Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/243

Atkyns upon legal questions, and, as appears from the record of the debates, with acknowledged authority. In 1661 he was made a bencher of his inn, and about the same time was appointed recorder of Bristol (3 Mod. Rep. 23: but see 's Not. Parl., where he is mentioned as a recorder in 1659). On the death of Sir Thomas Tyrrell in 1672 he became a judge of the court of Common Pleas. Along with Scroggs he was engaged in some of the trials for the popish plot, but there is little trace of the part which he took. He shared in the opinion that papists should be sternly dealt with (see trial of Lewis the Jesuit, 7 St. Tr. 249) ; yet, to judge from his writings and his later life, it is inconceivable that he could have shared in the passion of the time. The chief civil case in which Atkyns took part during this period was that brought by Sir S. Barnardiston against Sir W. Soame, the sheriff of Suffolk, which led ultimately to the passing of the act 7 & 8 Wm. III, c. 7, declaring it illegal for a sheriff to make a double return in the election of members of parliament. The points of the case are technical, but it excited keen political interest, and Atkyns's judgment, in which he differed from the majority of the court, marks the beginning of his separation from the party in power (reprinted in his Tracts, and in 6 St. Tr. 1074 ; see case in 's Const. Law, 796; also 's description of the trial, Examen, 521). In 1679 he retired from the bench in circumstances which lead one to believe that he was practically dismissed. Being questioned before a committee of the House of Commons in 1689, he mentioned several causes for his enforced retirement. His judgment in 'Barnardiston v. Soame' had given offence ; he had declared against pensions to parliament men : he had quarrelled with Scroggs about the right to petition ; and he had offended North by speaking against the sale of offices. 'As to pensions, Lord Clifford took occasion to tell me "that I had attended diligently in parliament, and was taken from my profession, therefore the king had thought fit to send me 500l." I replied: "I thank you. I will not accept anything for my attendance in Parliament." ... I did take occasion upon this to advise my countrymen "that those who took pensions were not fit to be sent up to parliament again"' ('s Debates, ix. 507-9). In fact Atkyns was marked out as a disaffected man. He settled in Gloucestershire, with the intention of abandoning the law, but his political opinions again brought him into trouble. When the Oxford parliament was summoned, he was persuaded, though unwillingly, to stand for Bristol, but was defeated by Sir R. Hart and Sir T. Earle, both tories. A strong party in the city, not content with his defeat, sought to force him to resign the recordership. The occasion was found in an illegality of which Atkyns along with others was said to be guilty in proceeding to the election of an alderman in the absence of the mayor, who was the same Sir R. Hart. The prosecution failed, but 'Sir Robert Atkyns, on the Lord Pemberton's and his brother's persuasion, resigned his recordership; which was all that the city of Bristol aimed at by their indictment ' (2 Shower, 238; see Atkyns's argument, which is ingenious and learned, in 3 Mod. Rep. 3). In the following year came the trial of Lord Russell; he could not appear by counsel, but his friends exerted themselves in the preparation of his defence, and applied to Atkyns, who wrote to them a statement of the law. 'And the like assistance being afterwards desired from me, by many more persons of the best quality, who soon after fell into the same danger, I, living at some distance from London, did venture by letters, to find the best rules and directions I could, towards the making of their just defence, being heartily concerned with them' (Tracts, 334; and see Braddon's case, 9 St. Tr. 1127, 1162). Five years afterwards he published the letters, together with 'A Defence of the late Lord Russel's Innocency,' a spirited and eloquent reply to an anonymous pamphlet called 'An Antidote against Poyson.' To a rejoinder from the same pen, 'The Magistracy and Government of England vindicated,' he wrote in answer 'The Lord Russel's Innocency further defended,' assailing his opponent with merited abuse and almost expressly naming him as Sir Bartholomew Shower. In point of legal criticism Atkyns's letters and pamphlets are effective and still worth reading, but they do not shake the received opinion that the law of treason was not strained against Lord Russell. They are reprinted in his 'Tracts,' and, along with Shower's 'Magistracy' and Sir J. Hawle's 'Remarks on Lord Russel's Trial,' in 9 ' St. Tr. ' 719. In 1684 we find his name associated with another great case, when Sir William Williams, the speaker of the House of Commons, was indicted for printing and publishing Dangerfield's narrative of the popish plot. Williams had acted under the orders of the house, so that the case raised the whole question of the powers and privileges of parliament. Atkyns's argument in his defence (Tracts: reprinted 13 St. Tr. 1380) is an elaborate review of the authorities, to show that the actions of parliament, itself the highest court of the nation,