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

by Baron John Campbell Campbell

There were several appeals from decrees of the lord keeper speedily brought to a hearing. “Jeffreys affected to let fly at them, to have it thought that he was fitter to be chancellor.” He attended, neglecting all other business; and during the argument, and in giving his opinion, took every opportunity of disparaging the lord keeper’s law, preparatory to moving reversals. He was particularly outrageous in the case of Howard v. The Duke of Norfolk, being emboldened to talk confidently on matters with which he was not much acquainted, by having to rest on the reputation of Lord Nottingham. That great equity lawyer, contrary to the opinion of the two chief justices and the chief baron, whom he had called in to assist him, had held that an equitable estate tail might be created in a term of years; but his successor had reversed his decree, and the decree of reversal was now under appeal. “Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, by means of some encouragement he had met with, took upon him the part of slighting and insulting his lordship on all occasions that proffered. And here he had a rare opportunity; for, in his rude way of talking, and others of a party after him, he battered the poor decree; not without the most indecent affronts to his lordship that in such an assembly ever were heard.” The courtesy now prevailing between law lords of opposite political parties was not then known between colleagues sitting in the same cabinet; and the poor lord keeper was assailed by the coarsest vituperation, and the most cutting ridicule. The second Earl of Nottingham, son of the chancellor, “who hated him because he had endeavored to detract from his father’s memory,” likewise took this opportunity to attack him, and got together many instances of his ill administration of justice, and greatly exposed him. He was not roused into retaliation or resistance; and he contented himself with a dry legal argument. The decree was reversed; and when he announced that the contents had it, he must have felt as if he had been sounding his own death knell. The lay lords who voted could have known nothing of the merits of such a nice question; and must have been guided by favor or enmity to the lord keeper or the lord chief justice. What rendered the defeat and contemptuous usage the more galling was the presence of the king; for James, like his brother, attended in the House of Lords when any thing interesting was coming on; and walked about the house, or stood by the fire, or sat in his chair of state or on the woolsack, as suited his fancy.

“Having opened this scene,” says Roger, “we are not to expect other than opposition, contempt, and brutal usage, of that chief towards his lordship while he lived.”

There were few debates in the House of Lords during this short session; but, even in going through the common forms of the House, Jeffreys found opportunities publicly to testify his contempt for the lord keeper; and in the cabinet, in discussing the dispensation to be granted to Catholic officers to serve in the army, and other subjects, he constantly laid traps for him, with a view of either making him obnoxious to the king, or odious to the public—who considered him the author of every declaration or dispensation which passed the great seal.

Sunderland and other members of the cabinet openly joined in this persecution, and “he was little less than derided by them. Being soon to be laid aside, he was not relied upon in any thing, but was truly a seal-keeper rather than a minister of state, and kept on for despatch of the formularies, rather than for advice or trust.” Why did he not resign? It is difficult to understand the reasoning of his brother, who thus accounts for his continuing to bear such insults:—“His lordship was so ill used at court by the Earl of Sunderland, Jeffreys, and their sub-sycophants, that I am persuaded if he had had less pride of heart, he had been tempted to have delivered up the seal in full health. But he cared not to gratify, by that, such disingenuous enemies. He cared not to humor these barkers, or to quit his place before he might do it with safety to his dignity. He intended to stay till the king would bear him no longer, and then make it his majesty’s own act to remove him.”

He felt keenly a sense of the insignificance and disfavor into which he had fallen; and the anticipation of “the worse remaining behind,” when he was to be finally kicked out, preyed upon his spirits. No longer was he ear-wigged by the Lord Cravens, who worship a favorite; no more did the foreign ambassadors bow low when they thought that he observed them: his levee was now deserted; he seemed to himself to discover a sneer on every countenance at Whitehall; and he suspected that the bar, the officers of the court, and the bystanders in chancery, looked at him as if they were sure of his coming disgrace. To shade himself from observation, while he sat on the bench he held a large nosegay before his face.

Dreadfully dejected, he lost his appetite and his strength. He could not even get through the business of the court; and remanets multiplying upon him kept him awake at night, or haunted him in his sleep. He drooped so much, that for some time he seemed quite heart-broken. At last, he had an attack of fever, which confined him to his bed.

The coronation was approaching, and it was important that he should sit in the “Court of Claims.” Having recovered a little by the use of Jesuits’ bark, he presided there, though still extremely weak; and he walked at the coronation “as a ghost with the visage of death upon him, such a sunk and spiritless countenance he had.”

While he was in this wretched state, news arrived that the Duke of Monmouth had landed in the west of England and raised the standard of rebellion. The Parliament, having come to a number of loyal votes, having attainted the duke, and granted a supply, was adjourned, that the members might assist in preserving tranquillity in their several districts.

The lord keeper talked of resigning, and wrote a letter to the Earl of Rochester, to ask leave to go into the country for the recovery of his health, saying, “I have put myself into the hands of a doctor, who assures me of a speedy cure by entering into a course of physic.” Leave was given, and he proceeded to Wroxton, in Oxfordshire, the seat which belonged to him in right of his wife.

Here he languished while the battle of Sedgemoor was fought—Monmouth, after in vain trying to melt the heart of his obdurate uncle, was executed on Tower Hill under his parliamentary attainder, and the inhuman Jeffreys, armed with civil and military authority, set out on his celebrated “campaign.” Roger North would make us believe that the dying Guilford was horrified by the effusion of blood which was now incarnardining the western counties by command of the lord general chief justice, and that he actually interposed to stay it:—“Upon the news returned of his violent proceedings, his lordship saw the king would be a great sufferer thereby, and went directly to the king, and moved him to put a stop to the fury, which was in no respect for his service; but in many respects for the contrary. For though the executions were by law just, yet never were the deluded people all capitally punished; and it would be accounted a carnage and not law or justice; and thereupon orders went to mitigate the proceeding. I am sure of his lordship’s intercession to the king on this occasion, being told it at the very time by himself.” It is painful to doubt the supposed exertion of mercy and firmness by the lord keeper; but an attention to dates, of which this biographer is always so inconceivably negligent, shows the story to be impossible. Jeffreys did not open his campaign by the slaughter of the Lady Lisle, at Winchester, till the 27th of August, and he carried it on with increased cruelty till the very end of September. On the 5th of September died Lord Keeper Guilford, at Wroxton, after having been for some weeks in a state of such debility and exhaustion that, able only to attend to his spiritual concerns, he thought no more of domestic treason or foreign levy than if he had already slept in the grave. For a short time after his arrival there, he rallied, by the use of mineral waters, but he soon had a relapse, and he could with difficulty sign his will. He was peevish and fretful during his sickness, but calmly met his end. “He advised his friends not to mourn for him, yet commended an old maid-servant for her good will that said, ‘As long as there is life there is hope.’ At length, having strove a little to rise, he said, ‘It will not do;’ and then, with patience and resignation, lay down for good and all, and expired.”