“Thus did he keep the king a prisoner, to bring him before that Mock Court of Injustice; and was so highly trusted by all those miscreants who thirsted for the king’s blood, that the bloody warrant was directed to him to see execution done. Nay, gentlemen, he was on the scaffold, and had the axe in his hand.” Hacker.—“My lords, to save your lordships trouble, I confess that I was upon the guard, and had a warrant to keep the king for his execution.” (The original warrant being shown to him, he admitted it.) Kelynge.—“After you had that warrant brought to you, did you, by virtue of it, direct another warrant for the execution of the king, and take his sacred majesty’s person from the custody of Colonel Tomlinson?” Hacker.—“No, sir.” Kelynge.—“We shall prove it.”
Colonel Tomlinson was then examined, and detailed the circumstances of the execution, showing that Colonel Hacker had conducted the king to the scaffold under the original warrant—what had been taken for a fresh warrant being a letter written by him to Cromwell, then engaged in prayer for the king’s deliverance with General Fairfax.
Kelynge.—“We have other witnesses, but the prisoner hath confessed enough. We have proved that he had the king in custody, and that at the time of the execution he was there to manage it. What do you say for yourself?” Hacker.—“Truly, my lord, I have no more to say for myself but that I was a soldier and under command. In obedience to those set over me I did act. My desire hath ever been for the welfare of my country.” L. C. Baron.—“This is all you have to say for yourself?” Hacker.—“Yes, my lord.” L. C. Baron.—“Then, Colonel Hacker, for that which you say for yourself that you did it by command, you must understand that no power on earth could authorize such a thing. Either he is guilty of compassing the death of the king, or no man can be said to be guilty.”
Of course he was convicted and executed.
Serjeant Kelynge was soon after promoted to be a king’s serjeant; and in that capacity took a prominent part in the trial of Sir Henry Vane, who, not being concerned in the late king’s death, was tried for what he had subsequently done in obedience to the Parliament, then possessed of the supreme power of the state. To the plea that his acts could not be said to be against the peace of Charles II., who was then in exile, Kelynge admitted that if another sovereign, although a usurper, had mounted the throne, the defence would have been sufficient; but urged that the throne must always be full, and that Charles II., in legal contemplation, occupied it while de facto he was wandering in foreign lands, and ambassadors from all the states of Europe were accredited to Oliver, the Lord Protector.
Kelynge having suggested this reasoning, which was adopted by the court, and on which Vane was executed as a traitor, he was, on the next vacancy, made a puisne judge of the King’s Bench.
While Kelynge was a puisne judge, he made up, by loyal zeal and subserviency, for his want of learning and sound sense; but, from a knowledge of his incompetency, there was a great reluctance to promote him on the death of Lord Chief Justice Hyde. Sir Matthew Hale was pointed out as the fittest person to be placed at the head of the common law; but Lord Clarendon had not the liberality to raise to the highest dignity one who had sworn allegiance to the Protector, and there being no better man whom he could select, who was free from the suspicion of republican taint, he fixed upon the “violent Cavalier.”
Luckily there were no speeches at his installation. On account of the dreadful plague which was then depopulating London, the courts were adjourned to Oxford. “There Kelynge, puisne judge, was made chief justice, and being sworn at the chancellor’s lodging, came up privily and took his place in the logic school, where the Court of King’s Bench sat. The business was only motions—to prevent any concourse of people. In London died the week before, 7165 of the plague, besides Papists and Quakers.”
The new chief justice even exceeded public expectation by the violent, fantastical, and ludicrous manner in which he comported himself. His vicious and foolish propensities broke out without any restraint, and, at a time when there was little disposition to question any who were clothed with authority, he drew down upon himself the contempt of the public and the censure of Parliament.
He was unspeakably proud of the collar which he wore as chief justice, this alone distinguishing him externally from the puisnies, a class on whom he now looked down very haughtily. In his own report of the resolutions of the judges prior to the trial of Lord Morley for murder, before the House of Lords, he considers the following as most important,—