ground that the sheriffs who returned the panel were not lawfully appointed, as soon as the challenge was read, he exclaimed, "Here's a tale of a tub indeed!" The counsel for the defendants insisted that the challenge was good in law, and at great length argued for its validity.

Jeffreys. "Robin Hood
Upon Greendale stood !"

Thompson Counsel for the Defendants. "If the challenge be not good, there must be a defect in it either in point of law, or in point of fact. I pray that the Crown may either demur or traverse."--Jeffreys. "This discourse is only for discourse sake. I pray the jury may be sworn."-Lord Chief Justice Saunders. “Ay, ay, swear the jury." The defendants were, of course, all found guilty, and as there were among them the most eminent of Jeffreys's old city friends, he exerted himself to the utmost not only in gaining a conviction, but in aggravating the sentence.*

But this was only a case of misdemeanour, in which he could ask for nothing beyond fine and imprisonment. He was soon to be engaged in prosecutions for high treason against the noblest of the land, in which his savage taste for blood might be gratified. The Ryehouse plot broke out, for which there was some foundation, and after the conviction of those who had planned it, Lord Russell was brought to trial at the Old Bailey, [JULY 13, 1683.] on the ground that he had consented to it. Jeffreys, in the late state trials, had gradually been encroaching on the Attorney and Solicitor General, Sir Robert Sawyer and Sir Heneage Finch, and in Lord Russell's case, to which the government attached such infinite importance, he almost entirely superseded them. To account for his unexampled zeal, we must remember that the office of Chief Justice of the King's Bench was still vacant, Saunders having died a few months before, and Lord Keeper North having strongly opposed the appointment of Jeffreys

as his successor.

Lord Russell had certainly been present at a meeting of the conspirators, when there was a consultation about seizing the King's guards; but he insisted that he came in accidentally, that he had taken no part in the conversation, and that he was not acquainted with their plans. The aspirant Chief Justice saw clearly where was the pinch of the case, and the Attorney General, who was examining Colonel Rumsey, being contented with asking— "Was the prisoner at the debate?" and receiving the answer Yes," Jeffreys started up, took the witness into his own hands, —and calling upon him to draw the inference which was for the jury,-pinned the basket by this leading and highly irregular question,-" Did you find him averse to it or agreeing to it?" Having got the echoing answer which he suggested,-"agreeing to it," he looked round with exultation, and said,-"If my Lord Russell now pleases to ask any questions, he may!"

* 9 St Tr. 187.

He addressed the jury in reply after the Solicitor General had finished, and much outdid him in pressing the case against the pri soner, while he disclaimed with horror the endeavour to take away the life of the innocent.* He thus concluded:-" You have a Prince, and a merciful one too. Consider the life of your Prince, the life of his posterity, the consequences that would have attended if this villany had taken effect. What would have become of your lives and religion? What would have become of that religion we have been so fond of preserving? Gentlemen, I must put these things home upon your consciences. I know you will remember the horrid murder of the most pious Prince, the Martyr, King Charles I. Let not the greatness of any man corrupt you, but discharge your consciences both to God and the King, and to your posterity."+

Jeffreys had all the glory of the verdict of Guilty, and as the Lord Chief Justice Pemberton had rather flinched during this trial, and the Attorney and Solicitor General were thought men who would cry CRAVEN, and as the next case was not less important and still more ticklish, all objections to the proposed elevation of the favourite vanished, and he became Chief Justice of England, as the only man fit to condemn Algernon Sydney.‡

CHAPTER C.

CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS TILL HE RECEIVED THE GREAT SEAL.

THE new Chief Justice was sworn in on the 29th of September, 1683, and took his seat in the Court of King's Bench on the first day of the following Michael

mas term.§

[Nov. 7. 1683.]

Sydney's case was immediately brought on before him in this

*"Jefferies would show his zeal and speak after him, but it was only an insolent declamation, such as all his were, full of fury and indecent invectives.". ·Burnet, ii.

216.

† 9 St, Tr. 654.

Evelyn, Oct. 4, 1683. Sir Geo. Jefferies was advanced, reputed to be most ignorant, but most daring. This is the very day on which the diarist saw the Duchess of Portsmouth in her dressing-room within her bed-chamber in her morning loose garment, her maids combing her, newly out of bed, his Majesty and the gallants standing about her.”

We learn from Burnet the impression made by this appointment on the public mind. "All people were apprehensive of very black designs, when they saw Jefferies made Lord Chief Justice, who was scandalously vicious and was drunk every day; besides a drunkenness of fury in his temper that looked like enthusiasm. He did not consider the decencies of his post; nor did he so much as affect to seem impartial as became a Judge ; but ran out upon all occasions into declamations that did not become the bar, much less the bench."-Own Times, ii, 231,

Court, the indictment being removed by certiorari from the Old Bailey, that it might be under his peculiar care. The prisoner wishing to plead some collateral matter, was told by the Chief Justice, that, if overruled, sentence of death would immediately be passed upon him. Though there can be no doubt of the illegality of the conviction, the charge against Jeffreys is unfounded, that he admitted the MS. treatise on government to be read without any evidence of its having been written by the prisoner, beyond" similitude of hands." Two witnesses, who were acquainted with his handwriting from having seen him indorse bills of exchange, swore that they believed it to be his handwriting, and they were corroborated by a third, who, with his privity, had paid notes purporting to be indorsed by him without any complaint ever being made. But the undeniable and ineffaccable atrocity of the case was the Lord Chief Justice's doctrine, that "scribere est agere," and that therefore this MS. containing some abstract speculations on different forms of government written many years before, never shown to any human being, and containing nothing beyond the constitutional principles of Locke and Paley, was tantamount to the evidence of a witness to prove an overt act of high treason. "If you believe that this was Colonel Sydney's book, writ by him, no man can doubt that it is a sufficient evidence that he is guilty of compassing and imagining the death of the King. It fixes the whole. power in the parliament and the people. The King, it says, is responsible to them; the King is but their trustee. Gentlemen, I must tell you I think I ought more than ordinarily to press this upon you, because I know the misfortune of the late unhappy rebellion, and the bringing of the late blessed King to the scaffold, was first begun with such kind of principles. They cried he had betrayed the trust that was delegated to him by the people, so that the case rests not upon two but upon greater evidence than twenty-two witnesses, if you believe this book was writ by him."

The Chief Justice having had the satisfaction of pronouncing with his own lips the sentence upon Sydney, of death and mutilation, instead of leaving the task as usual to the senior puisne Judge,―a scene followed which is familiar to every one.- -Sydney. "Then, O God! O God! I beseech thee to sanctify these sufferings unto me, and impute not my blood to the country; let no inquisition be made for it, but if any,--and the shedding of blood that is innocent must be revenged, let the weight of it fall only upon those that maliciously persecute me for righteousness sake.' -Lord C. J. Jeffreys. "I pray God work in you a temper fit to go unto the other world, for I see you are not fit for this."-Sydney. My Lord, feel my pulse [holding out his hand], and see if I am disordered. I bless God I never was in better temper than I now am.”—By order of the Chief Justice, the lieutenant of the Tower immediately removed the prisoner.

A very few days after, and while this illustrious patriot was still

lying under sentence of death*, the Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys and Mr. Justice Withins, who sat as his brother Judge on the trial, went to a gay city wedding, where the Lord Mayor and other grandees were present. Evelyn, who was of the party, tells us that the Chief and the puisne both "danced with the bride and were exceeding merry." He adds, “These great men spent the rest of the afternoon until eleven at night in drinking healths, taking tobacco, and talking much beneath the gravity of Judges, who had but a day or two before condemned Mr. Algernon Sydney."+

The next exhibition in the Court of King's Bench which particularly pleased Jeffreys and horrified the

public, was the condemnation of Sir Thomas [JUNE 14, 1684.] Armstrong. It will be recollected that this gentleman was outlawed while beyond the seas, and being sent from Holland within the year, sought, according to his clear right in law, to reverse the outlawry. I have had occasion to reprobate the conduct of Lord Keeper North in refusing him his writ of error, and suffering his execution; but Jeffreys may be considered the executioner. When brought up to the King's Bench bar, Armstrong was attended by his daughter, a most beautiful and interesting young woman, who, when the Chief Justice had illegally overruled the plea, and pronounced judgment of death under the outlawry, exclaimed," My Lord, I hope you will not murder my father.". Chief Justice Jeffreys. "Who is this woman? Marshal, take her into custody. Why, how now? Because your relative is attainted for high treason, must you take upon you to tax the courts of justice for murder when we grant execution according to law? Take her away."-Daughter. "God Almighty's judgments light upon you."-Chief Justice Jeffreys. "God Almighty's judgments will light upon those that are guilty of high treason."-Daughter. "Amen. I pray God."-Chief Justice Jeffreys. "So say I. thank God I am clamour proof." [The daughter is committed to prison, and carried off in custody.]-Sir Thomas Armstrong. ought to have the benefit of the law, and I demand no more." Chief Justice Jeffreys. "That you shall have, by the grace of God. See that execution be done on Friday next, according to law. You shall have the full benefit of the law!!!" Armstrong was hanged, embowelled, beheaded, and quartered accordingly.

I

'I

When Jeffreys came to the King at Windsor soon after this trial, "the King took a ring of good value from his finger and gave it to him for these services. The ring upon that was called his blood stone."§-In the reign of William and Mary, Armstrong's at

* 5th Dec.

† Men. 530.

Stat 6 Ed. 6. enacted that if any outlaw yielded himself to the Chief Justice, &c. within a year, he should be discharged of the outlawry, and entitled to a jury. § Burn. Own Times, i. 580. "The King accompanied the gift with a piece of advice somewhat extraordinary from a King to a Judge: My Lord, as it is a hot summer, and you are going the circuit, I desire you will not drink too much."

tainder was reversed. Jeffreys was then out of reach of process, but for the share which Sir Robert Sawyer had in it as Attorney General, he was expelled the House of Commons.*

Jeffreys had now the satisfaction of causing an information to be filed against Sir William Williams for having as Speaker of the House of Commons, under the orders of the House, directed the printing of "Dangerfield's Narrative," the vengeful tyrant thus dealing a blow at once to an old enemy who had reprimanded him on his knees, and to the privileges of the House, equally the object of his detestation. He was in hopes of deciding the case himself, but he left it as a legacy to his successor, Chief Justice Herbert, who, under his auspices, at once overruled the plea, and fined the defendant 10,000%.†

Not only was Jeffreys a Privy Councillor, but he had become a member of the Cabinet, where, from his superior boldness and energy, as well as his more agreeable manners, he had gained a complete victory over Lord Keeper North, whom he denounced as a "Trimmer,”—and the Great Seal seemed almost within his grasp. To secure it, he still strove to do every thing he could devise to please the Court, as if hitherto nothing base had been done by him. When, to his great joy, final judgment was entered up against the City of London on the quo warranto, he undertook to get all the considerable towns in England to surrender their charters on the threat of similar proceedings; and with this view, in the autumn of 1684, he made "a campaign in the North," which was almost as fatal to corporations as that "in the West," the following year, proved to the lives of men. To show to the public the special credit he enjoyed at Court, the London Gazette, just before he set out, in reference to the gift bestowed upon him for the judgment against Sir Thomas Armstrong, announced "that his Majesty, as a mark of his royal favour, had taken a ring from his own finger and placed it on that of Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys." In consequence, although when on the circuit he forgot the caution against hard drinking, with which the gift had been accompanied, he carried every thing before him, "charters fell like the walls of Jericho," and he returned laden with his hyperborean spoils.

I have already related the clutch at the Great Seal which he then made, and his temporary disappointment. He was contented to "bide his time." There were only two other occasions when he had it in his power to pervert the law, for the purpose of

* 10 St. Tr. 105. See a beautiful reference to this case by Loid Erskine, in defending Hardy.-24 St. Tr 944.

† 13 St. Tr. 1436. 2 Shower, 471. Lord Campbell's Speeches, 284. For the disputes between them, see ante, p. 381.

"In omnia præceps,

Nil actum credens, dum quid superesset agendum,
Instat atrox.”

Wool. 103, 104.

¶ Ante, p. 382.