Sir George Jeffreys

“ The person selected was Sir George Jeffreys, Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench. The depravity of this man has passed into a proverb. Both the great English parties have attacked his memory with emulous violence: for the Whigs considered him as their most barbarous enemy; and the Tories found it convenient to throw on him the blame of all the crimes which had sullied their triumph. A diligent and candid enquiry will show that some frightful stories which have been told concerning him are false or exaggerated. ”

“ JEFFREYS, GEORGE (1678–1755) , versifier, was son of Christopher Jeffreys [see under Jeffreys, George, d. 1685] of Little Weldon, Northamptonshire. His mother Anna seems to have been sister of James Brydges, lord Chandos, whose son was first duke of Chandos. Jeffreys was born in 1678 (probably at Weldon, but there are no baptism entries in its registers from 1677 to 1684) , and sent, as his father had been, to Westminster School, where he was under Busby. On 12 Nov. 1694 he was entered as pensioner at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was admitted a scholar on 23 April 1697. ”

“ It may surprise some readers of this book to learn that George Jeffreys, the odious judge of the Bloody Circuit, was a successful gallant. Tall, well-shaped, and endowed by nature with a pleasant countenance and agreeable features, Jeffreys was one of the most fascinating men of his time. A wit and a bon-vivant, he could hit the humor of the roystering cavaliers who surrounded the 'merry monarch;' a man of gallantry and polite accomplishments, he was acceptable to women of society. ”

“ JEFFREYS, GEORGE, first Baron Jeffreys of Wem (1648–1689) , judge, born in 1648 at Acton, near Wrexham, Denbighshire, was sixth son of John Jeffreys, by his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Ireland, knt., of Beausay, near Warrington, Lancashire. The family name has been spelled in eight different ways; in the patent of his peerage it appears as ‘Jeffreys,’ a form of spelling which he always used afterwards.
His father lived to a great age. Pennant saw his portrait at Acton House, taken in 1690, in the eighty-second year of his age (Pennant, Tours in Wales, i. 385) . ”

“ In all probability the great majority of those condemned were in fact concerned in the rising, but the trials were in many cases a mockery of the administration of justice. Numbers were cajoled into pleading guilty; the case for the prisoners seldom obtained a hearing. The merciless severity of the chief justice did not however exceed the wishes of James II.; for on his return to London Jeffreys received from the king the great seal with the title of lord chancellor. ”

“ Jeffreys now commenced practice in Westminster Hall, and, seeing little prospect of further advancement from the popular party, to which he had hitherto belonged, began to cultivate fashionable society. With the aid of Chiffinch, page of the backstairs, Jeffreys obtained an introduction to the court, and in September 1677 was appointed solicitor-general to the Duke of York, receiving the honour of knighthood on the 14th of the same month. In January 1678 he was called to the bench of the Inner Temple, and on 22 Oct. was elected recorder of the city in the place of Sir William Dolben [q. v.] ”

“ In May 1685 Jeffreys presided at the trial of Titus Oates, when he took the opportunity of paying off an old grudge against the prisoner by concurring in passing a barbarous and excessive sentence upon him (State Trials, x. 1079–1330) .
Jeffreys was created Baron Jeffreys of Wem in the county of Salop on 15 May 1685, and on the 19th took his seat in the House of Lords (Journals of the House of Lords, xiv. 73) . As no chief justice had ever been made a lord of parliament since the judicial system had been remodelled in the thirteenth century, this was an exceptional mark of royal approbation. ”

“ In August 1685 Jeffreys opened at Winchester the commission known in history as the “bloody assizes,” his conduct of which has branded his name with indelible infamy. The number of persons sentenced to death at these assizes for complicity in the duke of Monmouth’s insurrection is uncertain. The official return of those actually executed was 320; many hundreds more were transported and sold into slavery in the West Indies. ”

“ In mere private matters he was thought an able and upright judge wherever he sat.” His keen sense of humour, allied with a spirit of inveterate mockery and an exuberant command of pungent eloquence, led him to rail and storm at prisoners and witnesses in grossly unseemly fashion. But in this he did not greatly surpass most of his contemporaries on the judicial bench, and it was a failing from which even the dignified and virtuous Hale was not altogether exempt. The intemperance of Jeffreys which shocked North, certainly did not exceed that of Saunders ”

“ In June 1684 Jeffreys condemned Sir Thomas Armstrong, who had been brought to the bar of the king's bench upon an outlawry for high treason, and refused his claim to a trial, to which he was entitled by statute. Upon the prisoner exclaiming, ‘I ought to have the benefit of the law, and I demand no more,’ Jeffreys brutally replied, ‘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’ (State Trials, x. 114) . ”

“ On his advice the king determined to bring the seven bishops before the king's bench, and on 8 June 1688 they were examined before the council, and committed to the Tower. Two days afterwards Jeffreys was present at the birth of the Prince of Wales. Becoming alarmed at the popular feeling in favour of the bishops, Jeffreys charged Clarendon with friendly messages to them, and threw on others the blame of the prosecution (Clarendon Correspondence, ii. 177, 179) . ”

“ More than eight hundred rebels were bestowed upon persons who enjoyed favour at court to be sold into slavery, and many others were whipped and imprisoned. Jeffreys himself appears to have amassed a considerable sum of money during ‘the bloody assizes,’ chiefly by means of extortion from the unfortunate rebels or their friends. On his return from Bristol Jeffreys stopped at Windsor, where James, ‘taking into his royal consideration the many eminent and faithful services’ which the chief justice had rendered the crown, promoted him to the post of lord chancellor on 28 Sept. ”

“ Jeffreys took a prominent part in the trials of the persons charged with complicity in the plot, both as counsel in the king's bench and as recorder at the Old Bailey. He incited Lord-chief-justice Scroggs in his vindictive proceedings, and, while passing sentence after conviction, took every opportunity of insulting the prisoners and of scoffing at the faith which they professed. ”

“ Lord Macaulay, History of England (1848; and many subsequent editions) . Most of these works, and especially those by Macaulay and Campbell, are uncritical in their hostility to Jeffreys, and are based for the most part on untrustworthy authorities. The best modern work on the subject, though unduly favourable to Jeffreys, is H. B. Irving’s Life of Judge Jeffreys (1898) , the appendix to which contains a full bibliography. ”

“ The king having fled, Jeffreys disguised himself as a common sailor, and hid himself on board a vessel moored off Wapping, whence he hoped to escape beyond the sea. The next morning (12 Dec.) , however, he rashly went ashore, and while drinking at the Red Cow in Anchor and Hope Alley, near King Edward's Stairs, was recognised by a scrivener, who had been concerned in a chancery suit about a bottomry bond, and had good reason to remember the ex-lord chancellor (North, Life of Lord Guilford, pp. 220–1) . ”

“ That you shall soon know to your cost,” said Jeffreys, with a horrible oath. “George Jeffreys has a peculiar way of making himself known, my mistress. Now deliver up these two arch rebels—the canting, whining priest, and the traitor Nelthorpe, into our hands, and mayhap I’ll not press my further acquaintance upon your ladyship, except to taste the quality of your wine, for I’ll warrant you, my men, (turning to his followers) these old cellars are not dry.”
“I know no such persons as those you seek,” replied the Lady Alice, firmly ”

“ He was a handsome, witty and attractive boon-companion, and in the taverns of the city he made friends among attorneys with practice in the criminal courts. Thus assisted he rose so rapidly in his profession that within three years of his call to the bar in 1668, he was elected common serjeant of the city of London. ”

“ Simon Yorke, who also possesses a small oval in black and white, drawn by Allen for the engraving which appears in Yorke's ‘Royal Tribes of Wales.’ Another portrait by Kneller, belonging to Lord Tankerville, is at Chillingham Castle, Northumberland. It was painted for James II, and at the time of the revolution was hanging in the court of king's bench. A third portrait which was removed from the Guildhall upon Jeffreys's disgrace cannot now be traced. Possibly it may be the portrait which is now in the National Portrait Gallery, as Jeffreys is there portrayed as recorder. Mr. ”

“ The fatigues and troubles of the day operated like a feather-bed for the worn-out and dispirited outcast, and he slept soundly, dreaming of Forrester, and the bookshop, and the dog Julius.
Next morning the weary search began again. Jeffreys, as he trudged back to the city, felt that he was embarked on a forlorn hope. Yet a man must live, and a sovereign cannot last for ever. He passed a railway embankment where a gang of navvies were hard at work. ”

“ Forrester was perhaps the most expert of Jeffreys’ enemies. He worried the Cad not so much out of spite as because it amused him, and, like the nimble matador, he kept well out of reach of the bull all the time he was firing shots at him.
“Hullo, Jeff!” he called out, as the Cad approached. “Are you going to play in the match on Saturday?”
“No,” said Jeffreys.
“You’re not? Haven’t you got any old clothes to play in?”
Jeffreys’ brow darkened. He glanced down at his own shabby garments, and then at Scarfe’s neat suit.
“I’ve got flannels,” he said.
“Flannels! Why don’t you play, then? ”

“ I said, "the gentleman says well. Though 'twas to him that my remarks in praise of yourself were addressed, I was mistook. 'Twas not on you that his comment was directed."
"That is a very likely tale," said his lordship, with a frown; and then appearing to recover himself, as he was used to do, quite rapidly, he stared at me with another expression.
"I am in your debt, sir," he said, "for your defence of me. You do well. I warrant Jeffreys has still his wits about him. He has an eye for a rogue, sir. You will do him the justice to acknowledge that, I hope, on our [97] better acquaintance." ”

“ They approached fitfully, now quickly, now slowly, now stopping still for a moment or two, yet they were too agitated for those of a drunkard, and too uncertain for those of a fugitive from justice.
As they drew near to the bridge they stopped once more, and Jeffreys, peering through the darkness, saw a form clutching the railings, and looking down in the direction of the water. Then a voice groaned, “Oh my God!” and the footsteps hurried on.
Jeffreys had seen misery in many forms go past him before, but something impelled him now to rise and follow the footsteps of this wanderer. ”

“ Jeffreys’ first sensations on finding himself alone had been those of stupefaction. Although all that he knew of Forrester’s father was that he had been in India, it never occurred to him now for a moment that the gallant officer mentioned in the telegram could be any other than the father whom he had so cruelly and irreparably wronged. And now once more he seemed suddenly face to face with his crime. He saw before him that fatal scene in the Bolsover meadow; he heard his comrades’ howl of execration and saw the boy’s white face on the grass turned up to meet his. It seemed but yesterday. ”

“ And when it was known that Jeffreys would have had the good old man whipped at the cart's tail through London, had it not been that for once he was overborne by his brethren on the bench, a sense of horror and loathing arose in the minds of honest and merciful men, not only against the wicked Judge himself, but against the King who could smile approval on such a debauched servant, and actually associate him with Lord Guildford, the Keeper of the Seals, with the evident intention of promoting him still higher if he continued to go about his work in the same way. ”

“ By this time the heart of Jeffreys had been hardened to that temper which tyrants require in their worst implements. He had hitherto looked for professional advancement to the corporation of London. He had therefore professed himself a Roundhead, and had always appeared to be in a higher state of exhilaration when he explained to Popish priests that they were to be cut down alive, and were to see their own bowels burned, than when he passed ordinary sentences of death. ”

“ Jeffreys was nineteen, but looked older, for he had whiskers—an unpardonable sin in the eyes of Bolsover—and was even a little bald. His voice was deep and loud. A stranger would have mistaken him for an inferior master, or, judging from his shabby garments, a common gardener.
Those who knew him were in no danger of making that mistake. No boy was more generally hated. How he came by his name of Cad Jeffreys no one knew, except that no other name could possibly describe him. ”