46 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



[No. 167. 



He died on the 19th of April, 1689, at thirty-five 

 minutes past four in the morning. The tradition 

 that his remains were deposited at Enfield is in- 

 correct. He was first interred in the Tower pri- 

 vately, and after three years, when the day of 

 persecution was past, his friends petitioned that 

 they might be allowed to remove the coffin. This 

 was granted, and by a warrant dated the 30th of 

 September, 1692, signed by the queen and directed 

 to the governor of the Tower, the body of Lord 

 Jeffreys was removed, and buried a second time 

 in a vault under the communion-table of St. Mary, 

 Aldermanbury. As regards the number of places 

 pointed out as the residence of Judge Jeffreys, 

 the following are mentioned in the bill that was 

 brought in for the forfeiture of his honour and 

 estate. 



In Salop he had the manors of Wem and Lop- 

 pington, with many other lands and tenements ; in 

 Leicestershire the manors of Dalby and Brough- 

 ton ; he bought Dalby of the Duke of Bucking- 

 ham, and after his death it passed to Sir Charles 

 Duncombe, and descended to Anthony Duncombe, 

 afterwards Lord Feversham. In Bucks he had 

 the manor of Bulstrode, which he had purchased 

 of Sir Roger Hill in 1686, and the manor of 

 Fulmer, with other tenements. He built a man- 

 sion at Bulstrode, which came afterwards to his 

 son-in-law, Charles Dive, who sold it in the reign 

 of Queen Anne, to William, Earl of Portland, in 

 whose family, now aggrandised by a dukedom, it 

 still continues. And he had an inclination at one 

 time to have become the purchaser of another 

 estate (Gunedon Park), but was outwitted by one 

 of his legal brethren. Judge Jeffreys held his 

 court in Duke Street, Westminster, and made the 

 adjoining houses towards the park his residence. 

 These houses were the property of Moses Pitt the 

 bookseller (brother of the Western Martyrologist), 

 who, in his Cry of the Oppressed, complains very 

 strongly against his tenant, the chancellor. 

 Jeffreys's " large house," according to an adver- 

 tisement in the London Gazette, was let to the 

 three Dutch ambassadors who came from Holland 

 to congratulate King William upon his accession 

 in 1689. It was afterwards used for the Admi- 

 ralty Office, until the middle of King William's 

 reign. 



■ " The house is easily known," says Pennant, " by a 

 large flight of stone steps, which his royal master per- 

 mitted to be made into the park adjacent, for the ac- 

 commodation of his lordship. These steps terminate 

 above in a small court, on three sides of which stands 

 the house." 



Edward F. Rimbault. 



The birthplace of Judge Jeffreys should not 

 be a matter of doubt. The old house at Acton in 

 which his father lived, was in the parish of Wrex- 

 ham, and close to the confines of that parish and 



Gresford. It was pulled down about seventy 

 years ago, about the time when the present man- 

 sion bearing that same name was built. Twenty 

 years ago there were several persons living in the 

 neighbourhood who remembered that it stood in 

 the parish of Wrexham. 



Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Lord Chan- 

 cellors of England, vol. iii. p. 496., writes, — 



" He (Judge Jeffreys) of whom such tales were to 

 be told, was born in his father's lowly dwelling at 

 Acton in the year 1648." 



And he subjoins the following note : 



" This is generally given as the year of his birth, but 

 I have tried in vain to have it authenticated. There 

 is no entry of his baptism, nor of the baptism of his 

 brothers, in the register of Wrexham, the parish in 

 which he was born, nor in the adjoining parish of 

 Gresford, in which part of the ^family property lies. 

 I have had accurate researches made in these registers 

 by the kindness of my learned friend Serjeant Atcherley, 

 who has estates in the neighbourhood. It is not im- 

 probable that, in spite of the' Chancellor's great horror 

 of dissenters, he may have been baptized by ' a dis- 

 senting teacher.'" 



The fact is, however, and it is a fact known 

 certainly twenty years ago to several of the in- 

 habitants of Gresford and Wrexham, that no re- 

 gister has been preserved in the parish of Wrex- 

 ham for a period extending from 1644 to 1662 ; 

 and none in the parish of Gresford from 1630 to 

 1660. I may add that no such registers have been 

 discovered up to this time. Taffy. 



When the family of Jeffi-eys became possessed 

 of Acton is uncertain, probably at a very early 

 period, being descended from Cynric ap Khiwallon, 

 great-grandson of Tudor Trevor. 



George Jeffreys, afterwards Chancellor, was 

 born at Acton, and was sixth son of John Jeffreys 

 and Mary, daughter of Sir Thomas Ireland of 

 Bewsey, near Warrington, in Lancashire. In 1708 

 the estate passed into the family of the Robinsons 

 of Gwersyllt by the marriage of the eldest daughter 

 and heiress of Sir Griffith Jeffreys. Ellis Yonge, 

 Esq., of Bryny Orchyn (in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood(, purchased the estate of Acton from 

 the trustees of the said Robinson. The Yonges 

 were in no way related to the Jeffreys, although 

 bearing the same arms, as being also descended 

 from the same tribe. Geesford. 



DUTCH AI.LEGORICAX PICTURE. 



(Yol.vi., pp.458. 590.) 



In answer to the obliging notice which your 

 correspondent Cuthbert Bede (Vol. vi., p. 590.) 

 has taken of my description of the Dutch alle- 

 gorical picture, I beg to say that I agree with him, 

 and admit myself to be mistaken in supposing the 



