Atrocious Judges : Lives of Judges Infamous as Tools of Tyrants and Instruments of Oppression

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 Bristol130 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.131

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.132

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.”133

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,134 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.135

The two were equally criminal,136 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,137 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.138

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.139

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.