Sia,—I hold no brief for Lord Chief Justices, but Mr.
Greene must have met some pretty odd ones if he thinks Jeffreys the best of them. He over- rode the law whenever his passions and prejudices were roused, bullied juries, raved against prisoners like a madman (which, he was often thought to be), was ferociously sadistic in sentences, having a par- ticular fondness for physical torture, such as whip- ping at the cart's tail (with which he threatened the seventy-year-old Richard Baxter) and burning alive, to which he sentenced Alice Lisle for sheltering Sedgemoor fugitives; lest the sentence be commuted, he ordered it for the same afternoop, but her friends got it deferred to give time for royal commutation to beheading. The Scdgemoor trials were charac- teristically ferocious, even for a ferocious age. He not only, as Mr. Greene puts it, 'allowed himself phrases,' but allowed himself sentences beyond the limits of normal barbarity. His court manners were intolerable. Has Mr. Greene read the verbatim transcript by someone in court at the trial (for alleged libel on the constitution of the Church) of the scholarly writer and preacher and most eirenical divine, Richard Baxter? if not, I commend it to his attention.
'Oy oy, is not this an old knave . . . an old Rogue, & bath poisoned the world with his Kidderminster doctrine . . . an old schismatical knave, an hypo- critical villain . . . but I'll handle him for it, for by God he deserves to be whipped through the city.
• . . But 1'11 handle him well enough, I'll warrant you.' When Baxter asked leave to speak, Jeffreys retorted, 'Richard, Richard, dost thou think we will incur the danger of being at a Conventicle to hear thee preach . . . thou art an old fellow, an old knave. . Hadst thou been whipped out of thy writing trade forty years ago, it had been happy • • . but by the Grace of God I'll look after thee.
• • . I'll crush you all.' And so on. Jeffreys was, of course, a strong Angli- can and detested dissenters. He probably was rather mat he also, it is said in excuse for him, suffered from the stone. If Mr. Greene has really hthd him equalled by later Chief Justices he should have brought it to the attention of the relevant 'authorities. Jeffreys sometimes got himself censured, but any modern Chief Justice at all in his class would surely be summarily sacked.-LYours faithfully,
20Hincle House, Hinde,Street, WI
ROSE MACAULAY
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