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 Armstrong. 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.[121] 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. I thank God I am clamor proof.” [The daughter is committed to prison, and carried off in custody.] Sir Thomas Armstrong.—“I 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.
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.”[122] In the reign of William and Mary, Armstrong’s attainder 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,”[123] 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 ten thousand pounds.
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.[124] 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 favor, 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.[125] 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 pleasing the court, during the present reign. The first was on the trial of Hampden, the grandson of the great Hampden, for a trifling misdemeanor. Although this young gentleman was only heir apparent to a moderate estate, and not in possession of any property, he was sentenced to pay a fine of forty thousand pounds—Jeffreys saying that the clause in Magna Charta, “Liber homo non amercietur pro magno delicto nisi salvo contenemento suo,” does not apply to fines imposed by the king’s judges. The other was the inquisition in the action of scan. mag. brought by the Duke of York against Titus Oates, in which the jury, under his direction, awarded one hundred thousand pounds damages.
Ever since the disfranchisement of the city of London, the ex-recorder had ruled it with a rod of iron. He set up a nominal lord mayor and nominal aldermen; but, as they were entirely dependent upon him, he treated them with continual insolence.
On the sudden death of Charles II., Jeffreys no doubt thought the period was arrived when he must be rewarded for the peculiar zeal with which he had abandoned himself to the service of the successor; but he was at first disappointed, and he had still to “wade through slaughter” to the seat he so much coveted.
Not dismayed, he resolved to act on two principles: 1st, If possible, to outdo himself in pleasing his master, whose arbitrary and cruel disposition became more apparent from the hour that he mounted the throne. 2dly, To leave no effort untried to discredit, disgrace, disgust, and break the heart of the man who stood between him and his object.
Being confirmed in the office of chief justice of the King’s Bench, he began with the trial for perjury of Titus Oates, whose veracity he had often maintained, but with whom he had a personal quarrel, and whom he now held up to reprobation—depriving him of all chance of acquittal. The defendant was found guilty on two indictments, and the verdict on both was probably correct; but what is to be said for the sentence—“To pay on each indictment a fine of one thousand marks; to be stript of all his canonical habits; to be imprisoned for life; to stand in the pillory on the following Monday, with a paper over his head, declaring his crime; next day to stand in the pillory at the Royal Exchange, with the same inscription; on the Wednesday to be whipped from Aldgate to Newgate; on the Friday to be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn; upon the 25th of April in every year, during life, to stand in the pillory at Tyburn, opposite the gallows; on the 9th of August in every year to stand in the pillory opposite Westminster Hall gate; on the 10th of August in every year to stand in the pillory at Charing Cross; and the like on the following day at Temple Bar; and the like on the 2d of September, every year, at the Royal Exchange;”—the court expressing deep regret that they could not do more, as they would “not have been unwilling to have given judgment of death upon him.”[126]