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Atkyns were beyond the jurisdiction of inferior courts. Judgment was given against Williams, but in later cases the decision has been described as disgraceful (see R. v. Wright, 8 Term Rep. 297). The report in the 'State Trials' says that Atkyns took part in the case, and even notices that he had to borrow a wig for the purpose; but in the other reports (2 Shower, 471 ; Comb. 18) there is no mention of his name as counsel. His steady attitude of resistance during these years of misgovernment met with recognition at the revolution. In 1689 he succeeded his brother as chief baron, and in October of the same year, the great seal being in commission, he was appointed speaker of the House of Lords in the place of the Marquis of Halifax. He held the speakership until 1693, and for his services was recommended by the house to the king's favour. Towards the end of the following year he retired from the bench — through disappointment, it has been said, at not being chosen master of the rolls, but more likely owing to advancing age. Yet he still gave proof of continued vigour. In a pamphlet published in 1695, and 'humbly submitted to the consideration of the House of Lords, to whom it belongeth to keep the inferior courts within their bounds,' he renewed Coke's protest against the insidious encroachments of the court of Chancery, tracing the growth of equitable jurisdiction, and suggesting how the common law might be restored. This was followed a few years afterwards by another tract, addressed as a petition to the House of Commons, in which, while repeating his complaint against the court of Chancery, and lamenting the uncertainty of the law, he argued from the history of parliament that the exercise of judicial functions by the lords was a usurpation. It should be read along with Skinner's case, in which the lords failed in their attempt to exercise an original jurisdiction, and Dr. Shirley's case, in which they maintained their right to an appellate jurisdiction. An account of the whole struggle, in the first part of which Atkyns himself, while in parliament, had taken a vigorous part, will be found in Hargrave's preface to Hale's 'Jurisdiction of the House of Lords,' and in Hatsell's 'Precedents,' vol. iii. After 1699 we hear nothing more of him till his death. He spent his later years at Saperton Hall in Gloucestershire, and died 18 Feb. 1709. After Hale, there was no more learned lawyer of his time, and there was none more honest. Lord Campbell calls him a 'virtuous judge,' and he merited the praise in an age of judicial scandals. His political attitude moreover displayed a moderation and an independence of spirit which make him a type of what was best in the period of the revolution.

1. 'Parliamentary and Political Tracts,' collected 1734, 2nd ed. 1741. Besides those already mentioned it contains other tracts published in Atkyns's lifetime: 'An Enquiry into the Power of dispensing with Penal Statutes,' which sums up the whole history of dispensations and denies their antiquity; a reply to Chief-Justice Herbert's review of the authorities in Hale's case, which raised the question of the dispensing power (see both tracts, 11 St. Tr. 1200); a discourse on the ecclesiastical commission of 1686 (in 11 St. Tr. 1148); and his speech as chief baron to the lord mayor in 1693 (also in 2 St. Tr. 361), a word of warning as to Louis XIV's designs for a universal and arbitrary monarchy. 2. 'An Enquiry into the Jurisdiction of the Chancery in Causes of Equity,' 1695. 3. 'A Treatise of the True and Ancient Jurisdiction of the House of Peers,' 1699. In many copies of this work is included the case of 'Tooke v. Atkyns,' in which he was defendant, and which, as he allows, makes him write warmly on the subject of equitable jurisdiction.

[Biographia Britannica; Foss's Judges; Atkyns's Hist, of Glocestershire, 638, 2nd ed. 335; Grey's Debates; Parl. Hist., iv. and v.; Lords' Journals, xiv. 319, xv. 122-4 ; Seyer's Mem. of Bristol; Luttrell's Diary; Howell's State Trials; Hargrave's preface to Hale's Jurisdiction of the House of Lords, clxxxviii.]  ATKYNS, ROBERT (1647–1711), topographer, was the only son of Sir Robert Atkyns, chief baron of the Exchequer, and sometime speaker of the House of Lords see, 1621-1709. Thomas Atkyns, who died in London 1401, was succeeded in the fourth generation by one David, an eminent merchant in Chepstow, who removed before his death in 1552 to Tuffley, near Gloucester, which continued to be the family seat until the purchase of Saperton by Baron Atkyns in 1660. Sir Robert was born in 1647; he was knighted by Charles II on his visit to Bristol 5 Sept. 1663 (, infra), and was elected M.P. for the borough of Cirencester (33 Car. II) 1680-1, and afterwards for the county of Gloucester (1 Jac. II) 1684-5. He died at his house in Westminster of dysentery, at the age of sixty-five, and was buried at Saperton, where his monument is preserved. He is the author of the 'Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire,' London, 1712, fol. 2nd edition, 1768.

The first edition, now scarce, contains a