Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/304

Jenkins siastica Praelectiones in Schola Theologica Cantab, habitae,' 1711, &c. (manuscript in the library of St. John's College, Cambridge, S. 16).

[Addit. MSS. 5833 pp. 119-23, 5873 f. 3, 5850 pp. 215-19, 5859 p. 13, 33096 ff. 25-38: Baker's St. John's (Mayor), i. 300, 323, ii. 1005, 1172; Baker's MSS. 35 p. 351, 38 p.339; Biog. Brit.. Suppl. p. 111n.: Hearne's Collections (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), vol. iii. passim; Blomfield's Norfolk, iv. 246 ; Clay's Hist. of Waterbeach, p. 65; Gent. Mag. xlix. 287, 350; Kettlewell's Life. App. pp. xvi, xlvii ; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), iii. 532, 603; Nichols's Lit, Anecd. i. 76, 127, iv. 240-52, vii. 197; Peck's Desid. Curiosa, vol. i. lib. 6 p. 27; Sidebotham's Memorials of the King's School, Canterbury, pp. 17, 46, 47.]  JENKINS, DAVID (1582–1663), Welsh judge and royalist, was the son of Jenkin Richard of Hensol, in the parish of Pendeulwyn, Glamorganshire, where he was born in 1582. He became a commoner of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, in 1597, and took the degree of B.A. 4 July 1600. He was admitted on 5 Nov. 1602 a student of Gray's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1609; he was made ancient in 1622, and elected summer reader in 1625, but refused to act. At this period he was opposed to the methods used by Charles I for raising money (cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1662). In 1640, according to his own statement, he ‘lay under three excommunications, and the examination of seventy-seven articles in the high commission court, for opposing the excesses of one of the bishops.’

On 18 March 1642–3 Jenkins was appointed judge of the great sessions for the counties of Carmarthen, Pembroke, and Cardigan (Patent Rolls, 18 Car. I., third part), an honour conferred on him against his will, for the salary attached to it was only 80l., while the necessary travelling expenses were double that amount (Introduction to Works, pp. 2, 3). On the breaking out of the civil war he remained firmly loyal to the king, and overstepping the bounds of his office, indicted of high treason several parliamentarians within his circuit, such as Sir Richard and Erasmus Phillips and Major-general Laugharne. Others he condemned to death, but they succeeded in effecting their escape out of prison (Cal. of Committee for Advance of Money, 1642–56, iii. 1195; Commons' Journals, 21 Feb. 1647–8). He is also said to have encouraged some cruelties practised in Pembrokeshire by the Irish levies under Colonel Charles Gerard, who was in command of the royalists in South Wales (Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, No. 77, 15–23 Oct. 1644), and he appears to have taken arms himself, riding with Gerard's men, ‘with his long rapier drawn, holding it on end’ (Aubrey's Account in, Athenæ, i. cxlix). Towards the end of 1645 he fled to Hereford for refuge, and on the surprise of that town on 18 Dec. 1645 he and a large number of other prominent royalists were taken prisoners. A newspaper stated that there was found on his person 6,000l. in gold, which he had carried from one garrison to another, and which he would not part with to further the king's cause (Exact Journall of Parliament, No. 84). With the other chief prisoners he was sent to London and committed to the Tower. Before his arrival in London the House of Commons decided to proceed against him for high treason in the king's bench in the following term (Commons' Journals for 3, 7, 9, and 22 Jan. 1645–6).

On 10 April 1647 he was brought before the parliamentary committee of examinations, presided over by Miles Corbet. He refused to answer, but delivered to the chairman a paper, in which he denied that his adherence to the king was treason, and argued that as the king was the fountain of justice, so without his authority the parliament had no jurisdiction (Answer, published in Clarendon State Papers, ii. 365). This paper was immediately published, but was misleadingly styled ‘A Recantation of Judge Jenkins’ (London, 1647, fol.), and the prisoner at once denied his submission in ‘The Vindication of Judge Jenkins,’ which is dated from the Tower, 29 April 1647 (London, 6 May 1647, 4to). Both pamphlets were referred to the committee appointed to prepare the indictment, with instructions that the printer, as well as the author, should be prosecuted (Commons' Journals for 23 April, 11 May, and 22 June 1647). An outbreak of royalists in Glamorganshire in June 1647 was, according to a letter, dated 19 June 1647, from the parliamentary committee at Usk to the House of Commons, ‘contrived by Jenkins and other delinquents in the Tower,’ but the ‘great plot’ was discovered, and the revolt suppressed (King's Pamphlets, No. 318 (5); Commons' Journals, 22 June 1647). In September he was removed from the Tower to Newgate (ib. 25 Sept.), where he remained until he was summoned to appear as defendant in a chancery suit, brought on behalf of an orphan relative of his, before the commissioners appointed to sit in chancery. On 14 Feb. 1647–1648 he was brought from Newgate to Westminster, and when the speaker asked him what he had to say to the charges of treason he answered by a paper in which he denied their right to try him (Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, 9–16 Feb. 1647; Clarendon State Papers, ii. App. xlv). This paper was