Judge Jeffreys

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Stephensonia

In the Quicksilver universe, it is an ailing Daniel Waterhouse who reveals Jeffreys. It's also likely that Judge Jeffries is the man who sent many Inner Qwghlmians to slave in Sugar Plantations as mused by Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse in WWII.

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Community entry: Judge Jeffreys

Even before Sedgemoor, Jeffreys was feared. He even had Isaac Newton before his bench. A notoriously cruel judge, he presided over many of the trials connected with the Popish Plot and was responsible for the judicial murder of Sidney Algernon; And for the brutal trials of Richard Baxter and many others. He was created baron in 1685 and was soon sent to W England to punish those concerned in the rebellion of the duke of Monmouth.

Christopher Lee
The Bloody Judge

Conflict between the University and James II highlighting Isaac Newton

(excerpted from Wikipedia) While Newton[1] was writing the second and third books of the Principia, a very important event occurred at Cambridge which had the effect of bringing him before the public in a new light. James II had already, in 1686, in open violation of the law, conferred the deanery of Christ Church at Oxford on John Massey, a person whose sole qualification was that he was a member of the Church of Rome; and the king had boasted to the pope's legate that "what he had done at Oxford would very soon be done at Cambridge." In accordance with this boast, in February 1687 he issued a mandate directing that Father Alban Francis, a Benedictine monk, should be admitted a master of arts of the university of Cambridge, without taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.

Upon receiving the mandamus Doctor Pechell, the master of Magdalene College, who was vice-chancellor, sent a messenger to the duke of Albemarle, the chancellor, to request him to get the mandamus recalled; and the registrary and the bedell waited upon Francis to offer him instant admission to the degree if only he would take the necessary oaths. Both the king and the monk were inexorable. The court and the university were thus placed on a collision course. A menacing letter was despatched by Sunderland to shake the firmness of the universitybut, though humble and respectful explanations were returned, the university showed no sign of compliance, nor even of a desire to suggest a compromise. In consequence the vice-chancellor and deputies from the senate were summoned to appear before the High Commission Court at Westminster. Newton was one of the eight deputies appointed by the senate for this purpose.
Jeffreys with a Judge's wig

The deputies, before starting for London, held a meeting to prepare their case for the court. A compromise which was put forward by one of them was stoutly and successfully resisted by Isaac Newton. * On April 21 the deputation, with their case carefully prepared, appeared before the court. Lord Jeffreys presided at the board. The deputation appeared as a matter of course before the commissioners, and was dismissed. * On April 27 they gave their plea. * On May 7 it was discussed, and feebly defended by the vice-chancellor.

The deputies maintained that in the late reign several royal mandates had been withdrawn, and that no degree had ever been conferred without the oaths having been previously taken.

Jeffreys spoke with his accustomed insolence to the vice-chancellor, silenced the other deputies when they offered to speak, and ordered them out of court. When recalled the deputies were reprimanded, and Pechell was deprived of his office as vice-chancellor, and of his salary as master of Magdalene.

Newton returned to Trinity College to complete the Principia . While thus occupied he had an extensive correspondence with Edmond Halley, a very great part of which is extant. The following letter from Halley, dated London, July 5th, 1687, announcing the completion of the Principia, is of particular interest:

I have at length brought your book to an end, and hope it will please you. The last errata came just in time to be inserted. I will present from you the book you desire to the Royal Society, Mr Boyle, Mr Paget, Mr Flamsteed, and if there be any else in town that you design to gratify that way; and I have sent you to bestow on your friends in the University 20 copies, which I entreat you to accept. In the same parcel you will receive 40 more, which having no acquaintance in Cambridge, I must entreat you to put into the hands of one or more of your ablest booksellers to dispose of them. I intend the price of them, bound in calves' leather, and lettered, to be 6 shillings here. Those I send you I value in quartos at 6 shillings, to take my money as they are sold, or at 5 sh. for ready, or else at some short time; for I am satisfied there is no dealing in books without interesting the booksellers; and I am contented to let them go halves with me, rather than have your excellent work smothered by their combinations. I hope you will not repent you of the pains you have taken in so laudable a piece, so much to your own and the nation's credit, but rather, after you shall have a little diverted yourself with other studies, that you will resume those contemplations wherein you had so great success, and attempt the perfection of the lunar theory, which will be of prodigious use in navigation, as well as of profound and public speculation... You will receive a box from me on Thursday next by the wagon, that starts from town tomorrow.

Titus Oates & the Popish Plot

An Anglican priest whose whole career was marked with intrigue and scandal, he joined forces with one Israel Tonge to invent the story of the Popish Plot of 1678. Titus Oates, who had been briefly a convert to Roman Catholicism, claimed that there was a Jesuit-guided plan to assassinate Charles II and to hasten the succession of the Catholic James, duke of York (later James II). The account was completely fabricated, and Oates, examined by the privy council, would perhaps have been immediately exposed had not treasonous letters from Edward Coleman, secretary of the duchess of York, to the French Jesuit, François La Chaise, been discovered as a result of his accusations.

The unexplained death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, the judge to whom Tonge and Oates first told their story, was attributed without evidence to the Catholics, and three innocent men were hanged for it. A frenzy of anti-Catholic hatred swept through England, resulting in the judicial murder of a number of Roman Catholic peers and commoners and in the arrest and persecution of many others. Titus enjoyed temporary eminence and even accused Queen Catherine of plotting to poison the king. In 1685, Titus Oates was convicted of perjury, severely flogged, and imprisoned. Under William III he was released and pensioned.

Sidney Algernon

The son of Robert Sidney, earl of Leicester Sidney Algernon was an English politician. He served in the parliamentary forces during the English civil war and was a member (1652-1653) of the council of state of the Commonwealth, but he opposed the dictatorial rule of Oliver Cromwell. Reappointed (1659) to the council of state, he was abroad at the time of the Restoration (1660) and remained there until 1677, when he returned to England to attend to personal affairs. He soon became associated with the opposition to Charles II, joining Lord William Russell and others in negotiations with French agents and in vague plots for an insurrection, perhaps to place the duke of Monmouth on the throne. His implication in these conspiracies was discovered by the exposure of the Rye House Plot.

After a brutal and arbitrary trial by Judge Jeffreys, Sidney was convicted of treason and executed. Sidney's liberal ideals were set forth in his Discourses Concerning Government (1698), a treatise that had great influence on 18th-century political thought, especially in the American colonies.

Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter (1615-1691), English nonconformist clergyman. Ordained in 1638, he began his ministry at Kidderminster in 1641. He sided with Parliament when the civil war broke out and served (1645-47) as a chaplain in Cromwell's army, where he urged moderation in both religious and political opinions. At the Restoration, Baxter was chosen by Charles II as one of the royal chaplains.

He took a leading part at the Savoy Conference (1661), where he tried to provide means that would permit moderate dissenters to stay in the Church of England. He declined an offer of the bishopric of Hereford, and with the passage of the Act of Uniformity (1662) he left the Church of England. Despite the persecution of nonconformist ministers, Baxter continued to preach; his followers were known as Baxterians.

After a trial conducted with great brutality by Judge Jeffreys, he was imprisoned for 18 months on the charge of having libeled the Church of England in his Paraphrase of the New Testament (1685). Among Baxter's voluminous works are The Saints' Everlasting Rest (1650), Gildas Salvianus, the Reformed Pastor (1656), and A Call to the Unconverted (1657). His autobiography was Reliquae Baxterianae (1696).

Rye House Plot

The Rye House Plot in 1683, was a conspiracy to assassinate Charles II of England and his brother James, duke of York (later James II), as they passed by Rumbold's Rye House in Hertfordshire on the road from Newmarket to London. However, the king did not make the journey on the expected day; the plot, an offshoot of earlier insurrection plots hatched by the 1st earl of Shaftesbury , was revealed. Although the actual conspirators were only minor figures, the great Whig leaders Lord William Russell and Algernon Sidney were executed on flimsy evidence of guilt by association.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st earl of Shaftesbury

English statesman Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st earl of Shaftesbury (1621-1683) supported the crown in the English civil war he until 1644 but then joined the parliamentarians. He was made a member of the Commonwealth council of state and supported Oliver Cromwell until 1654, when he turned against the Protectorate because of his distrust of autocratic rule. He supported the Rump Parliament against John Lambert and then participated in the Restoration (1660) of Charles II. Made a privy councilor and Baron Ashley (1661), he assisted in the trial of the regicides but otherwise worked for a lenient settlement. The same year he became chancellor of the exchequer and gained royal favor by his support of religious toleration. Named one of the proprietors of Carolina, he took considerable interest in plans for the colony, commissioning his friend John Locke to draw up a constitution for it. He joined the opposition to the 1st earl of Clarendon and, when the latter fell (1667), became a member of the CABAL administration. Created earl of Shaftesbury, he became lord chancellor in 1672. Shaftesbury had not been party to the secret Treaty of Dover (1670), and he gradually became suspicious of the king's efforts to improve the position of Roman Catholics. Renouncing his earlier belief in toleration, he supported the Test Act (1673). He was dismissed from office in the same year. Out of favor at court and embittered by his imprisonment in 1677 for opposing the prorogation of Parliament, he made use of the Popish Plot to promote opposition to the earl of Danby and to encourage anti-Catholic feeling. Using the Green Ribbon Club as his headquarters, Shaftesbury built up a party organization, and his followers, soon to be designated Whig , dominated the three Parliaments of 1679 to 1681. On Danby's fall (1679) Shaftesbury became president of the privy council and began to press for the exclusion bill to keep the Roman Catholic James, duke of York (later James II), from the throne. He supported instead the claims of the duke of Monmouth. Again dismissed (1679), he continued the fight for exclusion until Charles dissolved the 1681 Parliament. Shaftesbury's position was now precarious, since his party was discredited and the king in complete control of the government. An indictment for treason failed, but he fled (1682) to Holland and soon died. Aided by his wealth and an exceptional mind, Shaftesbury has been called the most skillful politician of his day. He was bitterly satirized in John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel.

Summation

George Jeffreys is one of the most reviled men in British history. The brutal treatment that he meted out to supporters of Monmouth after the failed rebellion has earned his court the name of The Bloody Assizes. More than 300 of the rebels, most of whom were uneducated peasants, were sentenced to death and 800 more were transported. Jeffreys was known to have been in considerable pain (from a kidney stone) throughout the trials and is reported to have been in the habit of arriving at the court drunk, where he proceeded to amuse himself by explaining to the defendents in great detail what would happen to them when he found them guilty.