Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/340

Yelverton A collection of Yelverton's speeches, readings, and letters formerly belonged to his descendant, Viscount Longueville (, Cat. MSS. Angliæ, pt. iii. No. 5359). Two volumes of collections, mainly on legal and constitutional subjects, and a transcript of a third and similar volume belonged to the Earl of Ashburnham (Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. App. pp. 20 b, 22 b; cf. Stow MS. 421). [A complete History of the Yelverton Family, Manchester, 1861, 8vo, contains meagre details. More adequate accounts are contained in Foss's Lives of the Judges, and Manning's Speakers of the House of Commons. See also Cal. State Papers, Dom.; Dugdale's Origines Jurid. and Chronica Series; Official Ret. Memb. of Parl.; D'Ewes's Journals; Acts of the Privy Council; Parl. Hist.; Foster's Gray's Inn Reg.; Visitation of Norfolk, 1563 (Harl. Soc.); Blomefiell's Norfolk; Bridges's Northamptonshire; Rawlinson MS. C. 927, f. 12; Burke's Extinct Baronetcies.]

 YELVERTON, HENRY (1566–1629), judge, the eldest son of Sir Christopher Yelverton [q. v.] and his wife, Margaret Catesby, was born on 29 June 1566, it is said at Easton-Mauduit, his father's house in Northamptonshire (, Hist. of Northamptonshire, ed. Whalley, ii. 164). According to Wood (Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 275), he was educated for a time among the Oxonians, a statement which, combined with the absence of his name from the matriculation list, makes it almost certain that he was never actually a member of the university. The further statement by the same authority, that Yelverton was 'afterwards amongst the students of Gray's Inn, near London,' is probably true. The only evidence for the admission to Gray's Inn at this date is a copy by Simon Segar of the lost original, now known as Harleian MS. 1912, where, in fol. 84, it is stated that Thomas and Christopher Yelverton were admitted in 1579. Mr. Foster, in the 'Gray's Inn Admission Register,' notes: 'No entry of having paid admission dues. Query if specially admitted,' and assigns the date to 23 Jan. 1579, i.e. 1579-80. This looks as if the two Yelvertons were admitted by favour, and, considering that Henry's younger brother was named Christopher, it is not unlikely that 'Thomas' was a mistake of Segar's for Henry. Henry Yelverton's name is entered in Segar's book as becoming a barrister on 25 April 1593, and an ancient on 25 May of the same year. He was reader in Lent term 4 James I, i.e. in 1607 (, Orig. Juridiciales, p. 296).

In the first parliament of James I Yelverton sat for the borough of Northampton. His main disqualification for political life lay in the rapidity with which he changed his profession of opinion. His interests, perhaps his principles, led him to uphold prerogative government. His rough common sense led him to adopt the popular objections to the royal proceedings in detail. On 30 March 1604, when Goodwin's case was before the house, he argued for allowing Goodwin to take his seat in the teeth of the support given by the king to his rejection by chancery. On 5 April, when James had issued his orders, Yelverton was frightened, and argued that the prince's command was like a thunderbolt or the roaring of a lion (Commons' Journals, i. 939, 943). In the session of 1606-7 he was again in trouble, attacking the Earl of Dunbar, the king's Scottish favourite, and generally criticising the bills brought in for effecting a partial union with Scotland; while he fell under Bacon's suspicion as having had a hand in a book published by the puritan lawyer Nicholas Fuller (, Letters and Life of Bacon, iv. 95). On the other hand, he declined to argue against the king's wishes in the case of the post-nati, and before the session of 1610 he sought an interview with Dunbar, and ultimately was admitted by the king to an audience, in which he plausibly explained away the words that had given offence (Archaeologia, xv. 27). The result was seen in the uncompromising defence of the claim of the crown to levy impositions without a parliamentary grant. On 23 June 1610 he asserted that the law of England extended only to low-water mark, and the king might therefore restrain all goods at sea from approaching the shore, and therefore only allow their being landed on payment of a duty (Parl. Debates, 1610, Carnden Soc. p. 85). The speech printed as Yelverton's in ' State Trials' (ii. 478) and elsewhere was really delivered by Whitelocke, and Foss's argument (Lives of the Judges, vi. 391) that it proves Yelverton's independence is therefore of no value.

In 1613 Bacon spoke of Yelverton as having been 'won' to the side of the crown (, Letters and Life of Bacon, iv. 365, 370), and on 28 Oct. of the same year he succeeded Bacon as solicitor-general. He was knighted on 8 Nov. (Harl. MS. 6063), having, it is said, secured the good word of the king's favourite, Rochester, shortly afterwards created Earl of Somerset. In 1614 Yelverton again took his seat as member for Northampton in the Addled parliament (Palatine Notebook, iii. 122), where he appears to have abstained from speaking on the crucial question of the impositions. On