Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/305

 published under the title, ‘Judge Jenkin's Plea.’ An ordinance for his attainder was passed, and on 21 Feb. he was brought to the bar of the house by the serjeant-at-arms, but absolutely refused to kneel or do any other obeisance, for which he was fined 1,000l. When the ordinance was read he replied that the house had no power to charge him, and ‘ran into a discourse of many particulars touching the laws of the land’ (Commons' Journals, 21 Feb. 1647–8). Wood says that Henry Marten pleaded to his fellow-members that ‘sanguis martyrum est semen ecclesiæ,’ on which account it was decided to spare his life, and the proceedings were adjourned. Jenkins at once issued ‘The Answer of Judge Jenkins to the Imputation put upon his Plea in Chancery,’ and his ‘Remonstrance to the Lords and Commons of the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster, the 21 of February, 1647.’ In ‘A True and Just Account of what was transacted in the Commons House … A.D. 1648’ (London, 1719, 8vo), it is stated, without corroboration elsewhere, that the house subsequently offered Jenkins a free pardon and a pension of 1,000l. a year if he submitted to its power, but that he indignantly repudiated the proposal. Early in October 1648 Jenkins was removed from Newgate to Wallingford Castle, where he appears to have written a letter (said to have been intercepted) on 12 Oct. to King Charles, urging him to sign the treaty of Newport; its substance is given in ‘The Declaration of David Jenkins … concerning the Parliament's Army, with a copy of his Letter to his Dread Soveraign the King’ (London, 16 Oct. 1648, 4to). According to Wood he ‘used his utmost endeavours to set the parliament and army at odds, thereby to promote the king's cause, but it did not take effect according to his desire’ (Athenæ, iii. 643). In a pamphlet entitled ‘The Army's Indemnity’ (1647) he argued that the Act of Indemnity just passed by parliament was insufficient to secure the soldiers. On 14 March 1648–9, it was ordered that at the next assizes Jenkins should be indicted ‘in the proper county’ by the judges on the Welsh circuit, and on 28 June 1650 it was again ordered that he and three others should be tried in the high court ‘upon their former offences,’ with the view of making examples of them as a reprisal for the murder of Antony Ascham (d. 1650) [q. v.] (Commons' Journals, 14 March 1648, 28 June 1650; Cal. State Papers, Dom., 28 June 1650). But on neither occasion was any action taken. An order for his removal to Windsor Castle was made on 19 Nov. 1652, and on 12 Jan. 1656–7 it was resolved that he should be liberated from Windsor and ‘allowed to come of Gray's Inn’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom.) After this he lived for a time at Oxford. In June 1657 he was again at Wallingford (, Life of Sir Leoline Jenkins, ed. 1724, ii. 643), still apparently under surveillance, and does not appear to have been fully released till the Restoration (cf. Reports, Introd.). According to the first edition of Wood's ‘Athenæ Oxonienses,’ ‘after the restoration of K. Charles II it was expected by all that he [Jenkins] should be made one of the judges in Westminster Hall, and so might he have been, would he have given money to the then lord chancellor.’ For this charge against Lord Clarendon, Wood was expelled from the university of Oxford (see a report of the proceedings in Miscellanies on Several Curious Subjects, London, 1714, 8vo;, Athenæ, ed. Bliss, i. cxl–cxlix); but his statement is supported by John Aubrey and Hearne (, loc. cit.) Jenkins amply deserves the eulogium of Wood, who describes him as a ‘vigorous maintainer of the rights of the crown, a heart of oak, and a pillar of the law.’ He was elected a bencher of Gray's Inn in 1660, and soon afterwards retired to his own estate at Hensol in Glamorganshire, where he became a patron of Welsh bards, and presided at the annual eisteddfod held at Ystradowen in the neighbourhood. He died 6 Dec. 1663, and was buried at Cowbridge. By his wife Cecil, daughter of Sir Thomas Aubrey of Llantrithyd, and granddaughter of Dr. William Aubrey [q. v.], he had four sons and six daughters, but his issue soon became extinct in the male line. A great-granddaughter married Charles Talbot, lord Talbot (1684–1737) [q. v.], lord chancellor (, Genealogies of Glamorgan, pp. 203–4, 340).

A collection of Jenkins's controversial pamphlets was published in 1648 under the title ‘The Works of that Grave and Learned Lawyer, Judge Jenkins’ (London, 12mo), which, in addition to the pamphlets already referred to, contains the following: 1. ‘Lex Terræ, or a Briefe Discourse collected out of the Fundamentall Lawes of the Land.’ 2. ‘Some Seeming Objections to Master Prinn's … answered,’ dated from the Tower, 28 April 1647. 3. ‘A Declaration of Mr. David Jenkins,’ dated 17 May 1647. 4. ‘The Cordiall of Judge Jenkins for the Good People of London, in reply to a Thing called An Answer to the poysonous seditious Paper of Mr. D. J. by H. P[arker] of Lincolns Inne.’ The seditious paper referred to was the ‘Vindication.’ Parker replied in ‘The Cordiall of Mr. D. Jenkins … answered’ [London, 1647, 4to]. 5. ‘The Inconveniences of a Long-continued Parliament.’ 6. ‘An Apology