Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/721

 19. ZANE: THE FIVE AGES 707 said of Jeffreys may be read in Macaulay's History. Much of it is true ; some of it is untrue ; but it all belongs to the spirit of that age of savage disputes and rancorous political hatreds. Yet, after all, Jeffreys was but one of the five judges who sat together on that circuit. To see Jeffreys at his best, we should see him in the trial of Lord Grey de Werke. Jeffreys' skill and adroitness in putting in 'the evidence against the great Whig lord, the brazen seducer of his own wife's sixteen-years-old sister ; his gentleness and exquisite suavity toward his witnesses, his few words of apology to the court for the tears of the vic- tim's mother, are models of forensic decorum. In his tact, his delicate management, never a word too much, now and then putting a question to bring out some point that had been overlooked, Jeffreys shows throughout the skill of the master. He prosecuted Lord William Russell and convicted him. His great arts of advocacy simply overwhelmed the de- fendant; for Russell had a fair trial, and the jury was calmly charged by Pemberton. Jeffreys as judge tried Algernon Sidney, who was convicted upon evidence. Noth- ing in Jeffreys' career can compare with Coke's conduct at Raleigh's trial, or with Glyn's when he judicially murdered Penruddock. Even in Lady Lisle's case, she was condemned on actual, credible testimony, offered in accordance with the rules of evidence. When Jeffreys returned from his campaign in the west he was made Lord Chancellor and given a peerage. Wright succeeded as Lord Chief Justice, and before him came on the famous trial of the Seven Bishops. The besotted King attempted to abolish the Test Acts by proclamation. Both dissenters and churchmen united against a declaration which would tolerate Roman Catholics. The bishops remonstrated, and the King, against Jeffreys' advice, caused the bishops to be indicted. The trial came on before the King's Bench. The defense mustered a great array of counsel. Pember- ton, a cashiered chief justice, Levinz, another dismissed judge, who had gone the bloody circuit with Jeffreys, Hen- eage Finch, son of Lord Nottingham, and Somers, after-