GEORGE JEFFREYS.[114]
George Jeffreys was a younger son of John Jeffreys, Esq., of Acton, near
Wrexham, in Denbighshire, a gentleman of a respectable Welsh family, and
of small fortune. His mother was a daughter of Sir Thomas Ireland, Knight,
of the County Palatine of Lancaster. Never was child so unlike parents;
for they were both quiet, sedate, thrifty, unambitious persons, who
aspired not higher than to be well reputed in the parish in which they
lived, and decently to rear their numerous offspring. Some imputed to the
father a niggardly and covetous disposition; but he appears only to have
exercised a becoming economy, and to have lived at home with his consort
in peace and happiness till he was made more anxious than pleased by the
irregular advancement of his boy George. It is said that he had an early
presentiment that this son would come to a violent end; and was
particularly desirous that he should be brought up to some steady trade,
in which he might be secured from temptation and peril.
He was born in his father's lowly dwelling at Acton in the year 1648. He
showed, from early infancy, the lively parts, the active temperament, the
outward good humor, and the overbearing disposition which distinguished
him through life. He acquired an ascendancy among his companions in his
native village by coaxing some and intimidating others, and making those
most opposed to each other believe that he favored both. At marbles and
leap-frog he was known to take undue advantages; and nevertheless, he
contrived, notwithstanding secret murmurs, to be acknowledged as "master
of the revels."
While still young, he was put to the free school at the town of
Shrewsbury, which was then considered a sort of metropolis for North
Wales. Here he continued for two or three years; but we have no account
how he demeaned himself. At the end of this time his father, though
resolved to bind him apprentice to a shopkeeper in Wales, sent him for a
short time to St. Paul's School, in the city of London. The sight of the
metropolis had a most extraordinary effect upon the mind of this ardent
youth, and exceedingly disgusted him with the notion of returning into
Denbighshire, to pass his life in a small provincial town as a mercer. On
the first Sunday in every term he saw the judges and the serjeants come in
grand procession to St. Paul's Cathedral, and afterwards go to dine with
the lord mayor--appearing little inferior to this great sovereign of the
city in power and splendor. He heard that some of them had been poor boys
like himself, who had pushed themselves on without fortune or friends; and
though he was not so presumptuous as to hope, like another Whittington, to
rise to be lord mayor, he was resolved that he would be lord chief justice
or lord chancellor.
Now it was that he acquired whatever scholarship he ever possessed.
Jeffreys applied with considerable diligence to Greek and Latin, though
occasionally flogged for idleness and insolence. He at last ventured to
disclose his scheme of becoming a great lawyer to his father, who
violently opposed it, as wild and romantic and impossible, and who
inwardly dreaded that, from involving him in want and distress, it might
lead to some fatal catastrophe. He wrote back to his son, pointing out the
inability of the family to give him a university education, or to maintain
him at the inns of court till he should have a chance of getting into
practice--his utter want of connections in London, and the hopelessness of
his entering into a contest in an overstocked profession with so many who
had the advantage of superior education, wealth, and patronage. Although
the aspirant professed himself unconvinced by these arguments, and still
tried to show the certainty of his success at the bar, he must have stood
a crop-eared apprentice behind a counter in Denbigh, Ruthyn, or Flint, if
it had not been for his maternal grandmother, who was pleased to see the
blood of the Irelands break out, and who, having a small jointure, offered
to contribute a part of it for his support. The university was still
beyond their means; but it was thought this might be better dispensed with
if he should be for some time at one of the great schools of royal
foundation, where he might form acquaintances afterwards to be useful to
him. The father reluctantly consented, in the hope that his son would soon
return to his sober senses, and that the project would be abandoned with
the general concurrence of the family. Meanwhile young George was
transferred to Westminster School, then under the rule of the celebrated
Busby.
There is reason to fear that the zeal for improvement which he had
exhibited at St. Paul's soon left him, and that he here began to acquire
those habits of intemperance which afterwards proved so fatal to him. His
father hearing of these had all his fears revived, and when the boy was at
Acton during the holidays, again tried in vain to induce him to become a
tradesman. But finding all dissuasions unavailing, the old gentleman
withdrew his opposition, giving him a gentle pat on the back, accompanied
by these words--"Ah, George, George, I fear thou wilt die with thy shoes
and stockings on!"
Yet the wayward youth, while at Westminster, had fits of application, and
carried away from thence a sufficient stock of learning to prevent him
from appearing in after-life grossly deficient when any question of
grammar arose. He was fond of reminding the world of the great master
under whom he had studied.
His confidence in his own powers was so great, that, without conforming to
ordinary rules, he expected to overcome every obstacle. Being now in the
neighborhood of Westminster Hall, his ambition to be a great lawyer was
inflamed by seeing the grand processions on the first day of term, and by
occasionally peeping into the courts when an important trial was going
forward. When he was actually lord chancellor, he used to relate that,
while a boy at Westminster School, he had a dream, in which a gipsy read
his fortune, foretelling "that he should be the chief scholar there, and
should afterwards enrich himself by study and industry, and that he should
come to be the second man in the kingdom, but in conclusion should fall
into disgrace and misery."
He was now sixteen, an age after which it was not usual to remain at
school in those days. A family council was called at Acton, and as George
still sanguinely adhered to the law, it was settled that, the university
being quite beyond their reach, he should immediately be entered at an
inn of court; that, to support him there, his grandmother should allow him
forty pounds a year, and that his father should add ten pounds a year for
decent clothing.
On the 19th of May, 1663, to his great joy, he was admitted a member of
the Inner Temple. He got a small and gloomy chamber, in which, with much
energy, he began his legal studies. He not only had a natural boldness of
eloquence, but an excellent head for law. With steadiness of application
he would have greatly excelled Lord Keeper Guilford, and in the mastery of
this science would have rivalled Lord Hale and Lord Nottingham. But he
could not long resist the temptations of bad company. Having laid in a
very slender stock for a counsel or a judge, he forsook Littleton and
Plowden, "moots and readings," for the tavern, where was his chief
delight. He seems to have escaped the ruinous and irreclaimable vice of
gaming, but to have fallen into all others to which reckless templars were
prone. Nevertheless, he had ever a keen eye to his own interest; and in
these scenes of dissipation he assiduously cultivated the acquaintance of
young attorneys and their clerks, who might afterwards be useful to him.
When they met over a bowl of punch at the Devil tavern, or some worse
place, he charmed them with songs and jokes, and took care to bring out
before them, opportunely, any scrap of law which he had picked up, to
impress them with the notion that, when he put on his gown and applied to
business, he should be able to win all the causes in which he might be
retained. He was exceedingly popular, and he had many invitations to
dinner; which, to make his way in the world, he thought it better to
accept than to waste his time over the midnight oil in acquiring knowledge
which it might never be known that he possessed.
After the first fervor of loyalty which burst out at the restoration had
passed away, a malcontent party was formed, which gradually gained
strength. In this, most of the aspiring young lawyers, not actually
employed by the government, were ranged--finding it politic to begin in
"the sedition line," that their value might be better appreciated by the
court, and a better price might be bid for them. From such reasoning, or
perhaps from accidental circumstances, Jeffreys associated himself with
the popular leaders, and in the hour of revelry would drink on his knees
any toasts to "the good old cause," and to "the immortal memory of old
Noll."
He was often put to great shifts from the embarrassed state of his
finances, the ten pounds for "decent clothing" for a year being expended
in a single suit of cut velvet, and his grandmother's forty pounds being
insufficient to pay his tavern bills. But he displayed much address in
obtaining prolonged and increased credit from his tradesmen. He borrowed
adroitly; and it is said that such an impression was made by his opening
talents, that several wealthy men on the popular side voluntarily made him
presents of money, in the hope of the important services they were
speedily to receive from his support.
It is very much to be regretted that we have not from a Roger North more
minute information with respect to the manner in which his character was
formed, and his abilities were cultivated. He seems to have been a most
precocious young man. While still in his twentieth year, he was not only
familiarly acquainted with the town, and completely a man of the world,
exciting confident expectations of great future eminence, but he was
already received among veteran statesmen as a member of an important party
in the state, consulted as to their movements, and regarded as their
future leader.
After keeping all his terms, and doing all his exercises, he was regularly
called to the bar on the 22d day of November, 1668--having been on the
books of the society five years and six months--the requisite period of
probation having been previously, by a general regulation, reduced from
seven to the present period of five years.
Although he does not ever appear to have been chosen "reader" or
"treasurer" of the society, yet in the year 1678, on being elected
recorder of London, he was made a bencher, and he continued to be so till
he took the coif, when he necessarily left it for Serjeants' Inn.
During his early career he was involved in difficulties, which could only
have been overcome by uncommon energy. Pressed by creditors, and at a loss
to provide for the day that was passing over him, he had burdened himself
with the expenses of a family. But this arose out of a speculation, which,
in the first instance, was very prudent. Being a handsome young fellow,
and capable of making himself acceptable to modest women, notwithstanding
the bad company which he kept, he resolved to repair his fortunes by
marrying an heiress; and he fixed upon the daughter of a country gentleman
of large possessions, who, on account of his agreeable qualities, had
invited him to his house. The daughter, still very young, was cautiously
guarded, and almost always confined to her chamber; but Jeffreys contrived
to make a confidant and friend of a poor relation of hers, who was the
daughter of a country parson, and lived with her as a companion. Through
this agency he had established a correspondence with the heiress, and an
interest in her affections, so that on his last visit she had agreed, if
her father's consent could not be obtained, to elope with him. What was
his disappointment, soon after his return to his dismal chamber in the
Inner Temple, which he had hoped soon to exchange for a sumptuous
manor-house, to receive a letter from the _companion_, informing him "that
his correspondence with the _heiress_ had been discovered by the old
father, who was in such a rage, that locking up her cousin, he had
instantly turned herself out of doors, and that having taken shelter in
the house of an acquaintance in Holborn, she was there in a state of great
destitution and distraction, afraid to return to her father, or to inform
him of what had happened." The conduct of Jeffreys on this occasion may be
truly considered the brightest passage in his history. He went to her,
found her in tears, and considering that he had been the means of ruining
her prospects in life, (to say nothing of her being much handsomer than
her rich cousin,) he offered her his hand. She consented. Her father,
notwithstanding the character and circumstances of his proposed
son-in-law, out of regard to his daughter's reputation, sanctioned their
union, and to the surprise of all parties, gave her a fortune of three
hundred pounds.
She made an excellent wife, and I do not find any complaint of his having
used her ill till near the time of her death, a few years after, when he
had cast his affections upon the lady who became the second Mrs. Jeffreys.
Meanwhile he left her at her father's, occasionally visiting her; and he
continued to carry on his former pursuits, and to strengthen his
connections in London, with a view to his success at the bar, on which he
resolutely calculated with unabated confidence.
He was not disappointed. Never had a young lawyer risen so rapidly into
practice. But he cut out a new line for himself. Instead of attending in
Westminster Hall to take notes in law French of the long-winded arguments
of serjeants and eminent counsel, where he would have had little chance of
employment, he did not go near any of the superior courts for some years,
but confined himself to the Old Bailey, the London Sessions, and Hicks's
Hall. There he was soon "the cock of the walk."
Some of his pot companions were now of great use to him in bringing him
briefs, and recommending him to business. All this pushing would have been
of little avail if he had not fully equalled expectation by the forensic
abilities which he displayed. He had a very sweet and powerful voice,
having something in its tone which immediately fixed the attention, so
that his audience always were compelled to listen to him, irrespective of
what he said. "He was of bold aspect, and cared not for the countenance of
any man." He was extremely voluble, but always perspicuous and forcible,
making use of idiomatic, and familiar, and colloquial, and sometimes of
coarse language. He never spared any assertion that was likely to serve
his client. He could get up a point of law so as to argue it with great
ability, and with the justices, as well as with juries, his influence was
unbounded. He was particularly famous for his talent in cross-examination,
indulging in ribaldry and banter to a degree which would not now be
permitted. The audience being ever ready to take part with the persecuted
witness, the laugh was sometimes turned against him. It is related that,
about this time, beginning to cross-examine a witness in _a leathern
doublet_, who had made out a complete case against his client, he bawled
forth--"You fellow in the leathern doublet, pray what have you for
swearing?" The man looked steadily at him, and "Truly, sir," said he, "if
you have no more for lying than I have for swearing, you might wear a
leathern doublet as well as I." This blunt reply got to the west end of
the town, and was remembered among the courtiers against Jeffreys when he
grew to be a great man.
While a trial was going on, he was devotedly earnest in it; but when it
was over, he would recklessly get drunk, as if he never were to have
another to conduct. Coming so much in contact with the aldermen, he
ingratiated himself with them very much, and he was particularly
patronized by a namesake (though no relation) of his own--Jeffreys,
alderman of Bread Street Ward, who was very wealthy, a great smoker, (an
accomplishment in which the lawyer could rival him, as well as in
drinking,) and who had immense influence with the livery.
Pushed by him, or rising rapidly by his own buoyancy, our hero, before he
had been two years and a half at the bar, and while only twenty-three
years of age, was elected common serjeant of the city of London--an office
which has raised a Denman as well as a Jeffreys to be chief justice of
England. This first step of his elevation he obtained on the 17th of
March, 1671.
But his ambition was only inflamed by this promotion, which disqualified
him for a considerable part of his bar practice, and he resolved entirely
to change the field of his operations, making a dash at Westminster Hall.
He knew well that he could not be employed to draw declarations and pleas,
or to argue demurrers or special verdicts; but he hoped his talent for
examining witnesses and for speaking might avail him. At any rate, this
was the only road to high distinction in his profession, and he spurned
the idea of spending his life in trying petty larcenies, and dining with
the city companies.
Hard drinking was again his grand resource. He could now afford to invite
the great city attorneys to his house as well as carouse with them at
taverns, and they were pleased with the attentions of a rising barrister
as well as charmed with the pleasantry of the most jovial of companions.
He likewise began to cultivate fashionable society, and to consider how he
might contrive to get an introduction at court. "He put himself into all
companies, for which he was qualified by using himself to drink hard." Now
was the time when men got forward in life by showing their hatred of
puritanism, their devotion to church and king, and an affectation of vice,
even if actually free from it.
Yet such was the versatility of Jeffreys, that for the nonce he could
appear sanctimonious, and even puritanical. Thus he deceived the
religious, the moral, the immaculate Sir Matthew Hale, then chief justice
of the King's Bench. Roger North, in drawing the character of this
extraordinary man, says,--"Although he was very grave in his own person,
he loved the most bizarre and irregular wits in the practice of the law
before him most extravagantly. So Sir George Jeffreys gained as great an
ascendant in practice over him as ever counsel had over a judge."
As a King's Bench practitioner, Jeffreys was first employed at Nisi Prius
in actions for assaults and defamation; but before long the city attorneys
gave him briefs in commercial causes tried at Guildhall, and though in
_banc_ he could not well stand up against regularly-bred lawyers, like Sir
Francis North, Sir William Jones, Sir Creswell Levinz, and Heneage Finch,
the son of the Lord Chancellor Nottingham, he was generally equal to them
before a jury, and he rapidly trod upon their heels.
He anxiously asked himself how he was to climb to high office. He had
started with the disaffected party, and they had been of essential use to
him; but though they were growing in strength, no chance existed of their
being able to make attorney generals, chief justices, or chancellors. At
the same time he did not like yet to break with those who might still
serve him--particularly in obtaining the recordership, which he coveted as
a stepping stone to something better. He resolved so to manage as to be a
favorite of both parties till he could devote himself entirely, and
exclusively, and openly to the one which should be dominant; and he again
succeeded.
From his well-known influence in the city he found no difficulty in making
the acquaintance of Will Chiffinch, "the trusty page of the back stairs,"
who, besides other employments of a still more confidential nature, was
intrusted by Charles II. to get at the secrets of all men of any
consequence in every department of life. "This Mr. Chiffinch," says Roger
North, "was a true secretary as well as page, for he had a lodging at the
back stairs, which might have been properly termed 'the Spy Office,' where
the king spoke with particular persons about intrigues of all kinds; and
all little informers, projectors, &c., were carried to Chiffinch's
lodging. He was a most impetuous drinker, and in that capacity an
admirable spy; for he let none part with him sober, if it were possible to
get them drunk, and his great artifice was pushing idolatrous healths of
his good master, and being always in haste; _for the king is coming_;
which was his word. Being an Hercules well breathed at the sport himself,
he commonly had the better, and so fished out many secrets, and
discovered men's characters, which the king could never have obtained the
knowledge of by any other means. It is likely that Jeffreys, being a
pretender to main feats with the citizens, might forward himself, and be
entertained by Will Chiffinch, and that which at first was mere spying
turn to acquaintance, if not friendship, such as is apt to grow up between
immense drinkers, and from thence might spring recommendations of him to
the king, as the most useful man that could be found to serve his majesty
in London."
Thus, while Mr. Common Serjeant was caballing in the city with Lord
Shaftesbury, who had established himself in Aldersgate Street, and talked
of becoming lord mayor, he had secretly got a footing at court, and by
assurances of future services disposed the government to assist him in all
his jobs. His opposition friends were a little startled by hearing that he
had been made solicitor to the Duke of York; but he assured them that this
was merely a professional employment, unconnected with politics, which,
according to professional etiquette, he could not decline; and when he was
knighted as a mark of royal favor, with which he was silly enough to be
much tickled, he said that he was obliged reluctantly to submit to the
degradation as a consequence of his employment.
By some mischance, which is not explained, he missed the office of
recorder on the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Sir John Howel,
who so outraged public decency on the trial of Penn and Mead; but Sir
William Dolbein, the successful candidate, being made a judge on the 22d
of October, 1678, Jeffreys was then elected his successor. Upon this
occasion there were three other candidates; but he was so warmly supported
by both parties in politics, that they all withdrew before the day of
nomination, and he is said in the city records to have been "freely and
unanimously elected."
The new recorder had hardly been sworn in, when feeling that the liberals
could do nothing more for him, he utterly cast them off, becoming for the
rest of his life the open, avowed, unblushing slave of the court, and the
bitter, persecuting, and unappeasable enemy of the principles he had
before supported, and of the men he had professed to love.
He entirely forsook Thanet House, in Aldersgate Street, and all the
meetings of the Whigs in the city; and instead of secret interviews with
Will Chiffinch in the "Spy Office," he went openly to court, and with his
usual address, he contrived, by constant assiduities and flatteries, to
gain the good graces both of Nell Gwyn and of the Duchess of Portsmouth,
who, since the fall of Lady Castlemaine, held divided empire at Whitehall,
balancing the Roman Catholic and Protestant parties. To each of these
ladies, it would appear from the libels of the day, his rise was
attributed.
However, not long after he had openly ratted, an accident happened that
had like to have spoiled all his projects; and that was the breaking out
of the Popish plot. Although there is no reasonable ground for saying that
it was contrived by Shaftesbury, he made such skilful and unscrupulous use
of it, that suddenly, from appearing the leader of a small, declining, and
despairing party, he had the city and the nation at his beck, and with a
majority in both houses of Parliament, there seemed every probability that
he would soon force himself upon the king, and have at his disposal all
the patronage of the government. Jeffreys was for some time much
disconcerted, and thought that once in his life he had made a false move.
He was utterly at a loss how to conduct himself, and his craft never was
put to so severe a trial.
Being called into council, he recommended that the government should
profess to credit the plot, and should outvie the other side in zeal for
the Protestant religion, but should contrive to make Shaftesbury
answerable for the reality of the conspiracy; so that, if hereafter it
should blow up, or the people should get tired of it, all that was done to
punish the supposed authors of it might be laid to his account.
He immediately began diligently to work the Popish plot according to his
own scheme. Coleman, Whitbread, Ireland, and all whom Oates and Bedloe
accused being committed to prison, it was resolved to prosecute them for
high treason in having compassed the death of the king, as well as the
overthrow of the Protestant religion; and their trials were conducted by
the government as state trials, partly at the bar of the Court of King's
Bench, and partly at the Old Bailey. In the former Jeffreys acted as a
counsel, in the latter as a judge. It is asserted, and not improbably,
that he had a real horror of Popery, which, though he could control it in
the presence of the Duke of York, and when his interest required, at other
times burst out with sincerity as well as fierceness.
Scroggs presided at the Old Bailey, but Jeffreys whetted his fury by
telling him that the king was a thorough believer in the plot, and by
echoing his expressions; as, when the chief justice said to the jury, "You
have done like honest men," he exclaimed in a stage whisper, "They have
done like honest men." As mouthpiece of the lord mayor, the head of the
commission, after conviction he had the pleasing duty of passing sentence
of death by the protracted tortures which the law of treason prescribed.
He had a still greater treat in passing the like sentence on Richard
Langhorne, an eminent Catholic barrister, with whom he had been familiarly
acquainted. He first addressed generally the whole batch of the prisoners
convicted, whom he thus continues to upbraid for trying to root out "the
best of religions:" "I call it the best of religions, even for your sakes;
for had it not been for the sake of our religion, that teaches us not to
make such requitals as yours seems to teach you, you had not had this
fair, formal trial, but murder would have been returned to you for the
murder you intended to commit both upon the king and most of his people.
What a strange sort of religion is that whose doctrine seems to allow them
to be the greatest saints in another world who have been the most impudent
sinners in this! Murder and the blackest of crimes were the best means
among you to get a man to be canonized a saint hereafter." Then he comes
to his brother lawyer--"There is one gentleman that stands at the bar whom
I am very sorry to see, with all my heart, in this condition, because of
some acquaintance I have had with him heretofore. To see that a man who
hath understanding in the law, and who hath arrived at so great an
eminency in that profession as this gentleman hath done, should not
remember that it is not only against the rules of Christianity, but even
against the rules of his profession, to attempt any injury against the
person of the king! He knows it is against all the rules of law to
endeavor to introduce a foreign power into this land. So that you have
sinned both against your conscience and your own certain knowledge." Last
of all, he offers his friend the assistance of a Protestant divine to
prepare him for a speedy departure, and, referring him to the statute
whereby the ministration of a Catholic priest is made illegal, he himself,
though "a layman," gives him some "pious advice." He had carried the
sympathies of his audience along with him, for, when he had concluded with
the "quartering," he was greeted with a loud shout of applause.
Thus, by the powerful assistance of the recorder, did the government
obtain popularity for prosecuting the plot, till the people at last
actually did get tired of it, and Shaftesbury was prevented from deriving
any fruit from it beyond the precarious tenure, for a few months, of his
office of president of the council.
The recorder was equally zealous, on all other occasions, to do what he
thought would be agreeable at court. With the view of repressing public
discussion, he laid down for law, as he said, on the authority of all the
judges, "that no person whatsoever could expose to the public knowledge
any thing that concerned the affairs of the public without license from
the king, or from such persons as he may think fit to intrust with that
power."
The grand jury having several times returned "_ignoramus_" to an
indictment against one Smith for a libel, in respect of a very innocent
publication, though they were sent out of court to reconsider the finding,
he at last exclaimed, "God bless me from such jurymen. I will see the face
of every one of them, and let others see them also." He accordingly
cleared the bar, and, calling the jurymen one by one, put the question to
them, and made each of them repeat the word "_ignoramus_." He then went on
another tack, and addressing the defendant, said, in a coaxing tone,
"Come, Mr. Smith, there are two persons besides you whom this jury have
brought in _ignoramus_; but they have been ingenuous enough to confess,
and I cannot think to fine them little enough; they shall be fined
twopence for their ingenuity in confessing. Well, come, Mr. Smith, we know
who hath formerly owned both printing and publishing this book."
_Smith._--"Sir, my ingenuity hath sufficiently experienced the reward of
your severity; and, besides, I know no law commands me to accuse myself;
neither shall I; and the jury have done like true Englishmen and worthy
citizens, and blessed be God for such a jury." Jeffreys was furious, but
could only vent his rage by committing the defendant till he gave security
for his good behavior.
Such services were not to go unrewarded. It was the wish of the government
to put the renegade Jeffreys into the office of chief justice of Chester,
so often the price of political apostasy; but Sir Job Charlton, a very old
gentleman, who now held it, could not be prevailed upon voluntarily to
resign, for he had a considerable estate in the neighborhood, and was
loath to be stripped of his dignity. Jeffreys, supported by the Duke of
York, pressed the king hard, urging that "a Welshman ought not to judge
his countrymen," and a message was sent to Sir Job that he was to be
removed. The old gentleman was imperfectly consoled with the place of
puisne judge of the Common Pleas, which, in the reign of James II., he was
subsequently allowed to exchange for his beloved Chester. Meanwhile he was
succeeded by Jeffreys, "more Welshman than himself," who was at the same
time made counsel for the crown, at Ludlow, where a court was still held
for Wales.
Immediately afterwards, the new chief justice was called to the degree of
the coif, and made king's serjeant, whereby he had precedence in
Westminster Hall of the attorney and solicitor general. The motto on his
rings, with great brevity and point, inculcated the prevailing doctrines
of divine right and passive obedience--"_A Deo Rex, a Rege Lex_." As a
further mark of royal favor, there was conferred upon him the hereditary
dignity of a baronet. He still retained the recordership of London, and
had extensive practice at the bar.
The great prosperity which Jeffreys now enjoyed had not the effect which
it ought to have produced upon a good disposition, by making him more
courteous and kind to others. When not under the sordid dread of injuring
himself by offending superiors, he was universally insolent and
overbearing. Being made chief justice of Chester, he thought that all
puisne judges were beneath him, and he would not behave to them with
decent respect, even when practising before them. At the Kingston assizes,
Baron Weston having tried to check his irregularities, he complained that
he was not treated like a counsellor, being curbed in the management of
his brief. _Weston, B._--"Sir George, since the king has thrust his favors
upon you, and made you chief justice of Chester, you think to run down
every body; if you find yourself aggrieved, make your complaint; here's
nobody cares for you." _Jeffreys._--"I have not been used to make
complaints, but rather to stop those that are made." _Weston, B._--"I
desire, sir, that you will sit down." He sat down, and is said to have
wept with anger. His intemperate habits had so far shaken his nerves, that
he shed tears very freely on any strong emotion.
We may be prepared for his playing some fantastic tricks before his
countrymen at Chester, where he was subject to no control; but the
description of his conduct there by Lord Delamere, (afterwards Earl of
Warrington,) in denouncing it in the House of Commons, must surely be
overcharged:--
"The county for which I serve is Cheshire, which is a county palatine; and
we have two judges peculiarly assigned us by his majesty. Our puisne judge
I have nothing to say against; he is a very honest man, for aught I know;
but I cannot be silent as to our chief judge; and I will name him, because
what I have to say will appear more probable. His name is Sir George
Jeffreys, who, I must say, behaved himself more like a jack-pudding than
with that gravity which becomes a judge. He was witty upon the prisoners
at the bar. He was very full of his jokes upon people that came to give
evidence, not suffering them to declare what they had to say in their own
way and method, but would interrupt them because they behaved themselves
with more gravity than he. But I do not insist upon this, nor upon the
late hours he kept up and down our city; it's said he was every night
drinking till two o'clock, or beyond that time, and that he went to his
chamber drunk; but this I have only by common fame, for I was not in his
company; I bless God I am not a man of his principles and behavior; but in
the mornings he appeared with the symptoms of a man that overnight had
taken a large cup. That which I have to say is the complaint of every man,
especially of them that had any lawsuits. Our chief justice has a very
arbitrary power in appointing the assize when he pleases, and this man has
strained it to the highest point; for whereas we were accustomed to have
two assizes, the first about April or May, the latter about September, it
was this year the middle (as I remember) of August before we had any
assize; and then he despatched business so well that he left half the
causes untried; and, to help the matter, has resolved we shall have no
more assizes this year."
Being tired of revelling in Chester, he put a sudden end to his first
assize there, that he might pay a visit to his native place; to which I am
afraid he was less prompted by a pious wish to embrace his father, who had
been so resolutely bent on making him a shopkeeper, and who, from the
stories propagated about his conduct as a judge, still expressed some
misgivings about him, as to dazzle his old companions with the splendor of
his new state. Accordingly he came with such a train that the cider
barrels at Acton ran very fast, and the larder was soon exhausted;
whereupon the old gentleman, in a great fret, charged his son with a
design to ruin him, by bringing a whole county at his heels, and warned
him against again attempting the same prodigality.
But a violent political storm now arose, which threatened entirely to
overwhelm our hero, and from which he did not escape unhurt. In the
struggle which arose from the long delay to assemble Parliament, he had
leagued himself strongly with the "Abhorrers" against the "Petitioners,"
and proceedings were instituted in the House of Commons on this ground,
against him along with Chief Justice Scroggs and Chief Justice North.
A petition from the city of London, very numerously signed, having been
presented, complaining that the recorder had obstructed the citizens in
their attempts to have Parliament assembled for the redress of grievances,
a select committee was appointed, who, having heard evidence on the
subject, and examined him in person, presented a report, on which the
following resolutions were passed:--
"That Sir George Jeffreys, recorder of the city of London, by traducing
and obstructing petitioning for the sitting of this Parliament, hath
destroyed the right of the subject.
"That an humble address be presented to his majesty, to remove Sir George
Jeffreys out of all public offices.
"That the members of this house serving for the city of London do
communicate these resolutions to the Court of Aldermen for the said city."
The king was stanch, and returned for answer to the address the civil
refusal "that he would consider of it;"[115] but Jeffreys, who, where he
apprehended personal danger, was "none of the intrepids," quailed under
the charge, and, afraid of further steps being taken against him, came to
an understanding that he should give up the recordership, which his
enemies wished to be conferred upon their partisan, Sir George Treby. The
king was much chagrined at the loss of such a valuable recorder, and said
sarcastically that "he was not Parliament-proof." But he was obliged to
acquiesce, and Jeffreys, having been reprimanded on his knees at the bar,
was discharged. The address of Speaker Williams was very bitter, and
caused deep resentment in the mind of Jeffreys. On the 2d of December he
actually did resign his office, and Treby was chosen to succeed him.
In a few days after there was exhibited one of Lord Shaftesbury's famous
Protestant processions, on the anniversary of the accession of Queen
Elizabeth. In this rode a figure on horseback, to represent the
ex-recorder, with his face to the tail, and a label on his back, "I am an
Abhorrer." At Temple Bar he was thrown into a bonfire, coupled with the
devil; the preceding pair, who suffered the same fate, being Sir Roger
L'Estrange[116] and the Pope of Rome.
However, all these indignities endeared him to the court; and his
pusillanimity was forgiven from the recollection of past and the hope of
future services. A petition from the city being presented to the king at
Hampton Court, he attended as a liveryman, though no longer the mouthpiece
of the corporation, when he was treated with marked civility by Charles,
and detained to dinner, while the lord mayor and aldermen and the new
recorder were sent off with a reprimand.
To oblige the court, and to assist them in their criminal jobs, he
accepted the appointment of chairman of the Middlesex sessions at Hicks's
Hall, although it was somewhat beneath his dignity, and it deprived him of
a portion of his practice. Here the grand jury were sworn in; and as they
were returned by sheriffs whom the city of London elected, and who were
still of the liberal party, the problem was to have them remodelled, so
that they might find bills of indictment against all whom the government
wished to prosecute. With this view, Jeffreys declared that none should
serve except true church of England men; and he ordered the under-sheriff
to return a new panel purged of all sectarians. He had a particular spite
against the Presbyterians, who had mainly contributed to his being turned
out of the recordership. The under-sheriff disobeying his summons, he
ordered the sheriffs to attend next day in person; but in their stead came
the new recorder, who urged that, by the privileges of the city of London,
they were exempted from attending at Hicks's Hall. He overruled this claim
with contempt, and fined the sheriffs one hundred pounds. It was found,
however, that while the city retained the power of electing the sheriffs,
all these attempts to pervert justice would be fruitless.
Jeffreys remained in a state of painful anxiety during Charles's last
Westminster Parliament, and during the few days of the Oxford Parliament.
The popular party had such a majority in the House of Commons, and seemed
so powerful, that it is said the renegade again expressed deep regret that
he had left them; but late at night, on Monday, the 28th day of March,
1681, news arrived in London, that early that morning the king had
dissolved the Parliament, and had declared his firm determination never to
call another. If Jeffreys was still sober, and got drunk that night, we
ought to excuse him.
Now his talents were to be brought into full play. In the conflict, the
ranks of the enemy being thrown into disorder, the brigade of the lawyers,
who had been kept back as a reserve, was marched up to hang on their
broken rear, insulting, and to sweep them from the field.
First came on the trial of Fitzharris for high treason. Jeffreys, as
counsel for the crown, argued the demurrer to the plea of the pendency of
the impeachment; and then, having assisted the Duchess of Portsmouth to
evade the questions which were put to her for the purpose of showing that
the prisoner had acted under the king's orders, he addressed the jury with
great zeal after the solicitor general, and was mainly instrumental in
obtaining the conviction.
Next came the trial of Archbishop Plunkett, the Roman Catholic Primate of
Ireland, in which Jeffreys was so intemperate that the attorney general
was obliged to check him, that the prisoner might have some show of fair
play. But it was on the trial of College, "the Protestant joiner,"[117]
that he gave the earliest specimen of his characteristic ribaldry, and
his talent for jesting in cases of life and death, which shone out so
conspicuously when he was lord chief justice of the King's Bench. He began
with strongly justifying the act of taking from the prisoner the papers he
was to use in his defence, saying, that to allow him to see them would be
"assigning counsel to him with a vengeance." A witness having stated that
pistols were found in the prisoner's holsters when he was attending the
city members at Oxford, he exclaimed with a grin, "I think a _chisel_
might have been more proper for a _joiner_."
There was called as a witness, by the prisoner, one Lun, who, being a
waiter at the Devil Tavern and a fanatic, had some years before been
caught on his knees praying against the Cavaliers, saying, "Scatter them,
good Lord! Scatter them!" from whence he had ever after borne the nickname
of "Scatter'em." Jeffreys thus begins his cross-examination: "We know you,
Mr. Lun; we only ask questions about you that the jury too may know you as
well as we." _Lun._--"I don't care to give evidence of any thing but the
truth. I was never on my knees before the Parliament for any thing."
_Jeffreys._--"Nor I neither for much; yet you were once on your knees when
you cried, 'Scatter them, good Lord!' Was it not so, Mr. Scatter'em?"
He had next an encounter with the famous Titus Oates, who was called by
College, and who, when cross-examined by him, appealed to Sir George
Jeffreys's own knowledge of a fact about which he was inquiring.
_Jeffreys._--"Sir George Jeffreys does not intend to be an evidence, I
assure you." _Dr. Oates._--"I do not desire Sir George Jeffreys to be an
evidence for me; I had credit in Parliaments, and Sir George had disgrace
in one of them." _Jeffreys._--"Your servant, doctor; you are a witty man
and a philosopher." He had his full revenge when the doctor himself was
afterwards tried before him.
We may judge of the councillor's general style of treating witnesses by
his remark on the trial of Lord Grey de Werke for carrying off the Lady
Henrietta Berkeley; when his objection was overruled to the competency of
the young lady as a witness for the defendant, although she was not only
of high rank and uncommon beauty, but undoubted veracity, he observed,
"Truly, my lord, we would prevent perjury if we could."
We now come to transactions which strikingly prove the innate baseness of
his nature in the midst of his pretended openness and jolly good humor. He
owed every thing in life to the corporation of the city of London. The
freemen, in the exercise of their ancient privileges, had raised him from
the ground by electing him common serjeant and recorder, and to the
influence he was supposed to have in the Court of Common Council and in
the Court of Aldermen must be ascribed his introduction to Whitehall and
all his political advancement. But when, upon the failure of the
prosecution against Lord Shaftesbury, the free municipal constitution of
the city became so odious to the government, he heartily entered into the
conspiracy to destroy it. It is said that he actually suggested the scheme
of having a sheriff nominated by the lord mayor, and he certainly took a
very active part in carrying it into execution. On Midsummer day, having
planted Lord Chief Justice North in his house in Aldermanbury, that he
might be backed by his authority, he himself appeared on the hustings in
Guildhall; and when the poll was going against the court candidates,
illegally advised the lord mayor to dissolve the hall, and afterwards to
declare them duly elected. He did every thing in his power to push on and
to assist the great _quo warranto_, by which the city was to be entirely
disfranchised.[118]
When success had crowned these efforts, and Pilkington and Shute, the
former sheriffs, with Alderman Cornish and others, were to be tried before
a packed jury for a riot at the election, finding that he had the game in
his hand, his insolence knew no bounds. The defendants having challenged
the array, on the ground that the sheriffs who returned the panel were not
lawfully appointed,[119] as soon as the challenge was read, he exclaimed,
"Here's a tale of a tub indeed!" The counsel for the defendants insisted
that the challenge was good in law, and at great length argued for its
validity.
_Jeffreys._--"Robin Hood
Upon Greendale stood."
_Thompson, Counsel for the Defendants._--"If the challenge be not good,
there must be a defect in it either in point of law or in point of fact. I
pray that the crown may either demur or traverse." _Jeffreys._--"This
discourse is only for discourse sake. I pray the jury may be sworn." _Lord
Chief Justice Saunders._--"Ay, ay, swear the jury." The defendants were,
of course, all found guilty; and as there were among them the most eminent
of Jeffreys's old city friends, he exerted himself to the utmost not only
in gaining a conviction, but in aggravating the sentence.
But this was only a case of misdemeanor, in which he could ask for nothing
beyond fine and imprisonment. He was soon to be engaged in prosecutions
for high treason against the noblest of the land, in which his savage
taste for blood might be gratified. The Ryehouse plot broke out, for which
there was some foundation; and after the conviction of those who had
planned it, Lord Russell was brought to trial at the Old Bailey, on the
ground that he had consented to it.
Jeffreys, in the late state trials, had gradually been encroaching on the
attorney and solicitor general, Sir Robert Sawyer and Sir Heneage Finch,
and in Lord Russell's case, to which the government attached such infinite
importance, he almost entirely superseded them. To account for his
unexampled zeal, we must remember that the office of chief justice of the
King's Bench was still vacant, Saunders having died a few months before,
and Lord Keeper North having strongly opposed the appointment of Jeffreys
as his successor.
These trials took place before a commission, at the head of which was
placed Pemberton, chief justice of the Common Pleas, to whom a chance was
thus afforded of earning a reappointment to the chief justiceship of the
King's Bench, in which he had been superseded by Saunders.
The case of Colonel Walcot was taken first; and here there was no
difficulty, for he had not only joined in planning an insurrection against
the government, but was privy to the design of assassinating the king and
the Duke of York, and in a letter to the secretary of state he had
confessed his complicity, and offered to become a witness for the crown.
This trial was meant to prepare the public mind for that of Lord Russell,
the great ornament of the Whig party, who had carried the exclusion bill
through the House of Commons, and, attended by a great following of Whig
members, had delivered it with his own hand to the lord chancellor at the
bar of the House of Lords. In proportion to his virtues was the desire to
wreak vengeance upon him. But the object was no less difficult than
desirable, for he had been kept profoundly ignorant of the intention to
offer violence to the royal brothers, from the certainty that he would
have rejected it with abhorrence; and although he had been present when
there were deliberations respecting the right and the expediency of
resistance by force to the government after the system had been
established of ruling without Parliaments, he had never concurred in the
opinion that there were no longer constitutional means of redress; much
less had he concerted an armed insurrection. Notwithstanding all the
efforts made to return a prejudiced jury, there were serious apprehensions
of an acquittal.
Pemberton, the presiding judge, seems to have been convinced that the
evidence against him was insufficient; and although he did not interpose
with becoming vigor, by repressing the unfair arts of Jeffreys, who was
leading counsel for the crown, and although he did not stop the
prosecution, as an independent judge would do in modern times, he cannot
be accused of any perversion of law; and, instead of treating the prisoner
with brutality, as was wished and expected, he behaved to him with
courtesy and seeming kindness.
Lord Russell, on his arraignment at the sitting of the court in the
morning, having prayed that the trial should be postponed till the
afternoon, as a witness for him was absent, and it had been usual in such
case to allow an interval between the arraignment and the trial, Pemberton
said, "Why may not this trial be respited till the afternoon?" and the
only answer being the insolent exclamation, "Pray call the jury," he
mildly added, "My lord, the king's counsel think it not reasonable to put
off the trial longer, and we cannot put it off without their consent in
this case."
The following dialogue then took place, which introduced the touching
display of female tenderness and heroism of the celebrated Rachel, Lady
Russell, assisting her martyred husband during his trial--a subject often
illustrated both by the pen and the pencil.
_Lord Russell._--"My lord, may I not have the use of pen, ink, and paper?"
_Pemberton._--"Yes, my lord." _Lord Russell._--"My lord, may I not make
use of any papers I have?" _Pemberton._--"Yes, by all means." _Lord
Russell._--"May I have somebody write to help my memory?" _Attorney
General._--"Yes, a servant." _Lord Russell._--"My wife is here, my lord,
to do it." _Pemberton._--"If my lady please to give herself the trouble."
The chief justice admitted Dr. Burnet, Dr. Tillotson, and other witnesses,
to speak to the good character and loyal conversation of the prisoner, and
gave weight to their testimony, notwithstanding the observation of
Jeffreys that "it was easy to express a regard for the king while
conspiring to murder him."
Lord Russell had certainly been present at a meeting of the conspirators,
when there was a consultation about seizing the king's guards; but he
insisted that he came in accidentally, that he had taken no part in the
conversation, and that he was not acquainted with their plans. The
aspirant chief justice saw clearly where was the pinch of the case, and
the attorney general, who was examining Colonel Rumsey, being contented
with asking--"Was the prisoner at the debate?" and receiving the answer
"Yes," Jeffreys started up, took the witness into his own hands, and
calling upon him to draw the inference which was for the jury, pinned the
basket by this leading and highly irregular question--"Did you find him
averse to it or agreeing to it?" Having got the echoing answer which he
suggested, "_Agreeing to it_," he looked round with exultation, and said,
"If my Lord Russell now pleases to ask any questions, he may!"
Jeffreys addressed the jury in reply after the solicitor general had
finished, and much outdid him in pressing the case against the prisoner,
while he disclaimed with horror the endeavor to take away the life of the
innocent.
The jury retired, and the courtiers present were in a state of the
greatest alarm; for against Algernon Sydney, who was to be tried next, the
case was still weaker; and if the two whig chiefs, who were considered
already cut off, should recover their liberty, and should renew their
agitation, a national cry might be got up for the summoning of Parliament,
and a new effort might be made to rescue the country from a Popish
successor. These fears were vain. The jury returned a verdict of guilty,
and Lord Russell expiated on the scaffold the crime of trying to preserve
the religion and liberties of his country.
Jeffreys had all the glory of the verdict of guilty, and as the Lord Chief
Justice Pemberton had rather flinched during this trial, and the attorney
and solicitor general were thought men who would cry CRAVEN, and as the
next case was not less important and still more ticklish, all objections
to the proposed elevation of the favorite vanished, and he became chief
justice of England, as the only man fit to condemn Algernon Sydney.[120]
The new chief justice was sworn in on the 29th of September, 1683, and
took his seat in the Court of King's Bench on the first day of the
following Michaelmas term.
Sydney's case was immediately brought on before him in this court, the
indictment being removed by _certiorari_ from the Old Bailey, that it
might be under his peculiar care. The prisoner wishing to plead some
collateral matter, was told by the chief justice that, if overruled,
sentence of death would immediately be passed upon him. Though there can
be no doubt of the illegality of the conviction, the charge against
Jeffreys is unfounded, that he admitted the MS. treatise on government to
be read without any evidence of its having been written by the prisoner,
beyond "similitude of hands." Two witnesses, who were acquainted with his
handwriting from having seen him indorse bills of exchange, swore that
they believed it to be his handwriting, and they were corroborated by a
third, who, with his privity, had paid notes purporting to be indorsed by
him without any complaint ever being made. But the undeniable and
ineffaceable atrocity of the case was the lord chief justice's doctrine,
that "_scribere est agere_," and that therefore this MS. containing some
abstract speculations on different forms of government written many years
before, never shown to any human being, and containing nothing beyond the
constitutional principles of Locke and Paley, was tantamount to the
evidence of a witness to prove an overt act of high treason. "If you
believe that this was Colonel Sydney's book, writ by him, no man can
doubt that it is a sufficient evidence that he is guilty of compassing and
imagining the death of the king. It fixes the whole power in the
Parliament and the people. The king, it says, is responsible to them; the
king is but their trustee. Gentlemen, I must tell you I think I ought more
than ordinarily to press this upon you, because I know the misfortune of
the late unhappy rebellion, and the bringing of the late blessed king to
the scaffold, was first begun with such kind of principles. They cried he
had betrayed the trust that was delegated to him by the people, so that
the case rests not upon two but upon greater evidence than twenty-two
witnesses, if you believe this book was writ by him."
The chief justice having had the satisfaction of pronouncing with his own
lips the sentence upon Sydney, of death and mutilation, instead of leaving
the task as usual to the senior puisne judge, a scene followed which is
familiar to every one. _Sydney._--"Then, O God! O God! I beseech thee to
sanctify these sufferings unto me, and impute not my blood to the country;
let no inquisition be made for it, but if any, and the shedding of blood
that is innocent must be revenged, let the weight of it fall only upon
those that maliciously persecute me for righteousness sake." _Lord C. J.
Jeffreys._--"I pray God work in you a temper fit to go unto the other
world, for I see you are not fit for this." _Sydney._--"My lord, feel my
pulse [holding out his hand,] and see if I am disordered. I bless God I
never was in better temper than I now am." By order of the chief justice,
the lieutenant of the tower immediately removed the prisoner.
A very few days after, and while this illustrious patriot was still lying
under sentence of death, the Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys and Mr. Justice
Withins, who sat as his brother judge on the trial, went to a gay city
wedding, where the lord mayor and other grandees were present. Evelyn, who
was of the party, tells us that the chief and the puisne both "danced with
the bride and were exceeding merry." He adds, "These great men spent the
rest of the afternoon until eleven at night in drinking healths, taking
tobacco, and talking much beneath the gravity of judges, who had but a day
or two before condemned Mr. Algernon Sydney."
The next exhibition in the court of King's Bench which particularly
pleased Jeffreys and horrified the public, was the condemnation of Sir
Thomas Armstrong. This gentleman was outlawed while beyond the seas, and
being sent from Holland within the year, sought, according to his clear
right in law, to reverse the outlawry.[121] I have had occasion to
reprobate the conduct of Lord Keeper North in refusing him his writ of
error, and suffering his execution; but Jeffreys may be considered the
executioner. When brought up to the King's Bench bar, Armstrong was
attended by his daughter, a most beautiful and interesting young woman,
who, when the chief justice had illegally overruled the plea, and
pronounced judgment of death under the outlawry, exclaimed, "My lord, I
hope you will not murder my father." _Chief Justice Jeffreys._--"Who is
this woman? Marshal, take her into custody. Why, how now? Because your
relative is attainted for high treason, must you take upon you to tax the
courts of justice for murder when we grant execution according to law?
Take her away." _Daughter._--"God Almighty's judgments light upon you."
_Chief Justice Jeffreys._--"God Almighty's judgments will light upon those
that are guilty of high treason." _Daughter._--"Amen. I pray God." _Chief
Justice Jeffreys._--"So say I. I thank God I am clamor proof." [The
daughter is committed to prison, and carried off in custody.] _Sir Thomas
Armstrong._--"I ought to have the benefit of the law, and I demand no
more." _Chief Justice Jeffreys._--"That you shall have, by the grace of
God. See that execution be done on Friday next, according to law. You
shall have the full benefit of the law!" Armstrong was hanged, embowelled,
beheaded, and quartered accordingly.
When Jeffreys came to the king at Windsor soon after this trial, "the king
took a ring of good value from his finger and gave it to him for these
services. The ring upon that was called his _blood stone_."[122] In the
reign of William and Mary, Armstrong's attainder was reversed. Jeffreys
was then out of reach of process, but for the share which Sir Robert
Sawyer had in it as attorney general, he was expelled the House of
Commons.
Jeffreys had now the satisfaction of causing an information to be filed
against Sir William Williams for having, as Speaker of the House of
Commons, under the orders of the House, directed the printing of
"Dangerfield's Narrative,"[123] the vengeful tyrant thus dealing a blow at
once to an old enemy who had reprimanded him on his knees, and to the
privileges of the House, equally the object of his detestation. He was in
hopes of deciding the case himself, but he left it as a legacy to his
successor, Chief Justice Herbert, who, under his auspices, at once
overruled the plea, and fined the defendant ten thousand pounds.
Not only was Jeffreys a privy councillor, but he had become a member of
the cabinet, where, from his superior boldness and energy, as well as his
more agreeable manners, he had gained a complete victory over Lord Keeper
North, whom he denounced as a "trimmer," and the great seal seemed almost
within his grasp.[124] To secure it, he still strove to do every thing he
could devise to please the court, as if hitherto nothing base had been
done by him. When, to his great joy, final judgment was entered up against
the city of London on the _quo warranto_, he undertook to get all the
considerable towns in England to surrender their charters on the threat of
similar proceedings; and with this view, in the autumn of 1684, he made a
"campaign in the north," which was almost as fatal to corporations as that
"in the West," the following year, proved to the lives of men. To show to
the public the special credit he enjoyed at court, the London Gazette,
just before he set out, in reference to the gift bestowed upon him for the
judgment against Sir Thomas Armstrong, announced "that his majesty, as a
mark of his royal favor, had taken a ring from his own finger and placed
it on that of Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys." In consequence, although when
on the circuit he forgot the caution against hard drinking, with which the
gift had been accompanied, he carried every thing before him, "charters
fell like the walls of Jericho," and he returned laden with his
hyperborean spoils.
I have already related the clutch at the great seal which he then made,
and his temporary disappointment.[125] He was contented to "bide his
time." There were only two other occasions when he had it in his power to
pervert the law, for the purpose of pleasing the court, during the present
reign. The first was on the trial of Hampden, the grandson of the great
Hampden, for a trifling misdemeanor. Although this young gentleman was
only heir apparent to a moderate estate, and not in possession of any
property, he was sentenced to pay a fine of forty thousand
pounds--Jeffreys saying that the clause in Magna Charta, "_Liber homo non
amercietur pro magno delicto nisi salvo contenemento suo_," does not apply
to fines imposed by the king's judges. The other was the inquisition in
the action of _scan. mag._ brought by the Duke of York against Titus
Oates, in which the jury, under his direction, awarded one hundred
thousand pounds damages.
Ever since the disfranchisement of the city of London, the ex-recorder had
ruled it with a rod of iron. He set up a nominal lord mayor and nominal
aldermen; but, as they were entirely dependent upon him, he treated them
with continual insolence.
On the sudden death of Charles II., Jeffreys no doubt thought the period
was arrived when he must be rewarded for the peculiar zeal with which he
had abandoned himself to the service of the successor; but he was at first
disappointed, and he had still to "wade through slaughter" to the seat he
so much coveted.
Not dismayed, he resolved to act on two principles: 1st, If possible, to
outdo himself in pleasing his master, whose arbitrary and cruel
disposition became more apparent from the hour that he mounted the
throne. 2dly, To leave no effort untried to discredit, disgrace, disgust,
and break the heart of the man who stood between him and his object.
Being confirmed in the office of chief justice of the King's Bench, he
began with the trial for perjury of Titus Oates, whose veracity he had
often maintained, but with whom he had a personal quarrel, and whom he now
held up to reprobation--depriving him of all chance of acquittal. The
defendant was found guilty on two indictments, and the verdict on both was
probably correct; but what is to be said for the sentence--"To pay on each
indictment a fine of one thousand marks; to be stript of all his canonical
habits; to be imprisoned for life; to stand in the pillory on the
following Monday, with a paper over his head, declaring his crime; next
day to stand in the pillory at the Royal Exchange, with the same
inscription; on the Wednesday to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate; on
the Friday to be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn; upon the 25th of April in
every year, during life, to stand in the pillory at Tyburn, opposite the
gallows; on the 9th of August in every year to stand in the pillory
opposite Westminster Hall gate; on the 10th of August in every year to
stand in the pillory at Charing Cross; and the like on the following day
at Temple Bar; and the like on the 2d of September, every year, at the
Royal Exchange;"--the court expressing deep regret that they could not do
more, as they would "not have been unwilling to have given judgment of
death upon him."[126]
Next came the trial of Richard Baxter, the pious and learned Presbyterian
divine, who had actually said, and adhered to the saying, "_Nolo
episcopari_," and who was now prosecuted for a libel, because in a book on
church government he had reflected on the church of Rome in words which
might possibly be applied to the bishops of the church of England. No
such reference was intended by him; and he was known not only to be of
exemplary private character, but to be warmly attached to monarchy, and
always inclined to moderate measures in the differences between the
established church and those of his own persuasion.[127] Yet, when he
pleaded _not guilty_, and prayed on account of ill health that his trial
might be postponed, Jeffreys exclaimed, "Not a minute more to save his
life. We have had to do with other sort of persons, but now we have a
saint to deal with; and I know how to deal with saints as well as sinners.
Yonder stands Oates in the pillory, [Oates was at that moment suffering
part of his sentence in Palace Yard, outside the great gate of Westminster
Hall,] and he says he suffers for the truth; and so says Baxter; but if
Baxter did but stand on the outside of the pillory with him, I would say
_two of the greatest rogues and rascals in the kingdom stood there
together_." Having silenced the defendant's counsel by almost incredible
rudeness, the defendant himself wished to speak, when the chief justice
burst out, "Richard, Richard, thou art an old fellow and an old knave;
thou hast written books enough to load a cart; every one is as full of
sedition, I might say treason, as an egg is full of meat; hadst thou been
whipt out of thy writing trade forty years ago, it had been happy. Thou
pretendest to be a preacher of the gospel of peace, and thou hast one foot
in the grave; it is time for thee to begin to think what account thou
intendest to give; but leave thee to thyself, and I see thou wilt go on as
thou hast begun; but, by the grace of God, I'll look after thee. Gentlemen
of the jury, he is now modest enough; but time was when no man was so
ready at _bind your kings in chains and your nobles in fetters of iron_,
crying, _To your tents, O Israel!_ Gentlemen, for God's sake do not let us
be gulled twice in an age." The defendant was, of course, found guilty,
and thought himself lucky to escape with a fine of five hundred pounds,
and giving security for his good behavior for seven years.[128]
The lord chief justice, for his own demerits, and to thrust a thorn into
the side of Lord Keeper Guilford, was now raised to the peerage by the
title of "Baron Jeffreys of Wem"--the preamble of his patent narrating his
former promotions--averring that they were the reward of virtue, and after
the statement of his being appointed to preside in the Court of King's
Bench, adding, "Where at this very time he is faithfully and boldly doing
justice and affording protection to our subjects, according to law, in
consequence of which virtues we have thought him fit to be raised to the
peerage of this realm."[129]
He took his seat in the House of Lords on the first day of the meeting of
James's only Parliament, along with nineteen others either raised in the
peerage or newly created since the dissolution of the Oxford
Parliament--the junior being John Lord Churchill, afterwards Duke of
Marlborough. The journals show that Lord Jeffreys was very regular in his
attendance during the session, and as the house sat daily and still met at
the same early hour as the courts of law, he must generally have left the
business of the King's Bench to be transacted by the other judges. He was
now occupied day and night with plans for pushing the already disgraced
lord keeper from the woolsack.
I have already, in the life of Lord Guilford, related how these plans were
conducted in the cabinet, in the royal circle at Whitehall, and in the
House of Lords--particularly the savage treatment which the "staggering
statesman" received on the reversal of his decree in _Howard_ v. _Duke of
Norfolk_, after which he never held up his head more.[130] The probability
is, that although he clung to office so pusillanimously in the midst of
all sorts of slights and indignities, he would now have been forcibly
ejected if his death had not appeared to be near at hand, and if there had
not been a demand for the services of "Judge Jeffreys" in a scene very
different from the drowsy tranquillity of the Court of Chancery.
By the month of July, Monmouth's rebellion had been put down, and he
himself had been executed upon his parliamentary attainder without the
trouble of a trial: but all the jails in the West of England were crowded
with his adherents, and, instead of Colonel Kirke doing military execution
on more of them than had already suffered from his "lambs," it was
resolved that they should all perish by the flaming sword of
justice--which, on such an occasion, there was only one man fit to wield.
No assizes had been held this summer on the western circuit; but for all
the counties upon it a special commission to try criminals was now
appointed, at the head of which Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys was put; and
by a second commission, he, singly, was invested with the authority of
commander-in-chief over all his majesty's forces within the same limits.
On entering Hampshire he was met by a brigade of soldiers, by whom he was
guarded to Winchester. During the rest of his progress he never moved
without a military escort; he daily gave the word; orders for going the
rounds, and for the general disposal of the troops, were dictated by
him--sentinels mounting guard at his lodgings, and the officers on duty
sending him their reports.
I desire at once to save my readers from the apprehension that I am about
to shock their humane feelings by a detailed statement of the atrocities
of this bloody campaign in the west, the character of which is familiar to
every Englishman. But, as a specimen of it, I must present a short account
of the treatment experienced by Lady Lisle, with whose murder it
commenced.
She was the widow of Major Lisle, who had sat in judgment on Charles I.,
had been a lord commissioner of the great seal under Cromwell, and, flying
on the restoration, had been assassinated at Lausanne. She remained in
England, and was remarkable for her loyalty as well as piety. Jeffreys's
malignant spite against her is wholly inexplicable; for he had never had
any personal quarrel with her, she did not stand in the way of his
promotion, and the circumstance of her being the widow of a regicide
cannot account for his vindictiveness. Perhaps without any personal
dislike to the individual, he merely wished to strike terror into the west
by his first operation.
The charge against her, which was laid capitally, was that after the
battle of Sedgemoor she had harbored in her house one Hickes, who had been
in arms with the Duke of Monmouth--_she knowing of his treason_. In truth
she had received him into her house, thinking merely that he was
persecuted as a non-conformist minister, and the moment she knew whence he
came, she (conveying to him a hint that he should escape) sent her servant
to a justice of peace to give information concerning him. There was the
greatest difficulty even to show that Hickes had been in the rebellion,
and the judge was worked up to a pitch of fury by being obliged himself to
cross-examine a Presbyterian witness, who had showed a leaning against the
prosecution. But the principal traitor had not been convicted, and there
was not a particle of evidence to show the _scienter_, _i. e._, that the
supposed accomplice, at the time of the harboring was acquainted with the
treason. Not allowed the benefit of counsel, she herself, prompted by
natural good sense, took the legal objection that the principal traitor
ought first to have been convicted, "because, peradventure, he might
afterwards be acquitted as innocent after she had been condemned for
harboring him;" and she urged with great force to the jury, "that at the
time of the alleged offence she had been entirely ignorant of any
suspicion of Hickes having participated in the rebellion; that she had
strongly disapproved of it, and that she had sent her only son into the
field to fight under the royal banner to suppress it."
It is said by almost all the contemporary authorities, that thrice did the
jury refuse to find a verdict of guilty, and thrice did Lord Chief Justice
Jeffreys send them back to reconsider their verdict. In the account of the
proceeding in the State Trials, which has the appearance of having been
taken in short hand, and of being authentic, the repeated sending back of
the jury is not mentioned; but enough appears to stamp eternal infamy on
Jeffreys, if there were nothing more extant against him. After a most
furious summing up, "the jury withdrew, and staying out a while, the Lord
Jeffreys expressed a great deal of impatience, and said he wondered that
in so plain a case they would go from the bar, and would have sent for
them, with an intimation that, if they did not come quickly, he would
adjourn, and let them lie by it all night; but, after about half an hour's
stay, the jury returned, and the foreman addressed himself to the court
thus: 'My lord, we have one thing to beg of your lordship some directions
in before we can give our verdict: we have some doubt whether there be
sufficient evidence that she knew Hickes to have been in the army.' _L. C.
J._--'There is as full proof as proof can be; but you are judges of the
proof; for my part, I thought there was no difficulty in it.'
_Foreman._--'My lord, we are in some doubt of it.' _L. C. J._--'I cannot
help your doubts; was there not proved a discourse of the battle and the
army at supper time?' _Foreman._--'But, my lord, we are not satisfied that
she had notice that Hickes was in the army.' _L. C. J._--'I cannot tell
what would satisfy you. Did she not inquire of Dunne whether Hickes had
been in the army? and when he told her he did not know, she did not say
she would refuse him if he had been there, but ordered him to come by
night, by which it is evident she suspected it.... But if there was no
such proof, the circumstances and management of the thing is as full a
proof as can be. I wonder what it is you doubt of.' _Lady Lisle._--'My
lord, I hope----.' _L. C. J._--'You must not speak now.' The jury laid
their heads together near a quarter of an hour, and then pronounced a
verdict of guilty. _L. C. J._--'Gentlemen, I did not think I should have
had any occasion to speak after your verdict; but finding some hesitancy
and doubt among you, I cannot but say I wonder it should come about; for I
think in my conscience the evidence was as full and plain as could be, and
if I had been among you, and she had been my own mother, I should have
found her guilty.'"
He passed sentence upon her with great _sang froid_, and, I really
believe, would have done the same had she been the mother that bore
him--"That you be conveyed from hence to the place from whence you came,
and from thence you are to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution,
where your body is to be burnt alive till you be dead. And the Lord have
mercy on your soul."
The king refused the most earnest applications to save her life, saying
that he had promised Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys not to pardon her; but,
by a mild exercise of the prerogative, he changed the punishment of
burning into that of beheading, which she actually underwent. After the
Revolution, her attainder was reversed by act of Parliament, on the ground
that "the verdict was injuriously extorted by the menaces and violence and
other illegal practices of George Lord Jeffreys, Baron of Wem, then lord
chief justice of the King's Bench."
From Winchester, the "lord general judge" proceeded to Salisbury, where he
was obliged to content himself with whippings and imprisonments for
indiscreet words, the Wiltshire men not having actually joined in the
insurrection. But when he got into Dorsetshire, the county in which
Monmouth had landed, and where many had joined his standard, he was
fatigued, if not satiated, with shedding blood. Great alarm was excited,
and not without reason, by his being seen to laugh in church, both during
the prayers and sermon which preceded the commencement of business in the
hall--his smile being construed into a sign that he was about "to breathe
death like a destroying angel, and to sanguine his very ermine in blood."
His charge to the grand jury threw the whole county into a state of
consternation; for he said he was determined to exercise the utmost rigor
of the law, not only against principal traitors, but all aiders and
abettors, who, by any expression, had encouraged the rebellion, or had
favored the escape of any engaged in it, however nearly related to them,
unless it were the harboring of a husband by a wife, which the wisdom of
our ancestors permitted, because she had sworn to obey him.