[42] Sir Edward Nevill was called in 1658. He was knighted in 1681, on presenting an address to Charles II. as Recorder of Bath. He became Serjeant in 1684, and a Baron of the Exchequer in 1685. He was dismissed six months afterwards for refusing to support the royal assumption of the dispensing power. Fosse gives a striking extract from his evidence before Parliament in 1689, to show how the power of the Executive was actually brought to bear on the Stewart judges. He was restored to his office after the Revolution, removed to the Common Pleas in 1691, and died in 1705.
SPENCER COWPER AND OTHERS
Spencer Cowper,[43] a barrister; Ellis Stephens and William Rogers, attorneys; and John Marston, a scrivener, were indicted at the Hertford Summer Assizes in 1699 for the murder of Sarah Stout, on the 13th of the previous March. They were tried at the same Assizes, before Baron Hatsell,[44] on the 16th of July.
The indictment alleged that they had murdered Sarah Stout by strangling her, and had then thrown her body into the Priory River to conceal the body. To this, all the prisoners pleaded Not Guilty.
Jones appeared for the prosecution; Cowper defended himself, and practically the other prisoners as well.