of Oates can be explained only by the inherited general tendencies of his dupes, together with the particular circumstances in which he lived.

The tone and manner of Jeffreys on the bench were the tone and manner of his brother judges, lay and ecclesiastical. Whatever reprobation he may, Tone of the according to modern notions, deserve for them, judges, lay and the same reprobation is equally deserved by Jeffreys one of Abbot and by Laud, and is deserved by the greater part of the bench of the seventeenth century.

ecclesiastical :

a numerous

class.

The traditions of the darker ages weighed heavily upon them all, and the greatest blame which any one of them appears, in this respect, to merit is that he did not rise superior to his own generation. The conduct of the bishops in the Court of High Commission has already been sufficiently illustrated, and the conduct of the judges in the king's courts has also been incidentally mentioned more than once.

There is little reason to doubt that Hyde or North, had it fallen to the lot of either to try the west-country rebels, would, in words at least, have dealt with them as severely as Jeffreys. When Jeffreys sat at previous trials, his ordinary manner was certainly not more offensive. than that of judges who are held less infamous. In the case of Algernon Sidney he met the usual delay of the prisoner in pleading, and the usual request for a copy of the indictment and the aid of counsel, in a manner which, if it differed at all from that of his contemporaries, was a little more gentle than usual. At the trial of Hampden for conspiracy he used language which might almost be taken to indicate some improvement of tone. The counsel for the defence made an objection to a proposed juror, in overruling which Jeffreys added, 'If I was Mr.

Attorney (counsel for the prosecution), I would not contest for any particular man to be a juryman; I speak that as my advice.' In his final charge he dealt with the very dubious evidence of Lord Howard, the principal witness, if not quite impartially, at least without the usual violence of dictation: 'I leave it to you, gentlemen, whether upon this evidence you will take it upon your consciences and oaths to say that my Lord Howard is guilty of wilful and corrupt perjury. Then you must find the defendant not guilty. But if you think he has proved the matter fully, and his testimony is supported by the other witnesses, then, gentlemen, you must find the defendant guilty.' The attorney-general, it is true, had said that the king was 'pleased to go less in this case than in the others' which had arisen out of the same alleged plot or plots. But if King Charles II. is to have all the praise which may be accorded to the more gentle expressions used at the trial of Hampden, King James II. should have all the blame of the more severe expressions used at the trials of Monmouth's followers. Royal influence may, without doubt, be discovered in the conduct of Jeffreys on both occasions; but the fact that it may be discovered is at last only another illustration of the mode in which justice was commonly administered at a time when the judges held their offices no longer than during the king's pleasure.

Jeffreys' noto

exceptional

Monmouth's rebellion, it should be remembered, occurred at a very critical juncture in the affairs of England. James II. had come to the throne riety caused by in circumstances which were, in one sense, circumstances without a precedent. His brother Charles, animosity. whose heir he was, had passed twelve years in exile when claiming the royal title. His father had died on the scaffold only thirty-six years before;

and political

and there were still living many persons whose sympathies were with the principles of the Commonwealth, and perhaps more who simply distrusted the new king. In earlier times the custom had been, upon the death of every sovereign, to dispute by force of arms the right to the succession. The exceptions to this rule were excessively few, and it was hardly possible that, after the recent interregnum, the legitimate heir should be at once permitted to wear the crown in peace. Nothing was more natural than that Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II., should assert his legitimacy, and should find supporters against James. would have been marvellous had James found no rivals. But on the other hand he must have felt such rivalry to be the more dangerous from the recent weakening of the royal authority. He was of a temperament by no means amiable or forgiving; but a less vindictive man than himself would not have foregone his vengeance altogether after the battle of Sedgemoor. He found a ready instrument in Jeffreys, but he might have found an instrument equally ready in many others, and did find one in Jones.

It

We live nearer to the days of Jeffreys than to the days of Thorpe or Tresillian; and his cruelties, therefore, appear larger in our eyes, while the screams of his victims and their kin reach us far more distinctly. We are apt to forget how hot was party passion, and how false often was friendship in his time. When we read his speech to Herbert, who had been appointed his successor as chief justice, we naturally consider unbecoming such language as this: Be sure to execute the law to the utmost of its vengeance upon those that are now known (and we have reason to remember them) by the

name of Whigs. And you are likewise to remember the snivelling Trimmers.' But such was the character of political warfare at the time, a warfare in which the king did not scruple to take a side. The wording indeed of the sentence which refers to the Trimmers shows distinctly enough that Jeffreys was speaking not only in his own name, but in that of the king whose conscience he was keeping.

After his master had been deposed, his political rivals and even the men whom he had befriended denounced his conduct in the House of Commons just as the leaders of factions had always attempted to ruin their adversaries. If we read the debates and other abuse of the period, and accept the invective in the literal sense of the words, we must believe that the object of it was a monster without his like in history. If we look beyond, to the manners and customs of preceding ages, we can hardly fail to perceive that Jeffreys was a judge of the ordinary type, whose notoriety was caused chiefly by the traditions of the past and by the circumstances in which he was placed.

The Bloody

pular exagge

rations.

It is not pretended that when Jeffreys held his Bloody Assise he caused anyone to be executed who had not either pleaded guilty or been conAssise: po- victed by a jury. His system of browbeating and bullying terrified the jurors, the prisoners, and all his audience except the counsel for the prosecution. But to bully and to browbeat were, according to all precedent, but parts of his duty. If the convictions were more numerous than they should have been, the chief fault must have been in the operation of trial by jury as then existing. It was quite impossible for Jeffreys to hang any prisoner who had been acquitted; and

if the jurors were afraid to acquit when they believed the person tried to be innocent, they were themselves guilty of murder, committed to save themselves from fine and imprisonment. Jeffreys commonly ordered the convicts of the lowest class to be executed on the day of conviction; but those who have blamed him on this account have not perhaps considered that the first Act which regulated the time of execution was not passed until the reign of George II., and that a murderer was even then to be put to death the next day but one after sentence. It was to be expected that executions would be numerous and follow quickly after sentence when the king desired that the actors in a dangerous rebellion should be sharply punished.

The proportion of persons executed to persons accused of having taken part in the rebellion appears also to have been forgotten by some historians. The Bloody Assise was not an indiscriminate massacre of all who could be captured, nor even of all who were convicted. In the gaol book of the western circuit the marginal note 'to be drawn and hanged' is not affixed to the majority of names; and it is apparent from the record of the later Assise under Chief Justice Herbert that great numbers were spared by proclamation and pardon.

Lisle: Jeffreys most and James II. present on the

One of the most painful cases tried by Jeffreys was that of Alice Lisle; and her execution has contributed not a little to the infamy in which he is held. She Fate of Alice was the widow of John Lisle, one of the conspicuous of the regicides, who was scaffold when Charles I. was executed. her son fought against Monmouth and his no atonement for such an offence in the eyes of James II. She was indicted for high treason, as an accessary, on

The fact that followers was