Bills of indictment for high treason were found by the hundred, often

without evidence, the grand jury being afraid that, if they were at all

scrupulous, they themselves might be brought in "aiders and abettors." It

happened, curiously enough, that as he was about to arraign the prisoners,

he received news, by express, that the Lord Keeper Guilford had breathed

his last at Wroxton, in Oxfordshire. He had little doubt that he should

himself be the successor, and very soon after, by a messenger from

Windsor, he received assurances to that effect, with orders "to finish the

king's business in the west." Although he had no ground for serious

misgivings, he could not but feel a little uneasy at the thought of the

intrigues which in his absence might spring up against him in a corrupt

court, and he was impatient to take possession of his new dignity. But

what a prospect before him, if all the prisoners against whom there might

be indictments, here and at other places, should plead not guilty, and

_seriatim_ take their trials! He resorted to an expedient worthy of his

genius by openly proclaiming, in terms of vague promise but certain

denunciation, that "if any of those indicted would relent from their

conspiracies, and plead guilty, they should find him to be a merciful

judge; but that those who put themselves on their trials, (which the law

mercifully gave them all in strictness a right to do,) if found guilty,

would have very little time to live; and, therefore, that such as were

conscious they had no defence, had better spare him the trouble of trying

them."

He was at first disappointed. The prisoners knew the sternness of the

judge, and had some hope from the mercy of their countrymen on the jury.

The result of this boldness is soon told. He began on a Saturday morning,

with a batch of thirty. Of these, only one was acquitted for want of

evidence, and the same evening he signed a warrant to hang thirteen of

those convicted on the Monday morning, and the rest the following day. An

impressive defence was made by the constable of Chardstock, charged with

supplying the Duke of Monmouth's soldiers with money; whereas they had

actually robbed him of a considerable sum which he had in his hands for

the use of the militia. The prisoner having objected to the competency of

a witness called against him, "Villain! rebel!" exclaimed the judge,

"methinks I see thee already with a halter about thy neck." And he was

specially ordered to be hanged the first, my lord jeeringly declaring

"that if any with a knowledge of the law came in his way, he should take

care to _prefer them_!"

On the Monday morning, the court sitting rather late on account of the

executions, the judge, on taking his place, found many applications to

withdraw the plea of not guilty, and the prisoners pleaded guilty in great

numbers; but his ire was kindled, and he would not even affect any

semblance of mercy. Two hundred and ninety-two more received judgment to

die, and of these seventy-four actually suffered--some being sent to be

executed in every town, and almost in every village, for many miles round.

While the whole county was covered with the gibbeted quarters of human

beings, the towns resounded with the cries of men, and even of women and

children, who were cruelly whipped for sedition, on the ground that by

words or looks they had favored the insurrection.

Jeffreys next proceeded to Exeter, where one John Foweracres, the first

prisoner arraigned, had the temerity to plead not guilty, and being

speedily convicted, was sent to instant execution. This had the desired

effect; for all the others confessed, and his lordship was saved the

trouble of trying them. Only thirty-seven suffered capitally in the county

of Devon, the rest of the two hundred and forty-three against whom

indictments were found being transported, whipped, or imprisoned.

Somersetshire afforded a much finer field for indulging the propensities

of the chief justice, as in this county there had not only been a

considerable rising of armed men for Monmouth, but processions, in which

women and children had joined, carrying ribbons, boughs, and garlands to

his honor. There were five hundred prisoners for trial at Taunton alone.

Jeffreys said in his charge to the grand jury, "it would not be his fault

if he did not purify the place." The first person tried before him here

was Simon Hamling, a dissenter of a class to whom the judge bore a

particular enmity. In reality, the accused had only come to Taunton,

during the rebellion, to warn his son, who resided there, to remain

neuter. Conscious of his innocence, he insisted on pleading not guilty; he

called witnesses, and made a resolute defence, which was considered great

presumption. The committing magistrate, who was sitting on the bench, at

last interposed and said, "There must certainly be some mistake about the

individual." _Jeffreys._--"You have brought him here, and, if he be

innocent, his blood be upon your head." The prisoner was found guilty, and

ordered for execution next morning. Few afterwards gave his lordship the

trouble of trying them, and one hundred and forty-three are said here to

have been ordered for execution, and two hundred and eighty-four to have

been sentenced to transportation for life. He particularly piqued himself

upon his _bon mot_ in passing sentence on one Hucher, who pleaded, in

mitigation, that, though he had joined the Duke of Monmouth, he had sent

important information to the king's general, the Earl of Feversham. "You

deserve a double death," said the impartial judge; "one for rebelling

against your sovereign, and the other for betraying your friends."

He showed great ingenuity in revenging himself upon such as betrayed any

disapprobation of his severities. Among these was Lord Stawell, who was so

much shocked with what he had heard of the chief justice, that he refused

to see him. Immediately after, there came forth an order that Colonel

Bovet, of Taunton, a friend to whom this cavalier nobleman had been much

attached, should be executed at Cotheleston, close by the house where he

and Lady Stawell and his children then resided.

A considerable harvest here arose from compositions levied upon the

friends of twenty-six young virgins who presented the invader with colors,

which they had embroidered with their own hands. The fund was ostensibly

for the benefit of "the queen's maids of honor," but a strong suspicion

arose that the chief justice participated in bribes for these as well as

other pardons. He thought that his _peculium_ was encroached upon by a

letter from Lord Sunderland, informing him of "the king's pleasure to

bestow one thousand convicts on several courtiers, and one hundred on a

favorite of the queen--security being given that the prisoners should be

enslaved for ten years in some West India island." In his remonstrance he

said that "these convicts would be worth ten or fifteen pounds apiece,"

and, with a view to his own claim, returned thanks for his majesty's

gracious acceptance of his services. However, he was obliged to submit to

the royal distribution of the spoil.

Where the king did not personally interfere, Jeffreys was generally

inexorable if he did not himself receive the bribe for a pardon. Kiffin, a

Nonconformist merchant, had agreed to give three thousand pounds to a

courtier for the pardon of two youths, his grandsons, who had been in

Monmouth's army; but the chief justice would listen to no circumstances of

mitigation, as another was to pocket the price of mercy. Yet, to a buffoon

who attended him on the circuit and made sport by his mimicry, in an hour

of revelry at Taunton, he tossed the pardon of a rich culprit, expressing

a hope "that it might turn to good account."

The jails at Taunton being incapable of containing all the prisoners, it

was necessary to adjourn the commission to Wells, where the same horrible

scenes were again acted, notwithstanding the humane exertions of that most

honorable man, Bishop Ken, who afterwards, having been one of the seven

bishops prosecuted by King James, resigned his see at the Revolution,

rather than sign the new tests.

The Cornishmen had all remained loyal, and the city of Bristol[131] only

remained to be visited by the commission. There were not many cases of

treason here, but Jeffreys had a particular spite against the corporation

magistrates, because they were supposed to favor dissenters, and he had

them very much in his power by a discovery he made, that they had been in

the habit of having in turn assigned to them prisoners charged with

felony, whom they sold for their own benefit to be transported to

Barbadoes. In addressing the grand jury, (while he complained of a fit of

the stone, and was seemingly under the excitement of liquor,) he said,--

"I find a special commission is an unusual thing here, and relishes very

ill; nay, the very women storm at it, for fear we should take the upper

hand of them too; for by-the-bye, gentlemen, I hear it is much in fashion

in this city for the women to govern and bear sway." Having praised the

mild and paternal rule of King James, he thus proceeded: "On the other

hand, up starts a puppet prince, who seduces the mobile into rebellion,

into which they are easily bewitched; for I say rebellion is like the sin

of witchcraft. This man, who had as little title to the crown as the least

of you, (for I hope you are all legitimate,) being overtaken by justice,

and by the goodness of his prince brought to the scaffold, he has the

confidence, (good God, that men should be so impudent!) to say that God

Almighty did know with what joyfulness he did die, (a traitor!) Great God

of heaven and earth! what reason have men to rebel? But, as I told you,

rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft: Fear God and honor the king is

rejected for no other reason, as I can find, but that it is written in St.

Peter. Gentlemen, I must tell you I am afraid that this city hath too many

of these people in it, and it is your duty to find them out. Gentlemen, I

shall not stand complimenting with you; I shall talk with some of you

before you and I part, I tell you; I tell you I have brought a besom, and

I will sweep every man's door, whether great or small. Certainly, here are

a great many of those men whom they call Trimmers; a Whig is but a mere

fool to those; for a Whig is some sort of a subject in comparison of

these; for a Trimmer is but a cowardly and base-spirited Whig; for the

Whig is but the journeyman prentice that is hired and set over the

rebellion, whilst the Trimmer is afraid to appear in the cause." He then

opens his charge against the aldermen for the sale of convicts, and thus

continues: "Good God! where am I?--in Bristol? This city it seems claims

the privilege of hanging and drawing among themselves. I find you have

more need of a special commission once a month at least. The very

magistrates, that should be the ministers of justice, fall out with one

another to that degree they will scarcely dine together; yet I find they

can agree for their interest if there be but a _kid_ in the case; for I

hear the trade of _kidnapping_ is much in request in this city. You can

discharge a felon or a traitor, provided they will go to Mr. Alderman's

plantation in the West Indies. Come, come, I find you stink for want of

rubbing. It seems the dissenters and fanatics fare well amongst you, by

reason of the favor of the magistrates; for example, if a dissenter who is

a notorious and obstinate offender comes before them, one alderman or

another stands up and says, _He is a good man_, (though three parts a

rebel.) Well, then, for the sake of Mr. Alderman, he shall be fined but

five shillings. Then comes another, and up stands another goodman

alderman, and says, _I know him to be an honest man_, (though rather worse

than the former.) Well, for Mr. Alderman's sake, he shall be fined but

half a crown; so _manus manum fricat_; you play the knave for me now, and

I will play the knave for you by and by. I am ashamed of these things;

but, by God's grace, I will mend them; for, as I have told you, I have

brought a brush in my pocket, and I shall be sure to rub the dirt wherever

it is, or on whomsoever it sticks." "Thereupon," says Roger North, "he

turns to the mayor, accoutred with his scarlet and furs, and gave him all

the ill names that scolding eloquence could supply; and so, with rating

and staring, as his way was, never left till he made him quit the bench

and go down to the criminal's post at the bar; and there he pleaded for

himself as a common rogue or thief must have done; and when the mayor

hesitated a little, or slackened his pace, he bawled at him, and stamping,

called for his guards, for he was still general by commission. Thus the

citizens saw their scarlet chief magistrate at the bar, to their infinite

terror and amazement."

Only three were executed for treason at Bristol; but Jeffreys looking at

the end of his campaign to the returns of the enemy killed, had the

satisfaction to find that they amounted to three hundred and thirty,

besides eight hundred prisoners ordered to be transported.[132]

He now hastened homewards to pounce upon the great seal. In his way

through Somersetshire, with a regiment of dragoons as his life-guards, the

mayor took the liberty to say that there were two Spokes who had been

convicted, and that one of these left for execution was not the one

intended to suffer, the other having contrived to make his escape, and

that favor might perhaps still be shown to him whom it was intended to

pardon. "No!" said the general-judge; "his family owe a life; he shall die

for his namesake!" To render such narratives credible, we must recollect

that his mind was often greatly disturbed by fits of the stone, and still

more by intemperance. Burnet, speaking of his behavior at this time,

says, "He was perpetually either drunk or in a rage, liker a fury than the

zeal of a judge."

I shall conclude my sketch of Jeffreys as a criminal judge with his

treatment of a prisoner whom he was eager to hang, but who escaped with

life. This was Prideaux, a gentleman of fortune in the west of England,

who had been apprehended on the landing of Monmouth, for no other reason

than that his father had been attorney general under Cromwell. A reward of

five hundred pounds, with a free pardon, was offered to any witnesses who

would give evidence against him; but none could be found, and he was

discharged. Afterwards, two convicts were prevailed upon to say that they

had seen him take some part in the insurrection, and he was again cast

into prison. His friends, alarmed for his safety, though convinced of his

innocence, tried to procure a pardon for him, when they were told "that

nothing could be done for him, as the king had given him to the chief

justice," (the familiar phrase for the grant of an estate about to be

forfeited.) A negotiation was then opened with Jennings, the avowed agent

of Jeffreys for the sale of pardons, and the sum of fifteen thousand

pounds was actually paid to him by a banker for the deliverance of a man

whose destruction could not be effected by any perversion of the

formalities of law.[133]

There is to be found only one defender of these atrocities. "I have indeed

sometimes thought," says the author of A Caveat against the Whigs, "that

in Jeffreys's western circuit justice went too far before mercy was

remembered, though there was not above a fourth part executed of what

were convicted. But when I consider in what manner several of those lives

then spared were afterwards spent, I cannot but think a little more _hemp_

might have been usefully employed upon that occasion."[134]

A great controversy has arisen, "who is chiefly to be blamed--Jeffreys or

James?" Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, declares that "the king never

forgave the cruelty of the judge in executing such multitudes in the west

against his express orders." And reliance is placed by Hume on the

assertion of Roger North, that his brother, the lord keeper, going to the

king and moving him "to put a stop to the fury which was in no respect for

his service, and would be counted a carnage, not law or justice, orders

went to mitigate the proceedings."

I have already demonstrated that this last assertion is a mere

invention,[135] and though it is easy to fix deep guilt on the judge, it

is impossible to exculpate the monarch. Burnet says that James "had a

particular account of his proceedings writ to him every day, and he took

pleasure to relate them in the drawing-room to foreign ministers, and at

his table, calling it Jeffreys's campaign; speaking of all he had done in

a style that neither became the majesty nor the mercifulness of a great

prince." Jeffreys himself, (certainly a very suspicious witness,) when in

the Tower, declared to Tutchin that "his instructions were much more

severe than the execution of them; and that at his return he was snubbed

at court for being too merciful." And to Dr. Scott, the divine who

attended him on his death bed, he said, "Whatever I did then I did by

express orders; and I have this further to say for myself, that I was not

half bloody enough for him who sent me thither." We certainly know from a

letter written to him by the Earl of Sunderland at Dorchester, that "the

king approved entirely of all his proceedings." And though we cannot

believe that he stopped short of any severity which he thought would be of

service to himself, there seems no reason to doubt (if that be any

palliation) that throughout the whole of these proceedings his object was

to please his master, whose disposition was now most vindictive, and who

thought that, by such terrible examples, he should secure to himself a

long and quiet reign.[136]

The two were equally criminal,[137] and both had their reward. But in the

first instance, and till the consequences of such wickedness and folly

began to appear, they met each other with mutual joy and congratulations.

Jeffreys returning from the west, by royal command stopped at Windsor

Castle. He arrived there on the 28th of September; and after a most

gracious reception, the great seal was immediately delivered to him with

the title of lord chancellor.

We learn from Evelyn that it had been three weeks in the king's personal

custody. "About six o'clock came Sir Dudley North and his brother Roger

North, and brought the great seal from my lord keeper, who died the day

before. The king went immediately to council, every body guessing who was

most likely to succeed this great officer; most believed it would be no

other than Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, who had so rigorously prosecuted

the late rebels, and was now gone the western circuit to punish the rest

that were secured in the several counties, and was now near upon his

return."

The London Gazette of October 1, 1685, contains the following notice:

"_Windsor, Sept. 28._

"His majesty taking into his royal consideration the many eminent and

faithful services which the Right Honorable George Lord Jeffreys, of Wem,

lord chief justice of England, has rendered the crown, as well in the

reign of the late king, of ever blessed memory, as since his majesty's

accession to the throne, was pleased this day to commit to him the custody

of the great seal of England, with the title of lord chancellor."

The new lord chancellor, having brought the great seal with him from

Windsor to London, had near a month to prepare for the business of the

term.

He had had only a very slender acquaintance with Chancery proceedings, and

he was by no means thoroughly grounded in common-law learning; but he now

fell to the study of equity pleading and practice, and though exceedingly

inferior to his two immediate predecessors in legal acquirements, his

natural shrewdness was such that, when entirely sober, he contrived to

gloss over his ignorance of technicalities, and to arrive at a right

decision. He was seldom led into temptation by the occurrence of cases in

which the interests of political parties, or religious sects, were

concerned; and, as an equity judge, the multitude rather regarded him with

favor.

The public and the profession were much shocked to see such a man at the

head of the law; but as soon as he was installed in his office, there were

plenty ready enough to gather round him, and, suppressing their real

feelings, to load him with flattery and to solicit him for favors.

Evelyn, who upon his appointment as chief justice, describes him as "most

ignorant, but most daring," now assiduously cultivated his notice; and,

having succeeded in getting an invitation to dine with him, thus speaks of

him:

"_31st Oct., 1685._

"I dined at our great Lord Chancellor Jeffreys's, who used me with much

respect. This was the late chief justice, who had newly been the western

circuit to try the Monmouth conspirators, and had formerly done such

severe justice amongst the obnoxious in Westminster Hall, for which his

majesty dignified him by creating him first a baron, and now lord

chancellor; is of an assured and undaunted spirit, and has served the

court interest on all hardiest occasions; is of nature civil, and a slave

of the court."

The very first measure which James proposed to his new chancellor was,

literally, the hanging of an alderman. He was still afraid of the mutinous

spirit of the city, which, without some fresh terrors, might again break

out, although the charters were destroyed; and no sufficient atonement had

yet been made for the hostility constantly manifested by the metropolis to

the policy of his family for half a century. His majesty proposed that

Alderman Clayton, a very troublesome agitator, should be selected as the

victim. The chancellor agreed that "it was very fit an example should be

made, as his majesty had graciously proposed; but if it were the same

thing to his majesty, he would venture to suggest a different choice.

Alderman Clayton was a bad subject, but Alderman Cornish was still more

troublesome, and more dangerous." The king readily acquiesced, and

Alderman Cornish was immediately brought to trial before a packed jury,

and executed on a gibbet erected in Cheapside, on pretence that some

years before he had been concerned in the Ryehouse plot. The apologists of

Jeffreys say (and as it is the only alleged instance of his gratitude I

have met with, I have great pleasure in recording it) that he was induced

to save Sir Robert Clayton from recollecting that this alderman had been

his pot companion, and had greatly assisted him in obtaining the office of

common serjeant.

Monmouth's rebellion in England, and Argyle's in Scotland, being put down,

and the city of London reduced to subjection, James expressed an opinion,

in which the chancellor concurred, that there was no longer any occasion

to disguise the plan of governing by military force, and of violating at

pleasure the solemn acts of the legislature. Parliament reassembled on the

9th of November, when Jeffreys took his seat on the woolsack. The king

alone (as had been concerted) addressed the two houses, and plainly told

them that he could rely upon "nothing but a good force of well disciplined

troops in constant pay," and that he was determined to employ "officers in

the army, not qualified by the late tests, for their employments."

When the king had withdrawn, Lord Halifax rose, and said, sarcastically,

"They had now more reason than ever to give thanks to his majesty, since

he had dealt so plainly with them, and discovered what he would be at."

This the chancellor thought fit to take as a serious motion, and

immediately put the question, as proposed by a noble lord, "that an humble

address be presented to his majesty to thank him for his gracious speech

from the throne." No one ventured to offer any remark, and it was

immediately carried, _nemine dissentiente_. The king returned a grave

answer to the address, "That he was much satisfied to find their

lordships were so well pleased with what he said, and that he would never

offer any thing to their house that he should not be convinced was for the

true interest of the kingdom."

But the lords very soon discovered the false position in which they had

placed themselves, and the bishops were particularly scandalized at the

thought that they were supposed to have thanked the king for announcing a

principle upon which Papists and Dissenters might be introduced into every

civil office, and even into ecclesiastical benefices.

Accordingly, Compton, Bishop of London, moved "that a day might be

appointed for taking his majesty's speech into consideration," and said

"that he spoke the united sentiments of the Episcopal bench when he

pronounced the test act the chief security of the established church."

This raised a very long and most animated debate, at which King James, to

his great mortification, was present. Sunderland, and the popishly

inclined ministers, objected to the regularity of the proceeding, urging

that, having given thanks for the speech, they must be taken to have

already considered it, and precluded themselves from finding fault with

any part of it. The lords Halifax, Nottingham, and Mordaunt, on the other

side, treated with scorn the notion that the constitution was to be

sacrificed to a point of form, and, entering into the merits of the

question, showed that if the power which the sovereign now, for the first

time, had openly claimed were conceded to him, the rights, privileges, and

property of the nation lay at his mercy.

At last the lord chancellor left the woolsack, and not only bitterly

attacked the regularity of the motion after a unanimous vote of thanks to

the king for his speech, but gallantly insisted on the legality and

expediency of the power of the sovereign to dispense with laws for the

safety and benefit of the state. No lord chancellor ever made such an

unfortunate exhibition. He assumed the same arrogant and overbearing tone

with which he had been accustomed from the bench to browbeat juries,

counsel, witnesses, and prisoners, and he launched out into the most

indecent personalities against his opponents. He was soon taught to know

his place, and that frowns, noise, and menaces would not pass for

arguments there. While he spoke he was heard with marked disgust by all

parts of the house; when he sat down, being required to retract his words

by those whom he had assailed, and finding all the sympathies of the House

against him, he made to each of them an abject apology, "and he proved by

his behavior that insolence, when checked, naturally sinks into meanness

and cowardice."

The ministerialists being afraid to divide the House, Monday following,

the 23d of November, was fixed for taking the king's speech into

consideration. But a similar disposition having been shown by the other

House, before that day Parliament was prorogued, and no other national

council met till the Convention Parliament, after the landing of King

William.

James, far from abandoning his plans, was more resolute to carry them into

effect. The Earl of Rochester, his own brother-in-law, and others who had

hitherto stood by him, having in vain remonstrated against his madness,

resigned their offices; but Jeffreys still recklessly pushed him forward

in his headlong career. In open violation of the test act, four Catholic

lords were introduced into the cabinet, and one of them, Lord Bellasis,

was placed at the head of the treasury in the room of the Protestant Earl

of Rochester. Among such colleagues the lord chancellor was contented to

sit in council, and the wonder is that he did not follow the example of

Sunderland and other renegades, who at this time, to please the king,

professed to change their religion, and were reconciled to the church of

Rome. Perhaps, with his peculiar sagacity, Jeffreys thought it would be a

greater sacrifice in the king's eyes to appear to be daily wounding his

conscience by submitting to measures which he must be supposed inwardly to

condemn.

As a grand _coup d'état_, he undertook to obtain a solemn decision of the

judges in favor of the dispensing power,[138] and for this purpose a

fictitious action was brought against Sir Edward Hales, the lieutenant of

the Tower, an avowed Roman Catholic, in the name of his coachman, for

holding an office in the army without having taken the oath of supremacy,

or received the sacrament according to the rites of the church of England,

or signed the declaration against transubstantiation. Jeffreys had put the

great seal to letters patent, authorizing him to hold the office without

these tests, "_non obstante_" the act of Parliament. This dispensation was

pleaded in bar of the action, and upon a demurrer to the plea, after a

sham argument by counsel, all the judges except one (Baron Street) held

the plea to be sufficient, and pronounced judgment for the defendant. It

was now proclaimed at court that the law was not any longer an obstacle to

any scheme that might be thought advisable.

The Earl of Castlemaine was sent to Rome, regularly commissioned as

ambassador to his holiness the pope, a papal nuncio being reciprocally

received at St. James's. But assuming that religion was not embraced in

the negotiations between the two courts, however impolitic the proceeding

might be, I do not think that the king and the chancellor are liable to be

blamed, as they have been by recent historians, for having in this

instance violated acts of Parliament. If all those are examined which had

passed from the commencement of the reformation down to the "Bill of

Rights," it will probably be found that none of them can be applied to a

mere diplomatic intercourse with the pope, however stringent their

provisions may be against receiving bulls or doing any thing in derogation

of the king's supremacy.[139]

There can be no doubt of the illegality of the next measure of the king

and the chancellor. The Court of High Commission was revived with some

slight modification, although it had been abolished in the reign of

Charles I. by an act of Parliament, which forbade the erection of any

similar court; and Jeffreys, having deliberately put the great seal to the

patent creating this new arbitrary tribunal, undertook to preside in it.

The commissioners were vested with unlimited jurisdiction over the church

of England, and were empowered, even in cases of suspicion, to proceed

inquisitorially, like the abolished court, "_notwithstanding any law or

statute to the contrary_." The object was to have all ecclesiastics under

complete control, lest any of them should oppose the intended innovations

in religion.[140]

Jeffreys selected as his first victims, Sharp, rector of St. Giles's,

called the "railing parson," who had made himself very obnoxious to the

government by inveighing against the errors of Popery--and Compton, Bishop

of London, his diocesan, who had raised the storm against the dispensing

power in the House of Lords. A mandate was issued to the bishop to suspend

the rector, and this being declined on the ground that no man can be

lawfully condemned till he has been heard in his defence, both were

summoned before the high commission.

The bishop appearing, and being asked by the chancellor why he had not

obeyed the king's orders by suspending Dr. Sharp, prayed time to prepare

his defence, as his counsel were on the circuit, and he begged to have a

copy of the commission. A week's time was given; but as to the commission,

he was told "all the coffee-houses had it for a penny." On the eighth day

the business was resumed; but the bishop still said he was unprepared,

having great difficulty to procure a copy of the commission; when the

chancellor made him a bantering apology. "My lord, in telling you our

commission was to be seen in every coffee-house, I did not speak with any

design to reflect on your lordship, as if you were a haunter of

coffee-houses. I abhor the thoughts of it!" A further indulgence of a

fortnight was granted.

At the day appointed, the bishop again appeared with four doctors of the

civil law, who were so frightened, that they hardly dared to say a word

for him; but he himself firmly, though mildly, argued, "that he had acted

_jurisperitorum consilio_, and could not have had any bad motive; that he

should not have been justified in obeying an illegal order; that he had

privately recommended to Dr. Sharp not to preach; that this advice had

been followed, so that the king's wish was complied with; and that if he

had committed any fault, he ought to be tried for it before his archbishop

and brother bishops."

Several of the commissioners were inclined to let him off with an

admonition; but Jeffreys obtained and pronounced sentence of _suspension

during the king's pleasure_, both on the bishop and the rector.[141]

There was another political trial where justice was done to the accused,

although Jeffreys presided at it. A charge was brought against Lord

Delamere, the head of an ancient family in Cheshire, that he had tried to

excite an insurrection in that county in aid of Monmouth's rebellion. An

indictment for high treason being found against him, he was brought to

trial upon it before Jeffreys, as lord high steward, and thirty

peers-triers. The king was present, and was very desirous of a conviction,

as Lord Delamere, when a member of the House of Commons, had taken an

active part in supporting the exclusion bill.

Jeffreys did his best to gratify this wish. According to the habit he had

lately acquired in the west, he at first tried to induce the noble

prisoner to confess, in the hope of pardon "from the king's known

clemency." "My lord," said he, "if you are conscious to yourself that you

are guilty of this heinous crime, give glory to God, make amends to his

vicegerent the king, by a plain and full discovery of your guilt, and do

not, by an obstinate persisting in the denial of it, provoke the just

indignation of your prince, who has made it appear to the world that his

inclinations are rather to show mercy than inflict punishment."

Lord Delamere, to ease his mind from the anxiety to know whether the man

who so spoke was to pronounce upon his guilt or innocence, said, "I beg

your grace would please to satisfy me whether your grace be one of my

judges in concurrence with the rest of the lords." _L. H. Steward._--"No,

my lord, I am judge of the court, but I am none of your triers."[142]

A plea to the jurisdiction being put in, Lord Delamere requested his grace

to advise with the other peers upon it, as it was a matter of privilege.

_L. H. Steward._--"Good my lord, I hope you that are a prisoner at the bar

are not to give me direction who I should advise with, or how I should

demean myself here."

This plea was properly overruled, and not guilty pleaded, when his grace,

to prejudice the peers-triers against the noble prisoner as a notorious

exclusionist, delivered an inflammatory address to them before any

evidence was given.

To create a further prejudice, poor Lord Howard was called to repeat once

more his oft-told tale of the ryehouse plot, with which it was not

pretended that the prisoner had any connection. The charge in the

indictment was only supported by one witness, who himself had been in the

rebellion, and who swore that Lord Delamere, at a time and place which he

specified, had sent a message by him to Monmouth, asking a supply of money

to maintain ten thousand men to be levied in Cheshire against King James.

An _alibi_ was clearly proved. Yet his grace summed up for a conviction,

and took pains, "for the sake of the numerous and great auditory, that a

mistake in point of law might not go unrectified, which seemed to be urged

with some earnestness by the noble lord at the bar, _that there is a

necessity there should be two positive witnesses to convict a man of

treason_."

To the honor of the peerage of England, there was a unanimous verdict of

acquittal. James himself even allowed this to be right, wreaking all his

vengeance on the witness for not having given better evidence, and

swearing that he would have him first convicted of perjury, and then

hanged for treason. Jeffreys seems to have struggled hard to behave with

moderation on this trial; but his habitual arrogance from time to time

broke out, and must have created a disgust among the peers-triers very

favorable to the prisoner.

Jeffreys, still pretending to be a strong Protestant, eagerly assisted the

king in his mad attempt to open the church and the universities to the

intrusion of the Catholics. The fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford,

having disobeyed the royal mandate to elect, as head of their college,

Anthony Farmer, who was not qualified by the statutes, and was a man of

infamous character, and having chosen the pious and learned Hough, were

summoned before the Court of Ecclesiastical Commission. Jeffreys observed

that Dr. Fairfax, one of their number, had not signed the answer of the

college to the charge of disregarding the king's recommendation. Fairfax

asking leave to explain his reasons for declining to sign the answer,

Jeffreys thought that he was willing to conform, and exclaimed, "Ay, this

looks like a man of sense, and a good subject. Let's hear what he will

say." _Fairfax._--"I don't object to the answer, because it is the

vindication of my college: I go further; and as, according to the rules of

the ecclesiastical courts, a libel is given to the party that he may know

the grounds of his accusation, I demand that libel; for I do not know

otherwise wherefore I am called here, and besides, this affair should be

discussed in Westminster Hall." _Jeffreys._--"You are a doctor of

_divinity_, not of _law_." _Fairfax._--"By what authority do you sit

here?" _Jeffreys._--"Pray, what commission have you to be so impudent in

court? This man ought to be kept in a dark room. Why do you suffer him

without a guardian? Why did you not bring him to me? Pray let my officers

seize him."

Three members of the ecclesiastical commission were sent to Oxford to

represent that formidable body, and they annulled the election of Hough,

expelled the refractory fellows, and made Magdalen College, for a time, a

Popish establishment--the court in London, under the presidency of

Jeffreys, confirming all their proceedings.

The lord chancellor next involved the king in the prosecution of the seven

bishops, which, more than any other act of misrule during his reign, led

to his downfall.[143] On the 25th of April, 1688, a new "declaration of

indulgence" came out under the great seal; and, that it might be the more

generally known and obeyed, an order was sent from the council to all

bishops in England, enjoining that it should be read by the clergy in all

churches and chapels within their dioceses during divine service. A

petition, signed by Sancroft, the archbishop, and six other prelates, was

laid before the king, praying in respectful language that the clergy might

be excused from reading the declaration; not because they were wanting in

duty to the sovereign, or in tenderness to the dissenters, but because it

was founded upon the dispensing power, which had often been declared

illegal in Parliament, and on that account they could not, in prudence,

honor, or conscience, be such parties to it as the reading of it in the

church would imply.

Even the Earl of Sunderland and Father Peter represented to the king the

danger of arraying the whole church of England against the authority of

the crown, and advised him that the bishops should merely be admonished to

be more compliant. But with the concurrence of Jeffreys he resolved to

visit them with condign punishment, and they were ordered to appear before

the council, with a view to obtain evidence against them, as the petition

had been privately presented to the king. When they entered the council

chamber, Jeffreys said to them, "Do you own the petition?" After some

hesitation, the archbishop confessed that he wrote it, and the bishops,

that they signed it. _Jeffreys._--"Did you publish it?" They, thinking he

referred to the _printing_ of it, of which the king had loudly complained,

denied this very resolutely; but they admitted that they had delivered it

to the king at Whitehall palace, in the county of Middlesex. This was

considered enough to fix them with a publication, in point of law, of the

supposed libel; and Jeffreys, after lecturing them on their disloyalty,

required them to enter into a recognizance to appear before the Court of

King's Bench, and answer the high misdemeanor of which they were guilty.

They insisted that, according to the privileges of the House of Peers, of

which they were members, they could not lawfully be committed, and were

not bound to enter into the required recognizance. Jeffreys threatened to

commit them to the Tower as public delinquents. _Archbishop._--"We are

ready to go whithersoever his majesty may be pleased to send us. We hope

the King of kings will be our protector and our judge. We fear nought from

man; and having acted according to law and our consciences, no punishment

shall ever be able to shake our resolutions."

If this struggle could have been foreseen, even Jeffreys would have shrunk

from the monstrous impolicy of sending these men to jail, on what would be

considered the charge of temperately exercising a constitutional right in

defence of the Protestant faith, so dear to the great bulk of the nation;

but he thought it was too late to resile. He therefore, with his own hand,

drew a warrant for their commitment, which he signed, and handed round the

board. It was signed by all the councillors present, except Father Peter,

whose signature the king excused, to avoid the awkward appearance of

Protestant bishops being sent to jail by a Jesuit.

An account of their trial will be found in the next chapter; but there are

some circumstances connected with their acquittal in which Jeffreys

personally appears.

Seeing how he had acquired such immense favor, there were other lawyers

who tried to undermine him by his own arts. One of the most formidable of

these was Sir John Trevor, master of the rolls, who, some authors say,

certainly would have got the great seal had James remained longer on the

throne, but whom Jeffreys had hitherto kept down by reversing his decrees.

The chancellor's alarm was now excited by a report that Sir William

Williams (who, from being Speaker of the last Westminster Parliament, and

fined ten thousand pounds on the prosecution of the Duke of York, was

become the caressed solicitor general to James II.) had a positive promise

of the great seal if he could obtain a conviction of the seven

bishops.[144] His brutal conduct to them during the whole trial, which was

no doubt reported to Jeffreys, would confirm the rumor and increase his

apprehensions. The jury having sat up all night without food, fire, or

candle, to consider of their verdict, the lord chancellor had, while they

were still enclosed, come down to Westminster Hall next morning, and taken

his seat in court. When he heard the immense shout arise which soon made

the king tremble on Hounslow Heath, he smiled and hid his face in his

nosegay, "as much," observes the relater of the anecdote, "as to say, Mr.

Solicitor, I keep my seal."

However, the part he had taken in sending the bishops to the Tower had

caused such scandal, that the University of Oxford would not have him for

their chancellor, although, in the prospect of a vacancy, he had received

many promises of support. The moment the news arrived of the death of the

old Duke of Ormond, his grandson was elected to succeed him; and next day

a mandate coming from court to elect Lord Jeffreys, an answer was returned

that an election had already taken place, which could not be revoked.

Suspecting that things were now taking an unfavorable turn, he began

privately to censure the measures of the court, and to insinuate that the

king had acted against his advice, saying, "It will be found that I have

done the part of an honest man, but as for the judges they are most of

them rogues."

About this time he was present at an event which was considered more than

a counterpoise to recent discomfitures, but which greatly precipitated the

crisis by taking away the hope of relief by the rightful succession of a

Protestant heir. Being suddenly summoned to Whitehall, he immediately

repaired thither, and found that the queen had been taken in labor. Other

councillors and many ladies of quality soon arrived, and they were all

admitted into her bedchamber. Her majesty seems to have been much annoyed

by the presence of the lord chancellor. The king calling for him, he came

forward and stood on the step of the bed to show that he was there. She

then begged her consort to cover her face with his head and periwig; for

she declared "she could not be brought to bed, and have so many men look

on her." However, the fright may have shortened her sufferings; for James

III., or "the old pretender," very speedily made his appearance, and the

midwife having made the concerted signal that the child was of the

wished-for sex, the company retreated.

Considering the surmises which had been propagated ever since the queen's

pregnancy was announced, that it was feigned, and that a suppositious

child was to be palmed upon the world, Jeffreys was lamentably deficient

in duty to the king in not having recommended steps to convince the public

from the beginning, beyond all possibility of controversy, of the

genuineness of the birth. When the story of the "warming-pan" had taken

hold of the public mind, many witnesses were examined before the Privy

Council to disprove it, but it continued an article of faith with thorough

anti-Jacobites during the two succeeding reigns.[145]

The birth of a son, which the king had so ardently longed for, led to his

speedy overthrow. Instead of the intrigues between the discontented at

home and the Prince and Princess of Orange, hitherto regarded as his

successors, being put an end to, they immediately assumed a far more

formidable aspect. William, who had hoped in the course of a few years to

wield the energies of Britain against the dangerous ambition of Louis

XIV., saw that if he remained quiet he should with difficulty even retain

the circumscribed power of Stadtholder of the United Provinces. He

therefore gladly listened to the representations of those who had fled to

Holland to escape from the tyranny exercised in their native country, or

who sent secret emissaries to implore his aid; and he boldly resolved to

come to England--not as a military conqueror, but for their deliverance,

and to obtain the crown with the assent of the nation. That he and his

adherents might be protected against any sudden effort to crush them, a

formidable fleet was equipped in the Dutch ports, and a considerable army,

which had been assembled professedly for a different purpose, was ready

on a short notice to be embarked in it.

James, who had been amusing himself by making the pope godfather to his

son, and had listened with absolute incredulity to the rumors of the

coming invasion, suddenly became sensible of his danger, and to avert it

was willing to make any sacrifice to please his people. The slender merit

of the tardy, forced, and ineffectual concessions which were offered is

claimed respectively by the apologists of the king, of Jeffreys, and of

the Earl of Sunderland, but seems due to the last of the three. James's

infatuation was so transcendent,--he was so struck with judicial

blindness,--being doomed to destruction, he was so demented,--that, if let

alone, he probably would have trusted with confidence to his divine right

and the protection of the Virgin, even when William had landed at Torbay.

As far as I can discover, from the time when Jeffreys received the great

seal, he never originated any measures, wise or wicked, and without

remonstrance, he heartily coöperated in all those suggested by the king,

however illegal or mischievous they might be. I do not find the slightest

foundation for the assertion that, with all his faults, he had a regard

for the Protestant religion, which made him stand up in its defence. The

"Declaration of Indulgence," to which he put the great seal, might be

imputed to a love of toleration, (to which he was a stranger,) but what

can be said of the active part he took in the High Commission Court, and

in introducing Roman Catholics into the universities and into the church?

The Earl of Sunderland, though utterly unprincipled, was a man of great

discernment and courage; he could speak boldly to the king, and he had

joined in objecting to the precipitate measures for giving ascendancy to

his new religion, which had produced this crisis. His seemingly forced

removal from office he himself probably suggested, along with the other

steps now taken to appease the people.

Whoever might first propose the altered policy, Jeffreys was the

instrument for carrying it into effect, and thereby it lost all its grace

and virtue. He took off the suspension of the Bishop of London, and, by a

_supersedeas_ under the great seal, abolished the High Commission Court.

He annulled all the proceedings respecting Magdalen College, and issued

the necessary process for reinstating Dr. Hough and the Protestant

fellows. He put the great seal to a general pardon.

But the reaction was hoped for, above all, from the restoration of the

city charters. On the 2d of October he sent a flattering message to the

mayor and aldermen to come to Whitehall in the evening, that they might be

presented at court by "their old recorder." Here the king told them that

he was mightily concerned for the welfare of their body, and that at a

time when invasion threatened the kingdom, he was determined to show them

his confidence in their loyalty by restoring the rights of the city to the

state in which they were before the unfortunate _quo warranto_ proceedings

had been instituted in the late reign. Accordingly, on the following day a

meeting of the Common Council was called at Guildhall, and the lord

chancellor proceeded thither in his state carriage, attended by his

purse-bearer, mace-bearer, and other officers, and after a florid speech,

delivered them letters patent under the great seal, which waived all

forfeitures, revived all charters, and confirmed all liberties the city

had ever enjoyed under the king or any of his ancestors. Great joy was

manifested; but the citizens could not refrain from showing their

abhorrence of the man who brought these glad tidings, and on his return

they hissed him and hooted him, and gave him a foretaste of the violence

he was soon to experience from an English mob.

The forfeited and surrendered charters were likewise restored to the other

corporations in England. These popular acts, however, were generally

ascribed to fear, and the coalition of all parties, including the

preachers of passive obedience, to obtain a permanent redress of

grievances by force, continued resolute and unshaken.

When William landed, the frightful severities of Jeffreys in the west had

the effect of preventing the populace from flocking to his standard, but

he met with no opposition, and soon persons of great consideration and

influence sent in their adhesion to him.

When we read in history of civil commotions and foreign invasions, we are

apt to suppose that all the ordinary business of life was suspended. But

on inquiry, we find that it went on pretty much as usual, unless where

interrupted by actual violence. While the Prince of Orange was advancing

to the capital, and James was marching out to give him battle, if his army

would have stood true, the Court of Chancery sat regularly to hear

"exceptions" and "motions for time to plead;" and on the very day on which

the Princess Anne fled to Nottingham, and her unhappy father exclaimed, in

the extremity of his agony, "God help me! my own children have forsaken

me," the lord chancellor decided that "if an administrator pays a debt due

by bond before a debt due by a decree in equity, he is still liable to pay

the debt due by the decree."[146]

Change of dynasty was not yet talked of, and the cry was for "a free

Parliament." To meet this, the king resolved to call one in his own name;

and the last use which Jeffreys made of the great seal was by sealing

writs for the election of members of the House of Commons, who were

ordered to meet on the 15th of January following.

This movement only infused fresh vigor into the Prince of Orange, who now

resolved to bring matters to a crisis; and James, finding himself almost

universally deserted, as the most effectual way, in his judgment, of

annoying his enemies, very conveniently for them, determined to leave the

kingdom. Preparatory to this, he had a parting interview with Jeffreys, to

whom he did not confide his secret; but he obtained from him all the

parliamentary writs which had not been issued to the sheriffs, amounting

to a considerable number, and these, with his own hand, he threw into the

fire, so that a lawful Parliament might not be assembled when he was gone.

To increase the confusion, he required Jeffreys to surrender the great

seal to him,--having laid the plan of destroying it,--in the belief that

without it the government could not be conducted.

All things being prepared, and Father Peter and the Earl of Melfort having

been informed of his intentions, which he still concealed from Jeffreys,

on the night of the 10th of December, James, disguised, left Whitehall,

accompanied by Sir Edward Hales, whom he afterwards created Earl of

Tenterden. London Bridge (which they durst not cross) being the only one

then over the Thames, they drove in a hackney-coach to the Horse Ferry,

Westminster, and as they crossed the river with a pair of oars, the king

threw the great seal into the water, and thought he had sunk with it

forever the fortunes of the Prince of Orange. At Vauxhall they found

horses in readiness for them, and they rode swiftly to Feversham, where

they embarked for France.

Instead of narrating the adventures of the monarch, when he was

intercepted at Feversham, we must confine ourselves to what befell the

unhappy ex-chancellor. He heard early next morning of the royal flight,

and was thrown into a state of the greatest consternation. He was afraid

of punishment from the new government which was now to be established, and

being asked by a courtier if he had heard "what the _heads_ of the

Prince's declaration were," he answered, "I am sure that _my head_ is one,

whatever the rest may be." He dreaded still more the fury of the mob, of

which the most alarming accounts were soon brought him. In the existing

state of anarchy, almost the whole population of the metropolis crowded

into the streets in quest of intelligence; the excitement was unexampled;

there was an eager desire to prevent the king's evil councillors from

escaping along with him; and many bad characters, under a pretence of a

regard for the Protestant religion, took the opportunity to gratify their

love of violence and plunder.

The first object of vengeance was Father Peter; but it was found that, in

consequence of the information of the king's intentions conveyed to him

and the Earl of Melfort, they had secretly withdrawn the day before, and

were now in safety. The pope's nuncio was rescued from imminent peril by

the interposition of the lords of the Council, who had met, and,

exercising temporarily the powers of government, were striving to preserve

the public tranquillity.

The next victim demanded was Jeffreys, who (no one knowing that the great

seal had been taken from him) still went by the name of "the chancellor,"

and who, of all professing Protestants, was the most obnoxious to the

multitude. He retired early in the day from his house in Duke Street to

the obscure dwelling of a dependent in Westminster, near the river side,

and here, lying concealed, he caused preparations to be made for his

escape from the kingdom. It was arranged that a coal ship which had

delivered her cargo should clear out at the custom house as for her return

to Newcastle, and should land him at Hamburg.

To avoid, as he thought, all chance of being recognised by those who had

seen him in ermine or gold-embroidered robes, with a long white band under

the chin, his collar of S. S. round his neck, and on his head a

full-bottom wig, which had recently become the attribute of judicial

dignity, instead of the old-fashioned coif or black velvet cap,--he cut

off his bushy eyebrows, wont to inspire such terror, he put on the

worn-out dress of a common sailor, and he covered his head with an old

tarred hat that seemed to have weathered many a blast.

Thus disguised, as soon as it was dusk he got into a boat; and the state

of the tide enabling him to shoot London Bridge without danger, he safely

reached the coal ship lying off Wapping. Here he was introduced to the

captain and the mate, on whose secrecy he was told he might rely; but, as

they could not sail till next day, when he had examined his berth, he went

on board another vessel that lay at a little distance, there to pass the

night. If he had not taken this precaution, he would have been almost

immediately in the power of his enemies. The mate, without waiting to see

what became of him, hurried on shore, and treacherously gave information

to some persons who had been in pursuit of him, that he was concealed in

the Newcastle collier. They applied to justices of the peace in the

neighborhood for a warrant to arrest him, which was refused, on the ground

that no specific charge was sworn against him. They then went to the lords

of the council, whom they found sitting, and who actually gave them a

warrant to apprehend him for high treason, under the belief that the

safety of the state required his detention. Armed with this, they returned

to the coal ship in which he had taken his passage, but he was not there,

and the captain, a man of honor, baffled all their inquiries.

He slept securely in the vessel in which he had sought refuge; and had it

not been for the most extraordinary imprudence, leading to the belief that

he was fated speedily to expiate his crimes, he might have effected his

escape. Probably with a view of indulging more freely his habit of

intemperance, he next morning came ashore, and made his appearance at a

little alehouse bearing the sign of "The Red Cow," in Anchor and Hope

Alley, near King Edward's Stairs, Wapping, and called for a pot of ale.

When he had nearly finished it, still wearing his sailor's attire, with

his hat on his head, he was so rashly confident as to put his head out

from an open window to look at the passengers in the street.

I must prepare my readers for the scene which follows by relating, in the

words of Roger North, an anecdote of the behavior of Jeffreys to a suitor

in the heyday of his power and arrogance. "There was a scrivener of

Wapping brought to hearing for relief against a _bummery bond_.[147] The

contingency of losing all being showed, the bill was going to be

dismissed;[148] but one of the plaintiff's counsel said that the scrivener

was a strange fellow, and sometimes went to church, sometimes to

conventicles, and none could tell what to make of him; and it was thought

he was a trimmer. At that the chancellor fired; and 'A trimmer!' said he;

'I have heard much of that monster, but never saw one. Come forth, Mr.

Trimmer, turn you round, and let us see your shape,' and at that rate

talked so long that the poor fellow was ready to drop under him; but at

last the bill was dismissed with costs, and he went his way. In the hall

one of his friends asked him how he came off. 'Came off' said he; 'I am

escaped from the terrors of that man's face, which I would scarce undergo

again to save my life, and I shall certainly have the frightful impression

of it as long as I live.'"[149]

It happened, by a most extraordinary coincidence, that this very

scrivener was then walking through Anchor and Hope Alley on the opposite

side of the way, and immediately looking towards "The Red Cow," thought he

recollected the features of the sailor who was gazing across towards him.

The conviction then flashed upon his mind that this could be no other than

the lord chancellor who had so frightened him out of his wits before

pronouncing a decree in his favor about the "_bummery bond_." But hardly

believing his own senses, he entered the tap-room of the alehouse to

examine the countenance more deliberately. Upon his entrance, Jeffreys

must have recognized the "trimmer," for he coughed, turned to the wall,

and put the quart pot before his face. An immense multitude of persons

were in a few minutes collected round the door by the proclamation of the

scrivener that the pretended sailor was indeed the wicked Lord Chancellor

Jeffreys. He was now in the greatest jeopardy, for, unlike the usual

character of the English mob, who are by no means given to cruelty, the

persons here assembled were disposed at first to tear him limb from limb,

and he was only saved by the interposition of some of the more

considerate, who suggested that the proper course would be to take him

before the lord mayor.

The cry was raised, "To the lord mayor's!" but before he could be secured

in a carriage to be conveyed thither, they assaulted and pelted him, and

might have proceeded to greater extremities if a party of the train-bands

had not rescued him from their fury. They still pursued him all the way

with whips, and halters, and cries of "Vengeance! justice! justice!"

Although he lay back in the coach, he could still be discovered in his

blue jacket, and with his sailor's hat flapped down upon his face. The

lord mayor, Sir John Chapman, a nervous, timid man, who had stood in

tremendous awe of the lord chancellor, could not now see him, disguised as

a sailor, without trepidation; and instead of ordering him to stand at the

bar of his justice room, with much bowing and scraping, and many apologies

for the liberty he was using, requested that his lordship would do him the

honor to dine with him, as, it being now past twelve o'clock, he and the

lady mayoress were about to sit down to dinner. Jeffreys, though probably

with little appetite, was going to accept the invitation, when a gentleman

in the room exclaimed, "The lord chancellor is the lord mayor's prisoner,

not his guest, and now to harbor him is treason, for which any one,

however high, may have to answer with his own blood." The lord mayor

swooned away, and died (it is said of apoplexy) soon after.

The numbers and violence of the mob had greatly increased from the delay

in examining the culprit, and they loudly threatened to take the law into

their own hand. Some were for examining him before an alderman, and

leading him out by a back way for that purpose; but he himself showed most

prudence by advising that, without any previous examination, he should be

committed to the Tower for safe custody, and that two other regiments of

the train-bands should be ordered up to conduct him thither. In the

confusion, he offered to draw the warrant for his own commitment. This

course was followed, but was by no means free from danger, the mob defying

the matchlocks and pikes of the soldiers, and pressing round the coach in

which the noble prisoner was carried, still flourishing the whips and

halters, and expressing their determined resolution to execute summary

justice upon him for the many murders he had committed. Seeing the

imminent danger to which he was exposed, and possibly conscience struck

when he thought he was so near his end, he lost all sense of dignity and

all presence of mind. He held up his imploring hands, sometimes on one

side of the coach, and sometimes on the other, exclaiming, "For the Lord's

sake, keep them off! For the Lord's sake, keep them off!" Oldmixon, who

was an eye-witness of this procession, and makes loud professions of

compassion for malefactors, declares that he saw these agonizing alarms

without pity.

The difficulty was greatest in passing the open space on Tower Hill. But

at length the carriage passed the drawbridge, and the portcullis

descended. Within all was still. Jeffreys was courteously received by Lord

Lucas, recently appointed lieutenant, and in a gloomy apartment, which he

never more left, he reflected in solitude on the procession which had just

terminated, so different from those to which he had been accustomed for

some years on the first day of each returning term, when, attended by the

judges and all the grandees of the law, he had moved in state to

Westminster Hall, the envy and admiration of all beholders.

A regular warrant for his commitment was the same night made out by the

lords of the Council, and the next day a deputation from their body,

consisting of Lords North, Grey, Chandos and Ossulston, attended to

examine him at the Tower. Four questions were asked him. 1. "What he had

done with the great seal of England." He answered "that he had delivered

it to the king on the Saturday before at Mr. Cheffnel's, no person being

present, and that he had not seen it since." He was next asked, 2.

"Whether he had sealed all the writs for the Parliament, and what he had

done with them." "To the best of his remembrance," he said, "the writs

were all sealed and delivered to the king," (suppressing that he had seen

the king throw a great many of them in the fire.) 3. "Had he sealed the

several patents for the then ensuing year?" He declared "that he had

sealed several patents for the new sheriffs, but that he could not charge

his memory with the particulars." Lastly, he was asked "whether he had a

license to go out of the kingdom." And to this he replied, "that he had

several licenses to go beyond sea, which were all delivered to Sir John

Friend." He subscribed these answers with an affirmation that "they were

true upon his honor," and the lords withdrew.

But no sympathy did he meet with from any quarter, and he was now

reproachfully spoken of even by the king. The news of the outbreak against

him coming speedily to Feversham, the fugitive monarch, who then meditated

an attempt to remount his throne, thought that his chancellor might

possibly be accepted by the nation as a scape-goat, and laid upon him the

great errors of his reign. It happened, strangely enough, that the inn to

which James had been carried when captured off Sheerness, was kept by a

man on whom Jeffreys, for some supposed contempt of court, had imposed a

very heavy fine, which had not yet been levied. Complaining of this

arbitrary act to his royal guest,--who had admitted him to his presence,

and had asked him, in royal fashion, "his name, his age, and his

history,"--James desired him to draw a discharge as ample as he chose;

and, establishing a precedent, which has been often followed since, for

writing in a seemingly private and confidential document what is intended

afterwards to be communicated to the public, he subjoined to his signature

these remarkable words, which were immediately proclaimed in Feversham and

transmitted to London: "I am sensible that my lord chancellor hath been a

very ill man, and hath done very ill things."

Jeffreys was assailed by the press in a manner which showed how his

cruelties had brutalized the public mind. A poetical letter, addressed to

him, advising him to cut his own throat, thus concluded: "I am your

lordship's obedient servant in any thing of this nature. From the little

house over against Tyburn, where the people are almost dead with

expectation of you."

This was followed by "a letter from hell from Lord Ch----r Jeffreys to

L---- C---- B---- W----d." His "confession," hawked about the streets,

contained an exaggerated statement of all the bad measures of the latter

part of the preceding and of the present reign. Then came his "last will

and testament," commencing, "In the name of Ambition, the only god of our

setting and worshipping, together with Cruelty, Perjury, Pride, Insolence,

&c., I, George Jeffreys, being in sound and perfect memory, of high

commissions, _quo warrantos_, dispensations, pillorizations, floggations,

gibitations, barbarity, butchery, &c., do make my last will," &c. Here is

the concluding legacy: "Item, I order an ell and a half of fine cambric to

be cut into handkerchiefs for drying up all the wet eyes at my funeral;

together with half a pint of burnt claret for all the mourners in the

kingdom."

When he had been some weeks in confinement, he received a small barrel,

marked "Colchester oysters," of which, ever since his arrival in London

when a boy, he had been particularly fond. Seeing it, he exclaimed--"Well,

I have some friends left still;" but on opening it, the gift was--a

halter!

An actual serious petition was received by the lords of the council of

England from "the widows and fatherless children in the west," beginning,

"We, to the number of a thousand and more widows and fatherless children

of the counties of Dorset, Somerset, and Devon; our dear husbands and

tender fathers having been so tyrannously butchered and some transported;

our estates sold from us, and our inheritance cut off, by the severe and

brutish sentence of George Lord Jeffreys, now we understand in the Tower

of London, a prisoner," &c. After enumerating some of his atrocities, and

particularly dwelling upon his indecent speech (which I may not copy) to a

young lady who asked the life of her lover, convicted before him, the

petitioners thus concluded:--"These, with many hundred more tyrannical

acts, are ready to be made appear in the said counties by honest and

credible persons, and therefore your petitioners desire that the said

George Jeffreys, late lord chancellor, the vilest of men, may be brought

down to the counties aforesaid, where we the good women of the west shall

be glad to see him, and give him another manner of welcome than he had

there three years since."

Meanwhile, the great seal, the _clavis regni_, the emblem of sovereign

sway, which had been thrown into the Thames that it might never reach the

Prince of Orange, was found in the net of a fisherman near Lambeth, and

was delivered by him to the lords of the council, who were resolved to

place it in the hands of the founder of the new dynasty; and James, after

revisiting the capital and enjoying a fleeting moment of popularity, had

finally bid adieu to England, and was enjoying the munificent hospitality

of Louis at St. Germaine's.

The provisional government, in deference to the public voice, issued an

order for the more rigorous confinement of the ex-chancellor in the Tower,

and intimated a resolution that he should speedily be brought to trial

for his misdeeds; but, amidst the stirring events which rapidly followed,

he was allowed quietly to languish out the remainder of his miserable

existence. While the elections were proceeding for the Convention

Parliament--while the two houses were struggling respecting the

"abdication" or "desertion" of the throne--while men were occupied with

discussing the "declaration of rights"--while preparations were making for

the coronation of the new sovereigns--while curiosity was keenly alive in

watching their demeanor, and while alarms were spread by the adherence of

Ireland to the exiled king--the national indignation, which at first burst

forth so violently against the crimes of Jeffreys, almost entirely

subsided, and little desire was evinced to see him punished as he

deserved.

However, considerable sensation was excited by the news that he was no

more. He breathed his last in the Tower of London, on the 19th of April,

1689, at thirty-five minutes past four in the morning. Those who take a

vague impression of events, without attention to dates, may suppose, from

the crowded vicissitudes of his career, that he must have passed his grand

climacteric, but he was still only in the forty-first year of his age.

On the meeting of the Convention Parliament, attempts were made to attaint

the late Chancellor Jeffreys, to prevent his heirs from sitting in

Parliament, and to charge his estates with compensation to those whom he

had injured; but they all failed, and no mark of public censure was set

upon his memory beyond excepting him, with some other judges, from the act

of indemnity passed at the commencement of the new reign.

We have no very distinct account of him in domestic life. Having lost his

first wife, whom he had espoused so generously, within three months from

her death he again entered the married state. The object of his choice was

the widow of a Montgomeryshire gentleman, and daughter of Sir Thomas

Bludworth, who had been lord mayor of London, and for many years one of

the city representatives. I am sorry to say there was much scandal about

the second Lady Jeffreys, and she presented him prematurely with a

full-grown child. It is related that he was once disagreeably reminded of

this mistake: when cross-examining a flippant female, he said to her,

"Madam, you are very quick in your answers." "Quick as I am, Sir George,"

cried she, "I was not so quick as your lady." Even after the marriage she

is still said to have encouraged Sir John Trevor, M. R., and other lovers,

while her husband was indulging in his cups.

He had children by both his wives; but of these only one son grew up to

manhood, and survived him. This was John, the second Lord Jeffreys, who

has acquired celebrity only by having rivalled his father in the power of

drinking, and for having, when in a state of intoxication, interrupted the

funeral of Dryden, the poet. He was married, as we have seen, to the

daughter of the Earl of Pembroke, but dying in 1703, without male issue,

the title of Jeffreys happily became extinct. He soon dissipated large

estates, which his father, by such unjustifiable means, had acquired in

Shropshire, Buckinghamshire, and Leicestershire.

In his person Jeffreys was rather above the middle stature, his complexion

(before it was bloated by intemperance) inclining to fair, and he was of a

comely appearance. There was great animation in his eye, with a twinkle

which might breed a suspicion of insincerity and lurking malice. His brow

was commanding, and he managed it with wonderful effect, whether he

wished to terrify or to conciliate. There are many portraits of him, all,

from his marked features, bearing a great resemblance to each other, and,

it may be presumed, to the original.

"He had a set of banterers for the most part near him, as in old time

great men kept fools to make them merry. And these fellows, abusing one

another and their betters, were a regale to him." But there can be no

doubt that he circulated in good society. He was not only much at court,

but he exchanged visits with the nobility and persons of distinction in

different walks of life. In the social circle, being entirely free from

hypocrisy and affectation, from haughtiness and ill-nature, laughing at

principle, courting a reputation for profligacy, talking with the utmost

freedom of all parties and all men--he disarmed the censure of the world,

and, by the fascination of his manners, while he was present, he threw an

oblivion over his vices and his crimes.

On one occasion, dining in the city with Alderman Duncomb, the lord

treasurer and other great courtiers being of the party, they worked

themselves up to such a pitch of loyalty by bumpers to "confusion to the

Whigs," that they all stripped to their shirts, and were about to get upon

a signpost to drink the king's health, when they were accidentally

diverted from their purpose, and the lord chancellor escaped the fate

which befell Sir Charles Sedley, of being indicted for indecently exposing

his person in the public streets. But this frolic brought upon him a

violent fit of the stone, which nearly cost him his life.

As a civil judge he was by no means without high qualifications, and in

the absence of any motive to do wrong, he was willing to do right. He had

a very quick perception, a vigorous and logical understanding, and an

impressive eloquence.

When quite sober, he was particularly good as a Nisi Prius judge. His

summing up, in what is called "the Lady Ivy's case"--an ejectment between

her and the dean and chapter of St. Paul's to recover a large estate at

Shadwell--is most masterly. The evidence was exceedingly complicated, and

he gives a beautiful sketch of the whole, both documentary and parol; and,

without taking the case from the jury, he makes some admirable

observations on certain deeds produced by the Lady Ivy, which led to the

conclusion that they were forged, and to a verdict for the dean and

chapter.[150]

Considering the systematic form which equity jurisprudence had assumed

under his two immediate predecessors, Jeffreys must have been very poorly

furnished for presiding in chancery. He had practised little before these

judges, and none of their decisions were yet in print; so that if he had

been so inclined, he had not the opportunity to make himself familiar with

the established practice and doctrines of the court.

Although he must often have betrayed his ignorance, yet with his

characteristic boldness and energy he contrived to get through the

business without any signal disgrace, and among all the invectives,

satires, and lampoons by which his memory is blackened, I find little said

against his decrees. He did not promulgate any body of new orders

according to recent custom; but, while he held the great seal, he issued

separate orders from time to time, some of which were very useful. He

first put an end to a very oppressive practice, by which a plaintiff,

having filed a frivolous and vexatious bill, might dismiss it on paying

merely twenty shillings costs, and he directed that the defendant should

be allowed all the costs he had incurred, to be properly ascertained by an

officer of the court. He then checked the abuse of staying actions at law

for the examination of witnesses abroad, by requiring, before a commission

to examine them issued, an affidavit specifying the names of the

witnesses, and the facts they were expected to prove. By subsequent orders

which he framed, vexatious applications for re-hearings were guarded

against, and an attempt was made to get rid of what has ever been the

opprobrium of the court--controversies about settling the minutes of a

decree after it has been pronounced.

I have discovered one benevolent opinion of this cruel judge, and strange

to say, it is at variance with that of the humane magistrates who have

adorned Westminster Hall in the nineteenth century. "The prisoner's

convict bill" was condemned and opposed by almost all the judges in the

reign of William IV., yet even Jeffreys was struck with the injustice and

inequality of the law, which, allowing the accused to defend himself by

counsel "for a two-penny trespass," refuses that aid "where life, estate,

honor, and all are concerned," and lamented its existence, while he

declared himself bound to adhere to it.[151] The venerable sages who

apprehended such multiplied evils from altering the practice must have

been greatly relieved by finding that their objections have proved as

unfounded as those which were urged against the abolition of "_peine forte

et dure_;" and the alarming innovation, so long resisted, of allowing

witnesses for the prisoner to be examined under the sanction of an oath.

He has been so much abused, that I began my critical examination of his

history in the hope and belief that I should find that his misdeeds had

been exaggerated, and that I might be able to rescue his memory from some

portion of the obloquy under which it labors; but I am sorry to say, that

in my matured opinion, although he appears to have been a man of high

talents, of singularly agreeable manners, and entirely free from

hypocrisy, his cruelty and his political profligacy have not been

sufficiently exposed or reprobated; and that he was not redeemed from his

vices by one single solid virtue.