(Vol. vi., pp. 149. 432. 542.)
This extraordinary and inhuman man was the sixth son of John Jeffreys,
Esq., of Acton, near Wrexham, co. Denbigh, by Margaret, daughter of Sir
Thomas Ireland, Knight, of Bewsey, and was born _at his father's house_
about the year 1648. {46} He died on the 19th of April, 1689, at
thirty-five minutes past four in the morning. The tradition that his
remains were deposited at Enfield is incorrect. He was first interred in
the Tower privately, and after three years, when the day of persecution was
past, his friends petitioned that they might be allowed to remove the
coffin. This was granted, and by a warrant dated the 30th of September,
1692, signed by the queen and directed to the governor of the Tower, the
body of Lord Jeffreys was removed, and buried a second time in a vault
under the communion-table of St. Mary, Aldermanbury. As regards the number
of places pointed out as the residence of Judge Jeffreys, the following are
mentioned in the bill that was brought in for the forfeiture of his honour
and estate.
In Salop he had the manors of Wem and Loppington, with many other lands and
tenements; in Leicestershire the manors of Dalby and Broughton; he bought
Dalby of the Duke of Buckingham, and after his death it passed to Sir
Charles Duncombe, and descended to Anthony Duncombe, afterwards Lord
Feversham. In Bucks he had the manor of Bulstrode, which he had purchased
of Sir Roger Hill in 1686, and the manor of Fulmer, with other tenements.
He built a mansion at Bulstrode, which came afterwards to his son-in-law,
Charles Dive, who sold it in the reign of Queen Anne, to William, Earl of
Portland, in whose family, now aggrandised by a dukedom, it still
continues. And he had an inclination at one time to have become the
purchaser of another estate (Gunedon Park), but was outwitted by one of his
legal brethren. Judge Jeffreys held his court in Duke Street, Westminster,
and made the adjoining houses towards the park his residence. These houses
were the property of Moses Pitt the bookseller (brother of the Western
Martyrologist), who, in his _Cry of the Oppressed_, complains very strongly
against his tenant, the chancellor. Jeffreys's "large house," according to
an advertisement in the _London Gazette_, was let to the three Dutch
ambassadors who came from Holland to congratulate King William upon his
accession in 1689. It was afterwards used for the Admiralty Office, until
the middle of King William's reign.
"The house is easily known," says Pennant, "by a large flight of stone
steps, which his royal master permitted to be made into the park
adjacent, for the accommodation of his lordship. These steps terminate
above in a small court, on three sides of which stands the house."