Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/221

 Bramston would have allowed the levy ‘during necessity only,’ and that he was only induced to subscribe the opinion as it stood by the representation made ‘by the ancient judges that it was ever the use for all to subscribe to what was agreed by the majority.’ In July of the same year Bramston was a member of the Star-chamber tribunal which tried the bishop of Lincoln on the charge of tampering with witnesses, and committing other misdemeanors. The bishop was found guilty by a unanimous verdict, and sentenced to be deprived of his office, to pay a fine of 10,000l., and to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure. A similar sentence was passed on him at a later date, Bramston being again a member of the court, on a charge of libelling the archbishop of Canterbury and the late lord treasurer Weston. In the celebrated ship-money case (Rex v. Hampden), decided in the following year (12 June), Bramston gave his judgment against the king, though on a purely technical ground, viz. that by the record it did not appear to whom the money assessed was due, in that respect agreeing with the lord chief baron, Sir Henry Davenport, who, with Crooke, Hutton, and Denham, also gave judgment in Hampden's favour; but taking care at the same time to signify his concurrence with the majority of the court upon the main question. On 16 April 1640, during the indisposition of the lord keeper Finch, Bramston presided in the House of Lords. On 21 Dec. of the same year proceedings were commenced in the House of Commons to impeach the lord keeper Finch, Bramston, and five other of the judges who had subscribed the opinion on ship-money. Next day it was resolved that the message usual in such cases should be sent to the House of Lords. The message was communicated to the peers the same day, and the judges being present (except the lord keeper) were forthwith severally bound in recognisances of 10,000l. to attend parliament from day to day until such time as trial might be had. The lord keeper was bound to the same effect the following day. Bramston was thus unable to attend the king when required without rendering himself liable to immediate committal, and as no progress was made towards his trial, the king terminated so anomalous a condition of affairs by revoking his patent (10 Oct. 1642), sending him shortly afterwards (10 Feb. 1642–3) a patent constituting him serjeant-at-law by way of assurance of his unbroken regard. Meanwhile so far was the parliament from desiring to proceed to extremities with Bramston that in the terms of peace offered the king at Oxford (1 Feb. 1642–3) his reappointment as lord chief justice of the king's bench, not as formerly during the king's pleasure, but during good behaviour (‘quamdiu se bene gesserit’), was included. From this time forward until Bramston's death persistent attempts were made to induce him to declare definitely in favour of the parliament, but without success. In 1644 he was consulted by the leaders of the party as to the evidence necessary for the prosecution of Macguire and MacMahon, two prisoners who had made their escape from the Tower and been retaken. In 1647 it was proposed to make him one of the commissioners of the great seal, and it was voted that he should sit as an assistant in the House of Lords, ‘which,’ says his son, ‘he did not absolutely deny, but avoided attending by the help of friends.’ In the same year a resolution was come to that he should be appointed one of the judges of the common pleas. Even in the last year of his life Cromwell, then protector, sent for him privately, and was very urgent that he should again accept office as chief justice. Bramston, however, excused himself on the ground of his advanced age. He died, after a short illness, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, 22 Sept. 1654, at his manor of Skreens, in the parish of Roxwell, Essex, which he had bought in 1635 from Thomas Weston, the second son of Weston the lord treasurer. He was buried in Roxwell church. In person he is described as of middle height, in youth slight and active, in later years stout without being corpulent. Fuller characterises him as ‘one of deep learning, solid judgment, integrity of life, and gravity of behaviour; in a word, accomplished with all the qualities requisite for a person of his place and profession.’ His son adds that he was ‘a very patient hearer of cases, free from passion and partiality, very modest in giving his opinion and judgment’ (he seems to have shown a little too much of this quality on the occasion of the opinion on ship-money), ‘which he usually did with such reasons as often convinced those that differed from him and the auditory. Even the learned lawyers learned of him, as I have heard Twisden, Wild, Windham, and the admired Hales, and others acknowledge often.’ The following epitaph, attributed to Cowley, was not placed upon his tomb until 1732:—