JUDGE JEFFREYS.
(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.
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."
Edward F. Rimbault.
The birthplace of Judge Jeffreys should not be a matter of doubt. The old house at Acton in which his father lived, was in the parish of Wrexham, and close to the confines of that parish and Gresford. It was pulled down about seventy years ago, about the time when the present mansion bearing that same name was built. Twenty years ago there were several persons living in the neighbourhood who remembered that it stood in the parish of Wrexham.
Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Lord Chancellors of England, vol. iii. p. 496., writes,—
"He (Judge Jeffreys) of whom such tales were to be told, was born in his father's lowly dwelling at Acton in the year 1648."
And he subjoins the following note:
"This is generally given as the year of his birth, but I have tried in vain to have it authenticated. There is no entry of his baptism, nor of the baptism of his brothers, in the register of Wrexham, the parish in which he was born, nor in the adjoining parish of Gresford, in which part of the family property lies. I have had accurate researches made in these registers by the kindness of my learned friend Serjeant Atcherley, who has estates in the neighbourhood. It is not improbable that, in spite of the Chancellor's great horror of dissenters, he may have been baptized by 'a dissenting teacher.'"
The fact is, however, and it is a fact known certainly twenty years ago to several of the inhabitants of Gresford and Wrexham, that no register has been preserved in the parish of Wrexham for a period extending from 1644 to 1662; and none in the parish of Gresford from 1630 to 1660. I may add that no such registers have been discovered up to this time.
Taffy.
When the family of Jeffreys became possessed of Acton is uncertain, probably at a very early period, being descended from Cynric ap Rhiwallon, great-grandson of Tudor Trevor.
George Jeffreys, afterwards Chancellor, was born at Acton, and was sixth son of John Jeffreys and Mary, daughter of Sir Thomas Ireland of Bewsey, near Warrington, in Lancashire. In 1708 the estate passed into the family of the Robinsons of Gwersyllt by the marriage of the eldest daughter and heiress of Sir Griffith Jeffreys. Ellis Yonge, Esq., of Bryny Orchyn (in the immediate neighbourhood), purchased the estate of Acton from the trustees of the said Robinson. The Yonges were in no way related to the Jeffreys, although bearing the same arms, as being also descended from the same tribe.
Gresford.