition of the protector's authority, and was one of the committee for the enumeration of damnable here- sies, his name does not appear in Goddard's account as taking any part in the debates of that parliament, which was dis- solved in January, 1655, without passing a single act.4 In the following May, Fiennes was a commissioner of the pro- tector's Privy Seal, with an allowance of 20s. a day ; and on June 16 he had an additional grant of 63/. 5s. a year, nomi- nally as a member of the council5, but really as lord commis- sioner of the Great Seal, to which he had been appointed on the day before, on the secession of Whitelocke and Widdring- ton, when they refused to carry into effect the ordinance concerning the Chancery. L'Isle was his colleague, and Whitelocke says that Fiennes never had experience in mat- 1 Slate Trials, iv. 185—298. ; Rebellion, iv. 141. 343. 611." a Whitelocke, 286. 3 Pail. Hist. 1113. 1248. 4 Introd. to Burton, cxiv. * 4 Report, Pub. Rec. App. ii. 193. 428 NATHANIEL FIENNES. Inter. ters of that nature, and L'Isle had no knowledge but what he acquired by accompanying the late commissioners.1 Eiennes is said to have been the author of the declaration issued by Cromwell in the following October, vindicating the severity with which he had treated all the royalists, making them suffer in money or in person for the plots against him, whether they were implicated in them or not.2 In January, 1656, he was united with Whitelocke and others in the nego- tiation of the treaty with the Swedish ambassador. The next parliament, which met on September 17, and to which he was returned for the university of Oxford, confirmed him and L'Isle as commissioners of the Great Seal.3 In the en- deavour to remove the scruples which Cromwell professed to assuming the title of king, he was one of the principal speakers. This attempt being set aside, he bore the Seal at the solemn ceremony of the re-inauguration in June, 1657.4 Un- der the new constitution he was appointed one of Cromwell's lords; and, on the protector's death in 1658, assisted in pro- claiming Richard as his successor, and was reinstated in the custody of the Great Seal, with his former colleague and Bulstrode Whitelocke.5 In the list of the members of the parliament called by Richard in January, 1659, the name of Nathaniel Fiennes appears as member for Banbury6, which, as he was a member of the " other house," either must be a mistake, or some other person of the same name must be in- tended. He is not only mentioned as lord keeper in Richard's speech on the first day, as about to address the parliament on certain matters untouched by him7, but is named in April as going up to the bar of the "other house" to receive a decla- ration from the Commons.8 In his oration at the opening of 1 Whitelocke, 627. 2 Harris's Lives, iii. 432—435. 3 Whitelocke, 632—649. 653. 4 Pari. Hist. iii. 1498. 1515. 5 Whitelocke, 666. 675. 676. • Pari. Hist. iii. 1533. 7 Pari. Hist. iii. 1540. 8 Whitelocke, 677. 1649—1660. NATIIANIEL FIENNES. 429 the parliament, after Richard had finished speaking, he ex- ceeded even Bishop Williams's famous address, by commenc- ing it with the remarkable expression, " What shall a man say after a king ?'M Soon after the dissolution of the parliament on April 22, Richard's authority ceased, and with it Fiennes's office, the Long Parliament, which met again on May 7, ap- pointing other commissioners.2 On the king's return, Fiennes retired to his country seat at Newton Tony in Wiltshire, where he died on December 16, 1669, and was buried in the church there, with a monument to his memory. However that memory might be cherished by his friends and family, the only claim to admiration by the public would be his undoubted talent and eloquence, of which his published speeches afford ample evidence ; but in regard to his conduct either as a soldier or civilian, tainted in the former as it must ever remain with the suspicion of treachery and the imputation of cowardice, and exhibiting in the latter so many proofs of changeableness and timeserving, he cannot but be held in the lowest estimation. He married twice. His first wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Eliot of Port Eliot in Cornwall, by whom he had a son ; and his second was Frances, daughter of Richard Whitehead, Esq., of Siderley, Hants., by whom he had three daughters. His son William, by the death of his first cousin without male issue, became third Viscount Saye and Sele, and the title remained in the family till 1781, when the viscounty became extinct, but the ancient barony survived in Thomas Twistleton, descended from the daughter of the eldest son of the first viscount.3 1 Noble's Cromwell, i. 179. ■ Whitelockc, 678. 3 Noble; A. Wood, ut supra; Nicholas's Synopsis. 430 JOHN FOUNTAINE. Inter. FOUNTAINE, JOHN. Com. G. S. 1659, 1660. Alternately a royalist and parliamentarian, this lawyer was commonly called Turncoat Fountaine. Anthony Wood is evi- dently mistaken in describing him as the son of William Fountaine of Seabrooke in Buckinghamshire, and most pro- bably so in stating that he was the man, who, after being en- tered of Lincoln College, Oxford, was removed to Corpus Christi, and took his two degrees of B. A. and M. A. in 1634 and 1637.1 A monumental inscription in the church of Salle in Norfolk proves him to have been the eldest son of Arthur Fountaine of Dalling in that county, one of the sons of ano- ther Arthur Fountaine of Salle. His mother was Anne, the daughter and heir of John Stanhow.2 The Lincoln's Inn Books confirm this description, and record his admission to that house on October 30, 1622 ; and his call to the bar on June 21, 1629. A. Wood seems to have confounded a member of another family of the same name settled in Bucks with the Serjeant ; for it is not very likely that any one would take his academical degrees five and eight years after he had become a barrister. When the civil war broke out in 1642, John Fountaine showed his devotion to the crown by refusing to contribute to the subscription required by the Parliament ; whereupon the House of Commons committed him w to the Gatehouse " on October 12; and Whitelocke in stating the fact adds, " but, afterwards, he and many others refused, and again assisted on both sides, as they saw the wind to blow." 3 Three days after 1 Fasti Oxon. i. 473. 497. 2 Exemplified pedigree in Heralds' Coll. Norfolk, ii. 82. 3 Com. Journ. ii. 804 ; Whitelocke, 63. The ** Mr. Fountayne," mentioned in Notes and Queries, 1st Ser. xii. 359., as promising to "bring in one horse" to the subscription, was Thomas Fountaine, M.P. for Wendover, in Bucks, who died about 1646. 1649—1660. JOHN FOUNTAINE. 431 his committal he had liberty for four days, " to go with his keeper to bury his wife ; " and a short time after he was allowed to go, similarly attended, " to serve God at St. Mar- garet's, Westminster." He was still in confinement on De- cember 20, when his petition to be bailed was refused.1 His discharge from custody was probably granted on condition of his leaving London ; for Clarendon mentions him in 1645, as assisting and counselling Sir John Stawel in forming the As- sociation of the four Western Counties, and calls him a " lawyer of eminency, who had been imprisoned and banished London for his declared affection to the crown." 2 As long as the royal cause prospered, Fountaine remained its staunch adherent ; but as soon as he considered it was hope- less, he deserted Oxford, and went over to the enemy under Colonel Rainsborough at Woodstock. The colonel announced his " coming in," and his being then at Aylesbury, to the Commons, who, evidently distrusting him, ordered that he u should be sent prisoner to Bristol, and that Major-General Skippon should take care to keep him in safe custody." 3 During the fortnight he was at Aylesbury, he published a " Letter to Dr. Samuel Turner concerning the Church and its Revenues," urging him to advise the king for the sake of peace, and to " save what is left," to concede all the parliament re- quired, bishops and church lands, and all.4 Dr. Richard Steu- art wrote an answer 5, in which he calls the writer <( an Oxford Londoner," and reminds him, in reference to his profession of " reason and honesty," of a sentence he was wont to utter, that " when vessels do once make such noises as these, 'tis a shrewd sign they are empty." On his release he appears to have remained quiet for the 1 Com. Journ. ii. 810. 832. 896. 2 Rebellion, v. 86. 8 Com. Journ. 25 April, 1646; Whitelocke, 202. 4 This pamphlet is in the British Museum, catalogued under the title " Turner, Samuel." * Wood's Athen. Oxon. iii. 297. 432 JOHN FOUNTAINE. Inter. next six years, and so far to have satisfied the parliament as to be appointed in January, 1652, one of the committee of persons, not members, to take into consideration what in- conveniences existed in the law, and to suggest remedies. His name, however, was not at first proposed, and was only at last adopted after a close division, occasioned probably by a remembrance of his former delinquency ; from which he was not fully cleared till March, 1653; compounding for his estate at 480/. ! Although he does not appear in the few Reports of legal proceedings during that period, he must have acquired some reputation as a lawyer, as he was made a Serjeant at law on November 27, 1658, in the short reign of the Protector Richard. The Long Parliament, on its restoration, selected him on June 3, 1659, for one of the three commissioners of the Great Seal for five months ; the other two being John Bradshaw and Thomas Tyrrell, his brother-in-law. Before that term expired the Committee of Safety superseded the commission, and on November 1 entrusted the Seal to the sole keeping of Whitelocke. Fountaine, however, was replaced on January 17, 1660, on the Long Parliament again resuming the go- vernment, and with his colleagues continued in possession of the Seal, till its commonwealth emblems were defaced, and the Broad Seal of the monarchy restored. On the return of Charles II., he resumed his old political creed, and was imme- diately confirmed in his degree of the coif.2 • Pursuing his profession, he resided in Boswell Court, and survived the Restoration eleven years. He died on June 4, 1671, in the seventieth year of his age, and was buried at Salle, the seat of his ancestors. The name of his first wife, who died in 1642, is not given. By her he had two sons and a daughter. By his second wife, Theodosia, daughter of Sir 1 Whitelocke, 520.; Com. Joum. vii. 69. 71. 73. 268.; Dring's Catal. 2 Noble, L 438. ; Whitelocke, 680. 693. ; 1 Siderfin, 3. 1649—1660. THOMAS GATES. 433 Edward Harrington of Ridlington, Bart., whom he married in 1649, he left one son and one daughter. One of his grand- daughters was the mother of the first Viscount Galway ; and, though the commissioner had written against the church, two others became the wives of bishops, one of Simon Patrick, bishop first of Chichester, and then of Ely ; and the other of Thomas Sherlock, master of the Temple, bishop successively of Bangor, Salisbury, and London. His descendants, among whom was another churchman, Dr. John Fountaine, Dean of York, now reside at Melton, in Yorkshire, where there is a portrait of the serjeant. GATES, THOMAS. B. E. 1649. See under the Reign of Charles I. Whether this judge was connected by relationship with Sir Thomas Gates, who in 1606 was united with Richard Hackluyt and other adventurers in planting the first colony of Virginia *, is uncertain ; but the period of his death, which was about 1588, makes it not improbable. He is described as of Churchill in the county of Oxford in his admission to the Inner Temple, which took place on January 1, 1606-7. Having been called to the bar January 29, 1614-15 2, he was elected reader to that society in autumn, 1635. As his name is never mentioned in the Reports, there seems nothing but his politics to induce the Long Parlia- ment (of which he was not a member) to recommend him to be called serjeant, and to be made a baron of the Exchequer. This however they did on October 12, 1648, and he was sworn in the following month. He accepted a renewal of his commission on the death of the king; and was excused from 1 Wood's Athen. Oxon. ii. 187. ■ Inner Temple Hooks. VOL. VI. F F 434 JOHN GLYNNE. Inter. riding the next summer circuit by reason of his sickness.1 His death on August 19, 1650, at the age of sixty-three, was occasioned by an infection taken at Croydon while engaged in his judicial duties ; and he was buried in the Temple Church.2 He left a daughter who was married to John Lane, Esq., of Perivale in Middlesex, where there is a tablet to her memory in the church. GLYNNE, JOHN. Ch. U. B. 1655. The genealogy of this family commences in the year 843 with Cilmin Droed-tu, one of the fifteen tribes of North Wales. Without going through the pedigree it is enough to say that the future chief justice was the eldest son of Sir William Glynne, knight, of Glyn-Llivon in Carnarvonshire, by Jane daughter of John Griffith, Esq., of Carnarvon.3 John Glynne was born in 1602 at the ancient seat of his ancestors. He had the advantage of being educated at Westminster school, and afterwards at Hart Hall, (now part of New Col- lege) in the university of Oxford, whither he went at Michael- mas, 1620, and remained three years.4 During this time he had kept his terms at Lincoln's Inn, of which he was admitted a member on January 27, 1620, and having been called to the bar on June 24, 1628, he got quickly into practice, for he appears in Croke's Reports in Hilary Term, 1633. On August 7, 1638, he received a grant of the office of keeper of the writs and rolls in the Common Pleas in rever- sion 5, a place of considerable profit. Having been previously appointed high steward of Westminster, he was elected repre- sentative for that city in both the parliaments that met in 1 Dugdale's Orig. 168. 179.; Whitelocke, 342, 378. 411. 2 Peck's Desid. Cur. B. xiv. 23. 3 Wotton's Baronet, iii. 289. 4 Wood's Athen. Oxon. iii. 752. s Rymer, xx. 300. 1649—1660. JOHN GLYNNE. 485 1640. In the first of these he was a silent member: but in the last, the Long Parliament, he showed himself to be an active partisan of the discontented party. He took a pro- minent part in the prosecution of the Earl of Strafford ; and one of the arguments he used to prove that the multitude of the earl's minor offences amounted to high treason, was " Raine in dropps is not terrible, but a masse of it did over- flow the whole world." In all the proceedings his reasoning was inconsequential and his conduct harsh and inhuman. He was one of the committee to prepare the votes condemnatory of the canons, and to draw up a charge against Archbishop Laud *, and was the messenger from the Commons with a charge of high treason against the bishops who had signed a protestation against the Lords' proceeding in their absence.2 He reported likewise from the committee upon the proceed- ings against Sir John Eliot and others, who were imprisoned and condemned to pay various fines for their conduct in the parliament of 1629; and was also selected to report relative to the army plot which was to overawe the House. He sup- ported and spoke in favour of the remonstrance on the state of the kingdom, the carrying of which had so great an effect in widening the breach with the king 3 ; and he published a speech, delivered by him in January, 1642, strenuously vin- dicating the privileges of the Commons on the occasion of the king's unadvised attendance at the House, and demanding the delivery of the five members whom he had caused to be accused of high treason.4 He next accepted a commission of deputy lieutenant under the militia ordinance in May 5 ; and further showed his zeal in the cause by subscribing in June 100/. in money or plate, together with the maintenance of a horse, for the defence of the parliament.6 1 Verney's Note*, 44. 84. ■ Whiteloeke, 58. a Wrnry's Notes, 1() 148L 3 Pari. Hist. iii. 1444. 1460. * Whitelocke, 625, 626. 1649— 1660. WILLIAM LENTHALL. 451 nate ; but on complaining of the omission, he received a sum- mons to take his seat. That parliament was dissolved within a fortnight after the new Lords met, principally from the hostility occasioned by their appointment ; and Cromwell died seven months after its dissolution. In the parliament which his son, the Protector Richard, called in January, 1659, Lenthall again appeared as one of the Lords ; but on its dismissal three months after, the Long Parliament having resumed its sittings, he, after some hesitation, was induced to forget his short-lived nobility, and again take his seat as speaker.1 On May 23, he was voted keeper of the Great Seal for eight days, at the end of which other com- missioners were appointed, who, in turn, were superseded by the Committee of Safety. He again, for a third time, held the Seal for a fortnight in January, 1660, by order of the Long or Rump Parliament, which had again met, but which in the following March was finally dissolved, having in the interval conferred on him the chamberlainship of Chester.2 This and his other places the Restoration obliged him to resign, though Ludlow says (p. 383) he offered 3000/. to be continued master of the Rolls. As he had been excepted by name, together with Cromwell and Bradshaw, from the par- don offered by Charles's proclamation, dated Paris, May 3, 1654, Lenthall no doubt trembled at his present position, till he found that the extreme penalty was to be confined to those actually concerned in the king's death.3 During the dis- cussions on the Act of Indemnity he found it necessary to address a letter to the House of Commons, denying the re- ports of his " great gains " as speaker. The Commons, not- withstanding, excepted him from the bill, to suffer such pains and penalties, not extending to life, as should be proper to inflict on him ; but the Lords, probably through the influence 1 Pari. Hist. iii. 1488. 1519. L546. j Ludlow, 252. 254. - Wbitebcke, 679. 628. ■ Harris's Lira Ci (! 9 452 JOHN L'lSLE. Intkr. of Monk, moderated the vote, by directing that the exception should only take place if he accepted any office or public em- ployment.1 Eventually he received the king's pardon. Thus preserving the wealth he had acquired in his various offices, he retired to Burford Priory, his seat in Oxfordshire, purchased of Lord Falkland, but not before he had offered another proof of his timeserving pusillanimity, by forgetting his famous reply to the king, and giving evidence of words spoken in parliament by Thomas Scott the regicide.2 He died on September 3, 1662, and was buried at Burford. His confession or apology in his last illness, made to Dr. Brideoak, afterwards Bishop of Chester3, confirms the impression uni- versally formed of the weakness of his character, and the narrowness and timidity of his disposition. By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Ambrose Evans of Lodington in Northamptonshire, he left several children. His eldest son, John, whom Anthony Wood calls " the grand braggadocio and Iyer of the age," was a member of the Long Parliament, and held several offices under Cromwell, who created him a baronet. After the Restoration, he was sheriff of Oxfordshire, and was knighted by Charles II. His son William had General Monk for a godfather4, and his descend- ants still flourish in several branches, one of which resides at Bessels Leigh in Hertfordshire, a manor purchased by the speaker. L'ISLE, JOHN. Com. G. S. 1649. John LTsle was born about the year 1606 at Wootton in the Isle of Wight, the residence of his father, Sir William LTsle, who was descended from a branch of the nobife family of that name. After being educated at Magdalen Hall in 1 Pari. Hist. iv. 68. 91. 2 State Trials, v. 1063. * Wood's Athen. Oxon. iii. 608. * Mercurius Politicus, No. 611. 1649—1660. JOHN L'lSLE. 453 the university of Oxford, where he was admitted in 1622, and took the degree of bachelor of arts in February, 1625-6, he repaired, it is said, to one of the Temples as a student in law ; but whether he was ever called to the bar is uncertain. He was chosen member for Winchester in both the parliaments of 1640 — that meeting on April 13 and dissolved on May 5, and that called for November 3, which afterwards voted itself perpetual. In the latter, he at once took the popular side, advocating the violent measures on the king's removal to the north, and obtaining some of the plunder arising from the sale of the crown property. On the eviction of Dr. William Lewis in November, 1644, he was made master of St. Cross, and retained that valuable preferment till it was given to Mr. Solicitor-General Cook in June, 1649.1 In December, 1647, when the king was in duress at the Isle of Wight, L'Isle was selected as one of the commissioners to carry to him the four bills which were to divest him of all sovereignty, and to which they had to bring back the king's magnanimous refusal to con- sent. He showed his extreme inveteracy against his Majesty by his speech on September 28, 1648, in support of the mo- tion that the vote which the Commons had come to two days before, that no one proposition in regard to the personal treaty should be binding, if the treaty broke off upon another, should be rescinded; and by his further speech, some days later, urging a discontinuance of the negotiation.2 He took a prominent part in the king's trial as one of the managers for conducting its details, being present during its whole continuance, and drawing up the form of the sentence.3 The result of this activity was his receiving the appointment on February 8, 1648-9, little more than a week after the king's death, of one of the commissioners of the Great Seal, 1 Wood's Fasti Oxon. i. 422. 437.; Whitelocke, 441. 2 Pari. Hist. iii. 823. 828. 1025. 1038. » State Trials, iv. 1053. et nq. O G 3 454 JOHN L'lSLE. Inter. and being placed in the council of state.1 He not only con- curred in December, 1653, in nominating Cromwell pro- tector, but administered the oath to him ; and having been reappointed lord commissioner, was elected member in the new parliament for Southampton, of which town he was the recorder.2 In June he was constituted president of the high court of justice, and in August he was appointed one of the commissioners of the Exchequer. When the ordinance for better regulating the Court of Chancery was submitted to the keepers of the Seal, L'Isle alone was for the execution of it, his colleagues pointing out the inconvenience of many of the clauses. The consequence of his subserviency to Crom- well's wishes was that he was continued in the office on the removal of his colleagues in June, 1655 ; and was again con- firmed in it in October, 1556, by Cromwell's third parlia- ment, to which he was again returned as member for South- ampton.3 In December, 1657, Cromwell having revived the House of Lords, summoned L'Isle as one of his peers.4 The death of Oliver in September, 1658, made no difference in LTsle's position, Protector Richard preserving him in his place ; but when the Long Parliament met again in the fol- lowing May, he was compelled to retire, and other commis- sioners were appointed.5 The house, however, named him on January 28, 1660, a commissioner of the Admiralty.6 In the changes that soon occurred, L'Isle, conscious that he had taken such a part that he could not hope for pardon, thought it most prudent to leave the kingdom, and escaping to Switzerland, he established himself first at Vevay, and afterwards at Lausanne. There he was shot dead on August 11, 1664, on his way to church, by an Irishman, who was indignant at the respect and ceremony with which a regicide 1 Pari. Hist. iii. 1287. 1290. 2 Ibid. 1426. 1431. 3 Whitelocke, 571. 584. 593. 621. 627. 653. 4 Pari. Hist. iii. 1518. s Whitelocke, 666. 676. 678. 6 Mercurius Politicus, No. 605. 1649—1660. EDWARD MONTAGU. 455 was treated. The assassin escaped, and the murdered man was solemnly buried in the church of the city. In the whole of his career he was a creature of Cromwell, and aided him in all his ambitious attempts. Several of his speeches delivered as president of the high court of justice have been published ; and among the State Trials may be found those where he presided. He married Alice, daughter and heiress of Sir White Beck- enshaw, of Moyle's Court in Hampshire, which was still in possession of the family as late as the present century. His widow lived long after him, and perished at last by a violent death ; being beheaded in 1685 on a conviction, forced by the brutal Judge JefFeries from a jury who had twice returned a verdict of not guilty, for harbouring John Hicks, a preacher, who had been out with the Duke of Monmouth.1 MANCHESTER, Earl of. See E. Montagu. MONTAGU, EDWARD, Earl of Manchester. Com. G. S. 1660. See under the Reign of Charles I. The first Earl of Manchester, Sir Henry Montagu, lord chief justice of the court of King's Bench in the reign of James I., lived till November, 1642, and during his life his son Edward had been called up to the House of Peers by the title of Lord Kimbolton. At the meeting of the Long Parliament, Lord Kimbolton, having been for some time estranged from the court, took the popular side, and became a favourite organ of the party in the upper house, and the secret adviser of Pym, Hampden, and the other active spirits in the lower. In the attempt made by the king to draw off some of the leaders, Lord Kimbolton was designed to be keeper of the Privy Seal 1 Wood's Athen. Oxon. iii. 665. ; State Trials, xi. 297. Q c! 4 456 EDWARD MONTAGU. Inter. after his father's death ; but the endeavour failing by the death of the Earl of Bedford, the plans of the opposition were urged on with greater violence and rapidity. The hasty resolution of the king to impeach Lord Kimbolton and the five members, and his unadvised appearance in the House of Commons to seize the latter, led to the most fatal results, and were among the signal causes of the civil war. Lord Kim- bolton, on the charge being made by the attorney-general, stood forward, and pressed for immediate inquiry; and on the king's withdrawing the prosecution, the Commons, not satis- fied, passed a bill " for clearing the Lord Kimbolton and the five members from the feigned charge;" and impeached Sir. Edward Herbert, the attorney-general, for the part he had taken in the proceeding. When the parliament resorted to arms his lordship accepted a colonelcy in their forces, and was pre- sent on October 12, 1642, at the indecisive battle of Edgehill. His father dying on the 7th of the following month, he be- came Earl of Manchester, and was entrusted with the inde- pendent command of a considerable army. He proved his capacity as a soldier by investing the town of Lynn, so that it fell into his hands ; and by defeating the Earl of New- castle's forces in Lincolnshire with great slaughter. In May, 1644, he took the city of Lincoln by storm, and in July, with Cromwell under him, was mainly instrumental in gain- ing the important victory of Marston Moor. The consequence of this battle was the fall of York. After several further successes, he was in the second battle of Newbury on Octo- ber 27, where each party claimed the victory : and the king having subsequently been able to relieve Donnington Castle, Cromwell, who was jealous of the earl and disobeyed his com- mands, took the opportunity of making a complaint to the parliament that he was lukewarm and unfaithful to their interests, and wished to promote a peace with the king. This led to recrimination on the earl's part ; but the mutual charges 1649—1660. EDWARD MONTAGU. 457 fell to the ground without investigation. The self-denying ordinance soon followed, in consequence of which the earl resigned his command in the following April ; and the feel- ings between the two were anything but friendly. That Cromwell's dislike was not partaken by either house is evident from the Lords passing a complimentary vote in favour of him and the Earls of Essex and Denbigh, acknowledging their faithfulness and industry, and recommending their services for the consideration of parliament. The Lords also chose the earl for their speaker; and at the end of 1645, in the proposi- tions to the king for peace, the parliament named him to be made a marquis. On October 30, 1646, the Lords and Commons, not being able to agree upon the persons to be named commissioners of the Great Seal, determined to put it into the custody of the Earl of Manchester and William Lenthall, the speakers of the two houses, till they had decided, and limited their power for a week after the end of the then Michaelmas Term. When that period came, the same irresolution existed, and continued for near a year and a half, so that the earl and Lenthall remained keepers till March 15, 1648. On the question of the king's death the opinion of the House of Lords was set aside ; and a few days after the blow had fallen, that body was entirely abolished. Considering the relations that existed between the earl and Cromwell, it seems surprising that the latter, when he became protector, and in- stituted the (t other house, " should have named the earl as one of his peers ; a nomination which was of course declined. When Cromwell was dead, the dismissal of his son Richard, and the restoration of the Long Parliament, seeming to open a prospect of the king's return, the earl concerted with Monk and others the means to effect it. The House of Lords being restored in the Convention Parliament which met on April 25, 1660, he was replaced in his former position as speaker, and 458 EDWARD MONTAGU. Inter. on May 5 was added to three other commissioners of the Great Seal ; which they continued to hold till the same was defaced on May 28, and the Seal of the kingdom came again into operation under Sir Edward Hyde as lord chancellor. The duty of conveying the Lords' congratulations on his Majesty's safe arrival devolved upon this earl, and his address was elo- quent and dignified. He was rewarded with the Garter, and the office of lord chamberlain of the household, in which capacity he died at Whitehall on May 5, 1671. Lord Clarendon's high character of him must be received with some allowance, influenced as he probably was by the latter phase of the earl's career. In many points, however, it is just. He was gentle and generous, and had a natural reverence and affection for the person of Charles I., upon whom he had attended in Spain when prince. When he saw the arbitrary acts of the government, he joined the popular party in resisting them, and by force of circum- stances was led on to take part in the war, with a view of remedying what was wrong. But when he found that the object was likely to be attained without further bloodshed, he became a strenuous advocate for peace, and thus ensured the hostility of Cromwell and his party, whom he suspected of different views. The cruel fate awarded to the king con- vinced him he was right, and the efforts he made for the restoration of the legitimate monarch were dictated as much by abhorrence of the king's murder as by the conviction that the governments substituted were injurious to the happiness and liberties of the people. George I. gave his grandson a dukedom in 1719, which has been enjoyed by his descendants till the present time.1 1 Clarendon's Rebellion; Whitelocke's Memorials ; Noble's Cromwell; Pari. Hist. ; Collins's Peerage, ii. 57. 1649—1660. RICnARD NEWDIGATE. 459 NEWDIGATE, KICHARD. Just. U. B. 1654. 1657. Ch. U. B. 1660. This family, which is of extreme antiquity, derived its name from, or perhaps gave its name to the town of Newdigate in Surrey, where its property was situated as early as the reign of King John. A younger branch acquired the lordship of Harefield in Middlesex by marriage in the time of Ed- ward III., and his descendant in the fourth generation was John Newdigate, Serjeant at law to Henry VIII.1 His great-grandson in the reign of Elizabeth exchanged a part of Harefield for the manor of Arbury in Warwickshire, where Chief Justice Sir Edmund Anderson had erected a mansion which thenceforward became the seat of the Newdigates. Sir John Newdigate, the son of this gentleman, married Anne the daughter of Sir Edward Fitton of Gawsworth in Che- shire, Bart., by whom he had, besides three daughters, two sons; John, who left no issue, and Richard, the judge, who thus became inheritor of the estate. Richard Newdigate was born on September 17, 1602, and after receiving his education at Trinity College, Oxford, under the tutorage of Mr. (afterwards bishop) Skinner, was admitted a member of Gray's Inn.2 Although he had con- siderable practice as an advocate in Chancery and on the cir- cuits, none of his arguments in the courts at Westminster appear in the Reports. In 1644, he was engaged by the state with Prynne and Bradshaw in the prosecution of Lord Mac- guire and others for being concerned in the Irish massacres ; but neither he nor Bradshaw are noticed as taking any part in the trial itself. The next occurrence of his name is in 1647, as one of the counsel assigned for the defence of the eleven members against the charges made by General Fairfax 1 See Vol. V. p. 102. ■ Athen. Oxon. iv. 842. 460 RICHARD NEWDIGATE. Inter. and the army * ; which, however, having answered the pur- pose for which they were brought, were dropped without trial. These employments, at least the former of them, Mr. Newdigate probably owed in some measure to his relation- ship to John Hampden, who was his second cousin, and to his connection with Oliver Cromwell, whose aunt had married Hampden's father. Seven years then elapse without his name being brought forward ; but on January 25, 1554, soon after Cromwell became protector, he was made a serjeant and sent the Home spring circuit ; and on May 30 he accepted a seat on the Upper Bench in the place of Robert Nicholas. He is said to have been one of those lawyers, who, when summoned before Cromwell and offered judgeships, declined to act under his commission ; but on being answered by the protector, " If you gentlemen of the long robe will not execute the law, my red-coats shall," they, dreading such an alternative, consented to serve. Newdigate soon showed that he would not be sub- servient to the ruling powers. On the trial of Colonel Hal- sey and others at York he directed the jury to acquit the prisoner, saying that though it was high treason to levy war against the king, no statute declared it to be so for levying war against the protector. This mode of interpreting the law was not likely to be satisfactory to Cromwell, and con- sequently Judge Newdigate was removed from the bench on May 1, 1655, (C for not observing the Protectors pleasure in all his commands." Godwin gives a somewhat different ac- count. He says that Newdigate and Thorpe, being ap- pointed to try the prisoners in the north, requested Cromwell not to call on them to discharge an office which they con- scientiously disapproved ; and that thereupon they received their writs of ease.2 1 Whitelocke, 106. 259.; State Trials, iv. 654. 858. 2 Godwin, iv. 26. 179. 180.; Whitelocke,591, 625. 1649-1660. RICHARD NEVVDIGATE. 461 By an entry in Burton's Diary (ii. 127.) it appears that Newdigate resumed his practice at the bar, but the date of his restoration to the bench has been generally misrepre- sented. Because Whitelocke does not mention him again till May 15, 1659, it has been supposed that he was not reap- pointed till that time ; the fact being forgotten that Richard Cromwell had just then been removed from the protector- ship, and that the Long Parliament had again seized the government. It thus became necessary to reappoint the judges whose commissions under Richard were of course void; and only one of the four then named by Whitelocke was a new judge, while the other three had probably nothing more than new patents. With respect to Newdigate, it is certain that he was reappointed before Michaelmas term, 1657, for his decisions are recorded in Siderfin's Reports from that date to the restoration of the king ; and as these Reports commence with that term, he might have been replaced in his seat a long time before. Indeed, when Cromwell's rein- vestiture in the office of Protector took place on the 26th of the previous June, Newdigate attended the ceremony as one of the judges of the Upper Bench.1 It seems probable, there- fore, that Cromwell's displeasure did not last long, and that either from his family connections, or from his anxiety to supply the bench with respectable and independent judges, he allowed but a short time to elapse after Newdigate's removal before he restored him to his place. On the resignation of Chief Justice Glynne, the parliament advanced Newdigate to the presidency of the Upper Bench on January 17, 1660.2 Siderfin reports some of the cases that were heard before him as chief justiee; and among them is that of Sir Robert Pye and another, who applied for their Habeas Corpus, having been imprisoned some time on sus- 1 Whitelocke, 678. ; 2 Siderfin, 11.; Burton's Diary, ii. 512. 2 Whitelocke, 629. 462 RICHARD NEWDIGATE. Inter. picion of treason without prosecution. The court said they could not be denied bail, if the counsel for the commonwealth would not proceed against them, " for it is the birthright of every subject to be tryed according to the law of the land." In direct contradiction to this apparently authentic report, Ludlow relates that Newdigate demanded of the counsel of the commonwealth what they had to say against the Habeas Corpus being granted, and on being answered that they had nothing to say against it, the judge, "though no enemy to monarchy, yet ashamed to see them so unfaithful to their trust, replied, that if they had nothing to say, he had ; for that Sir Robert Pye being committed by an order of parlia- ment, an inferior court could not discharge him."1 A curious instance of the manner in which party prejudice will mis- represent a true narrative ! The Long Parliament being at last dissolved by its own act, preparations were made for the restoration of the mo- narchy ; and the Convention Parliament was summoned for April 25, 1660. Chief Justice Newdigate was returned for Tamworth2 — a plain proof of the sentiments he entertained, and that he felt that his judicial status no longer existed. Having only acted ministerially and never having exhibited any political hostility, no sooner had Charles returned, than a writ was issued to the late chief justice to take upon him in a regular manner the degree of Serjeant ; and he accord- ingly went through the accustomed ceremonies, with several others, on June 22, the first day of Trinity Term.3 Seventeen years after the restoration, they who had known the Serjeant's worth and experienced his lenity, were anxious that he should receive some further honour from the king in recognition of his loyalty. With that view he was introduced to his majesty, who received him in the bedchamber, and 1 2 Siderfin, 179. ; Ludiow, 356. * Pari. Hist. iv. 6. 8 1 Siderfin, 3. 1649—1660. ROBERT NICHOLAS. 463 " gave him thanks for his kindness to his friends in the worst of times, and in particular to Colonel Halsey." His claims were supported by that gentleman, and by the Duke of Or- mond and Lord Grandison ; and his great desire was to be restored to the position he had previously filled of chief justice. That office, however, was then occupied by Sir Richard Rainsford, and had already been thrice filled since the restoration. It was evident, therefore, that, as he had been passed over on so many vacancies, the king was not likely, now that he was seventy-five years of age, to appoint him to so important and onerous a position. An Irish viscounty was suggested; but, the Serjeant's son objecting, a baronetcy was substituted, which was conferred upon him on July 24, 1677, without fees. The good old man did not long enjoy the dignity, dying on October 14, 1678. He was buried under a splendid monument at Harefield ; having repurchased that ancient patrimony of the family. By his wife Juliana, daughter of Sir Francis Leigh of King's Newman, Warwickshire, and sister of the Earl of Chichester, he had a large family. The male line failed in 1806, by the death of the celebrated Sir Roger Newdigate, the fifth baronet, without issue ; but the estates devolved on the representatives of a female descendant, who adopted the family name ; and they are now possessed by Charles Newdi- gate Newdigate, Esq., M.P. for North Warwickshire.1 NICHOLAS, ROBERT. Just. U. B. 1649. B. E. 1654. Just. U. B. 1660. Anthony Wood says that this friend of the common- wealth was of the same family with those two most loyal gen- 1 To this gentleman I am greatly indebted for his kind communication of several details, and particularly for supplying me with the letters of Sir Nicholas Armore to the Serjeant's son, describing the interview witli the king and the attendant circumstances. Wotton's Baronet, iii. G 18. 464 ROBERT NICHOLAS. Inter. tlemen, Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State to Charles I. and Dr. Matthew Nicholas, Dean of St. Paul's, who were both born at Winterbourn-Earles in Wiltshire.1 Robert Nicholas is described of Allcanning in that county in his ad- mission to the Inner Temple on July 25, 1614. In 1640, he was elected member of the Long Parliament for the neighbouring borough of Devizes, and was an active mana- ger of the impeachment against Archbishop Laud. He treated the archbishop with most unseemly virulence and insult, using such foul and gross language, and calling him among other opprobrious names, "Pandar to the whore of Babylon," that the archbishop desired the Lords, "if his crimes were such as he might not be used like an archbishop, yet that he might be used like a Christian ; " and they accord- ingly checked the member in his harangue.2 He gave an- other specimen of his harshness and intolerance in 1648 by starting up, when a member objected to Lord Goring being included among the delinquents, and saying, " What, Mr. Speaker, shall we spare the man who raised a second war more dangerous than the first and cudgelled us into a treaty ? " 3 Although his motion was negatived, the Com- mons showed their liking to the man by making him a Ser- jeant at law on October 30, 1648; and they very appropri- ately appointed him one of their assistants on the king's trial.4 But though his name is included in the act as one of the king's judges, he appears to have abstained from attend- ing at the trial.5 On June 1, 1649, he accepted the office of judge of the Upper Bench, and in April of the following year he and Chief Justice Bolle were much commended by the Commons for settling the people's minds to the government by their charges 1 Athen. Oxon. iii. 129. ■ State Trials, iv. 525, &c. 8 Pari. Hist. iv. 1068. * Whitelocke, 346. 366. 6 State Trials, iv. 1052. 1649—1660. JOHN PARKER. 465 to the grand jury on the western circuit.1 When Oliver Cromwell assumed the protectorate, Nicholas was removed from the Upper Bench into the Exchequer, and was sworn a baron in Hilary Term, 1653-4 ; an appointment which he still held on the succession of Protector Richard in September, 1658, when he was resworn.2 His next change was made by the Rump Parliament, who restored him to his former place on the Upper Bench on January 17, 1659-60.3 There is no account of him after the return of King Charles, and it is most probable that he was permitted quietly to take advantage of the act of Indemnity.4 Being of the Rump Parliament he was omitted from those Serjeants who were confirmed in their degree. PARKER, JOHN. B. E. 1655. John Parker, in his admission to the society of Gray's Inn on March 13, 1611, is described of Weylond Underwood in Buckinghamshire. He was called to the bar on June 26, 1617, became an ancient in 1638, a bencher in 1640, and in autumn, 1642, arrived at the post of reader. In March, 1647, he was appointed a judge of one of the Welsh circuits ; and in the next year was sent by the Com- mons with others to try the rioters in that country. The parliament included him in the Serjeants they made on Octo- ber 30, 1 648 ; and on the death of the king confirmed him in his office of Welsh judge. On July 18 of the same year a Mr. Parker had a patent with Mr. Oldsworth as Registrar of the Prerogative Court ; but whether it was the Serjeant is uncertain. He was sent on the summer circuit of 1653, either as a serjeant or a judge ; for there is some doubt as to the precise date of his being placed on the bench of the Ex- chequer; Hardres' Reports, which record his judgments as a 1 Whitelocke, 405. 4is. ccbequer Books. s VVhitelooke, 693. vol. vi. ii ir 466 JOHN PARKER. Inter. baron, not commencing till Trinity Term, 1655. He was most probably appointed on the removal of Baron Thorpe in May, 1655, and he kept his seat till the Eestoration, through all the changes occasioned by the accession of the Protector Richard and the return of the Long Parliament. In the parliaments of 1654 and 1656 he represented Rochester; and when Cromwell composed an upper house, he with the other judges was summoned as an assistant.1 Anthony Wood says that he was one of the assistant-com- mittee men in Northamptonshire ; that he was of the high court of justice which tried Lord Capell, the Earl of Holland, and the Duke of Hamilton, in 1649 ; that in the next year he published a remarkable book, called " The Government of the People of England, precedent and present," &c. ; and that on June 22, 1655, he was sworn serjeant at law, being a member of the Temple. The learned author seems, however, to have confounded two individuals ; for besides the difference of the inn of court, it appears manifest that the John Par- ker who, according to Whitelocke, was made a serjeant in 1648, was the same man who by Hardres' Reports is proved to have been a baron in 1655. At the Restoration he of course was removed from his place ; but, instead of being subjected to any inquiry into his previous conduct, he was by a writ dated July 4, 1660, sum- moned to take the degree of serjeant at law : Anthony Wood says, " by the endeavours of Lord Chancellor Hyde." The same author describes him as father of Dr. Samuel Parker, made Bishop of Oxford by James II., and placed by that king as president of Magdalen College in opposition to the lawful elevation of Dr. Hough.2 1 Godwin, ii. 235., iii. 527, ; Whitelocke, 305. 346. 386. 414. 678. 693. ; Hardres' Reports; Pari. Hist. iii. 1430. 1480. 1519. Noble, in his House of Cromwell, i, 433, mistakingly calls him Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chief Baron. 2 Athen. Oxon. iv. 225. ; 1 Siderfin, 4. ; Dugdale's Chron. Ser. 1649—1660. RICHARD PEPYS. 467 PEPYS, RICHARD. B. E. 1654. In the family of Pepys is illustrated every gradation of legal rank, from reader of an inn of court to lord high chancellor of England. The first who attained judicial honours was Richard Pepys, the son of John Pepys of Cottenham in Cambridgeshire, and the nephew of Talbot Pepys, who was a reader at the Middle Temple in 1623. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of John Bendish of Steeple Bumpstead, in Essex. He was the second son, and, choosing the law for his profession, he studied at the Middle Temple. There he arrived at the post of reader in autumn, 1640, and was elected treasurer of the society in 1643. Beyond the notice of his name as a barrister in Style's Reports, there is no other trace of him till January, 1654, when he was called serjeant; im- mediately after which, he was named on the commission for the spring circuit through the midland counties ; and on the 30th of the following May, he was made a baron of the Ex- chequer.1 Within a year, he was removed to the chief justiceship of the Upper Bench in Ireland ; for though the date of his patent is not given, it appears that on the 14th of June, 1655, he was placed in that character as chief commissioner of the Great Seal of that country. He was relieved from this extra duty on August 20, 1656, by the nomination of William Steele, chief baron of the English Exchequer, to be lord chancellor of Ireland. Chief Justice Pepys, at the time of his death, in January, 1658, was the sole judge of his court; and it is much to his credit that in times like those in which he flourished, no touch of calumny sullies his name.2 The grandson of Richard, the judge's eldest son, was the 1 Dugdale's Orig. 220. 222.; Godwin, iv. 2(7. 179.; Whitelocke, 591. I i- Officer* of hvl.-m.i, 31. •)<>. h n 2 468 PETER PHESANT. Inter. father of two baronets; Sir Lucas Pepys, physician to George III., created in 1784; and Sir William Weller Pepys, a master in Chancery, created in 1801. The latter title, on the death of Sir William's eldest son without issue, devolved, in 1845, on his second son Charles Christopher, who, after filling the office of master of the Rolls, had been already elevated to the rank of lord chancellor of England, and raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Cottenham, to which Queen Victoria, in 1850, added an earldom of the same place. Notwithstanding all these honours attaching to the family, the name of Pepys will be longer remembered through the literary reputation of Samuel Pepys, the fourth son of the chief justice, who was secretary of the Admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II. PHESANT, PETER. Just. C. P. 1649. See under the Reign of Charles I. The family of Phesant was established at Tottenham in Middlesex, and a daughter of Jasper Phesant of that place married Sir Stephen Slaney, lord mayor of London in 1595. i Jasper was probably the brother of Peter Phesant of Bletch- worth in the county of Lincoln, an eminent lawyer and reader of Gray's Inn in 1582, and Queen Elizabeth's attorney "in partibus borealibus; " whose son and heir was Peter Phe- sant the judge.2 Following his father's steps, he was entered at Gray's Inn in 1602, became a barrister in 1608, and was chosen reader there in 1624. In May, 1640, he was honoured with the degree of the coif3; and, having been one of the common pleaders of the city of London, was elected recorder on May 2, 1643, 1 Oldfield's Tottenham, 81.; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1246. 2 Grandeur of the Law, (1684) 195. 3 Gray's Inn Books; Dugdale. 1649 — 1660. JOHN PULESTON. 469 on the removal of Sir Thomas Gardner, the solicitor-general, who was impeached by the Commons. Phesant, however, resigned the office on the 30th of the same month, on the plea of ill health l, but probably in order to make room for John Glynne, the favourite of the parliament. Under the same plea, he had in the previous year excused himself from appearing in defence of Sir Edward Herbert, the attorney- general, on his impeachment.2 In February, 1643, the parliament proposed him to the king as one of the judges of the Common Pleas3; and, on their assumption of the government, voted him into that place on September 30, 1645.4 Soon after he took a house in Boswell Court belonging to Sir John Bramston, late chief justice.5 On the king's death, in January, 1649, he consented to act in his judicial capacity under " the keepers of the liberties of England ; " but in the following June he was allowed to stay at home from the circuit, " being sickly ; "6 and dying three months after, on October 1, 1649, at Up wood in Huntingdonshire, a manor formerly belonging to the Crom- wells, which he had purchased, he was buried in the church there. The inscription on his monument describes him as having been twice the only judge of his court. By his wife Mary, of the family of Bruges, of Gloucestershire, who was buried with him, he had several children.7 PULESTON, JOHN. Just. C. P. 1649. TnE family of this judge is a very ancient one settled at Emral in Flintshire, as early as the reign of Edward I. John Puleston was the son of Richard Puleston, of the elder 1 City List of Recorders. 2 Pari. Hist. ii. 1125. 1127. 3 Clarendon, iii. 407. ' Whitelocke, 174. 5 Autobiog. of Hramston, 39. ° Whitelocke, 378. 409. Hatfield's Hunts. (1854); Inscription in Upwood church. n h 3 470 ALEXANDER RIGBY. Inter. branch, by Alice, daughter of David Lewis of Bulcot in Oxfordshire ; and received his legal education at the Middle Temple, where he became autumn reader in 1634.1 In Feb- ruary, 1643, he was recommended by the Commons as a baron of the Exchequer in the propositions they made to the king.2 Failing in this application, they invested him with the dignity of the coif in October, 1648 ; and, after the king was beheaded, he was substituted for one of the judges who then refused to act, and took his place as justice of the Com- mon Pleas on June 1, 1649.3 His conduct in the following August at the assizes at York, wThen he and Baron Thorpe tried and condemned Lieut.- Colonel Morrice, the governor of Pomfret Castle, for high treason, speaks strongly against his justice and humanity.4 The want of Reports of the Common Pleas during this period renders it impossible to state with certainty how long Puleston sat as judge. From the state of the court it seems probable, though he did not die till September 5, 1659, that Cromwell, when he became protector in 1653, did not renew his patent ; for then, by the appointment of Sir Matthew Hale, the court had its full complement. The judge, by his marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Woolrych, knight, had a son, the last of whose male descendants died, leaving an only daughter, who carried the estate of Emral to her husband, Richard Price, Esq. Their son took the name of Puleston, and was created a baronet in 1813. EIGBY, ALEXANDER. Parl. B. E. 1649. " That Colonel Rigby be a Baron of the Exchequer," is the curious combination in the entry on June 1, 1649, of 1 Dugdale's Orig. 220. 2 Clarendon, iii. 407. 3 Whitelocke, 342, 405. * State Trials, iv. 1249. 1649—1660. ALEXANDER RIGBY. 471 Whitelocke's Memorials,1 It appears, however, that he was bred a lawyer, and took up arms on behalf of the Parliament at the earliest stage of the troubles. He was of a Lancashire family seated at Middleton2, and was elected member for "Wigan in that county in the Long Parliament, which com- menced its sittings in 1640. There he distinguished himself by moving, in a violent speech, plentifully interspersed with scraps of Latin and Biblical quotations, that Lord Keeper Finch should be accused of high treason.3 Made a colonel by the Parliament, and entrusted with the command of the Lan- cashire forces, his first exploit was routing a party of the king's near Thurland Castle in 1643, and taking 400 pri- soners and their commander-in-chief; which, says White- locke, " was the more discoursed of because Rigby was a lawyer." His next service is in the lengthened siege of Latham House, just before the battle of Marston Moor4; and immediately after he was appointed one of the commissioners for executing martial law. In the " Mystery of the Good Old Cause," he is said to have been governor of Boston.5 When the death of the king rendered the military assist- ance of Colonel Rigby no longer necessary, the Parliament determined to try hi3 legal ability, and raised him to the bench on June 1, 1649, as a baron of the Exchequer6, first in due form investing him with the coif. He retained his judicial dignity little more than a year, dying on August 18, 1650, of an infection taken at Croydon on the circuit, which was equally fatal to his learned colleague, Baron Gates, and to the sheriff of the county.7 He married Margaret, daughter of Sir Gilbert Hoghton, and had a large family.8 The Alexander lligby who was member for Lancashire in 1658-9, was probably his son. 1 Whitclocke, 405. 2 Wotton's Baronet, i. 152. 3 Pari. Hist. ii. 611. 692. " AYhirelocke, 77. 93. » Pari. Hist in. 286, 1607. 8 Whitelocke, 405. 7 Peck's Desid. Cur. B. xiv. p, 3 Wotton's Baronet, i n h I 472 HENRY ROLLE. Inter. ROLLE, HENRY, Parl. Ch. U. B. 1649. See under the Reign of Charles I. The founder of the opulent family of Rolle was a merchant in London, who acquired a large fortune in the reign of Henry VIII., and settled himself at Stevenstone in Devon- shire, which, with other manors in that and the neighbouring counties, he acquired by purchase. To a descendant of his second son, George, the barony of Rolle of Stevenstone was granted by King George II. in 1748, but the first holder dying unmarried in 1759, it was regranted in 1796 to his nephew, on whose death without issue in 1839, the title again became extinct. The judge was the grandson of the merchant's fourth son, Henry, whose eldest son, "Robert, married Joan, the daughter of Thomas Hele of Fleet in the same county, and left four sons, the second of whom is the subject of this memoir. Henry Rolle was born at Heanton-Sachevil in Devon- shire, about the year 1589, and at the age of seventeen was sent to Exeter College, Oxford, and from thence to the Inner Temple, where he was admitted a member on February 1, 1608-9. After serving the usual septennial period as a student he was called to the bar, and, practising in the King's Bench, his name is of frequent occurrence in the Reports after Michaelmas Term, 1629. An inference is not there- fore to be drawn that he had before been unemployed in his profession, the leading cases only being given, and the argu- ments of the juniors being frequently omitted by the re- porters. Mr. Rolle had used his time well in reporting the cases of James's reign, which were published after his death, and are still in considerable repute. That he had acquired too some eminence at an earlier period is manifest from his 1649—1660. HENRY ROLLE. 473 being selected as member of the last parliament of James I., representing Kellington, and of the first three parliaments of Charles I., in which he represented Truro. He took the popular side from the commencement of his political career : in the first parliament of Charles 'urging a redress of griev- ances ; and in the second arguing in the case of the Duke of Buckingham that common fame was a sufficient ground for accusation.1 He subsequently devoted himself wholly to his profession, and was fully engaged in the courts. Four times appointed reader of his inn, he was prevented by the prevailing plague from performing the duties of that office till the last occasion in Lent, 1639; but during his leisure he employed himself in compiling that " Abridgment of Cases and Resolutions of the Law," which has been held up by some of the ablest lawyers as an example to be followed for its perspicuity and method. In May, 1640, he was made a serjeant-at-law.2 He contributed 100/. in 1642 for the defence of the parlia- ment against the 3, and siding with the Puritans he took the covenant, and was in such esteem that he was recom- mended as a judge of the King's Bench on the propositions for peace which the two houses made to the king on February 1, 1642-3.4 After they had assumed the govern- ment, one of their first legal appointments was of Mr. Ser- jeant Rolle to that office. The vote passed on September 30, 1645, and on October 28 he was sworn in. He filled this seat for three years, when on October 12, 1648, the Commons voted him to be chief justice of the same court, to which, after some demur, the Lords assented, and he took his seat on November 14. The king's decapitation soon followed, and Rolle was one of the six judges who accepted a renewal of their commission, on the condition that they should proceed 1 Pari. Hist. ii. 35. 55. 2 Dugdale's Orig. 168.; Chron. Scr. 3 Notes and Queries, 1st Scr. xii. 358. l Clarendon, iii. 407. 474 HENRY ROLLE. Inter. according to the fundamental laws of the kingdom. He was also nominated a member of the Council of State for that year, and again for the two subsequent years ; and, in his charges to the grand jury on his different circuits, he endeavoured to settle the people's minds in regard to the existing government. When Cromwell was made protector, the chief justice was appointed in 1654 one of the commissioners of the Ex- chequer.1 In that year, being surprised at Salisbury by the party of royalists who had seized the town, he narrowly escaped being hanged, but was permitted to depart with the loss of his com- mission of assize. His refusal to assist in trying the delin- quents when taken, on the ground of his being a party concerned, offended Cromwell, who soon found further cause to be dissatisfied with his chief justice, as too honest a man to be relied upon in the impositions he attempted to raise with- out the consent of parliament. One Cony having refused to pay the customs charged on him, and being committed by Cromwell to prison, applied for his Habeas Corpus. His counsel were arbitrarily sent to the Tower for advocating his cause ; and he was obliged to plead for himself. This he did so stoutly and with so much reason that the chief justice, afraid of resisting the ruling powers, yet too conscientious to give judgment against Cony, delayed his decision till the next term. In the meantime, fearing that this was only the beginning of similar illegal measures, he applied to the protector for his quietus, which was willingly granted on June 7, 1655; and Serjeant Glynne was put in his place.2 Sir Matthew Hale, who edited his i( Abridgment," in the preface to that work speaks in the highest terms of his character as a judge ; en- larging on his great learning and experience, his profound judgment, his great moderation, justice, and integrity, his 1 Whitelocke, 174. 342, 343. 378. 381. 448. 597.; Style's Rep. 140. 2 Clarendon, vii. 144. 294. ; Godwin's Commonwealth, iv. 179. 1649—1660. OLIVER ST. JOHN. 475 patience in hearing and his readiness and despatch in de- ciding; and even royalists allowed his honesty on the judicial seat. He survived his retirement little more than a year, and died on July 30, 1656. He was buried in the church of Shapwich, near Glastonbury, in Somersetshire, where he had a mansion. His son Sir Francis Kolle of Tuderley in Hampshire re- presented that county in the parliament summoned to meet at Oxford in 1681 ; but the family of the chief justice failed in two other generations, his great-grandsons dying without issue, and leaving the estates to the father of