CHAPTER XV

.

GEORGE JEFFREYS.

His parentage, 267. School days, 267. Scheme of becoming a great lawyer, 268. A student at the Inner Temple, 268. Associates with the popular leaders, 272. Extravagance and poverty, 272. Precocity, 272. Admitted to the bar, 273. Difficulties and energy, 273. Marriage, 274. Practises at the Old Bailey and London sessions, 275. His forensic abilities, 275. Common serjeant of the city of London, 276. His contrivances to get on, 277. Opens a communication with the court, 278. Recorder of London, 279. Repudiates the liberals, 280. His policy as to the Popish Plot, 282. His sentences of death, 282. Conduct in a libel case, 283. Made chief justice of Chester, 284. His overbearing insolence, 285. Visits his father, 287. Proceedings against him in Parliament, 287. Resigns his recordership, 288. Complimented by the king, 289. Chairman of the Middlesex sessions, 289. Counsel for the crown against Fitzharris, Plunkett, and College, 290. Takes part in other Court prosecutions, 292. Rye house trials, 294. Appointed chief justice, 298. Trial of Algernon Sidney, 298. Case of Sir Thomas Armstrong, 300. Of Sir William Williams, 301. Charters fall like Jericho, 302. Other trials before him, 303. Rules London with a rod of iron, 303. Reappointed chief justice by James II., 304. Trial of Titus Oates for perjury, 304. Baxter's trial, 305. Jeffreys raised to the peerage, 308. He rivals North, 310. His bloody assize, 310. Lady Lisle's trial, 311. Other incidents of the bloody assize, 314. Proceedings at Bristol, 319. In Somersetshire, 322. Prideaux's case, 323. An apologist for Jeffreys, 323. Tutchin's case, _note_, 323. James or Jeffreys? 324. Made lord chancellor, 326. Hangs an alderman, 328. Meeting of Parliament, 329. Scheme of dispensing with the test act, 330. Opinions of the judges in favor of the dispensing power, 332. Embassy to the pope, 333. Court of High Commission revived, 333. Its proceedings, 334. Lord Delamere's trial, 334. Proceedings against the Fellows of Magdalen College, 337. Prosecution of the seven bishops, 338. Rivals of Jeffreys, 341. Birth of the Pretender, 342. William of Orange lands in England, 343. James attempts reconciliation, 344. Advance of William, 345. James flies, 347. Terror of Jeffreys, 348. Search for him, 349. His arrest, 351. Committed to the Tower, 353. James seeks to make him a scapegoat, 355. Assailed by the press, 356. Presented with a halter, 356. Petition against him, 357. His death, 358. Domestic life, 359. His descendants, 359. Person and manners, 359. Merits as a civil judge, 360. Chancery reforms, 361. His opinion in favor of allowing counsel to prisoners, 362. His infamy deserved, 363.

##