By the Rev. W. P. 8. Bingham. 89 
of Bemerton—certainly he was not a priest. It is, therefore, 
possible that the patron of Teffont may have appointed his son to 
the vacant vicarage to defray the cost of his education, and employed 
some neighbouring curate to perform the service. It may have 
been done in the dond fidé belief that James Ley would enter holy 
orders, and himself in time fulfil the duties of his office, but when 
this course was abandoned, and his son turned his attention to the 
law, the living of Teffont was conscientiously resigned in 1576. 
From Oxford James Ley went to Lincolns Inn, where he was called 
to the bar, and served the office of Lent Reader. Lord Campbell, in 
his “ Lives of the Chief Justices,” speaks rather disparagingly of 
his legal attainments, and intimates that his promotion was rather 
due to his courtly manners than his learning, and that he became 
serjeant-at-law in 1603, with a view to increasing his practice, but 
that still his briefs were few. It was Lord Campbell who said that 
he never went the Western Circuit without strengthening his 
persuasion that the wise men came from the East, and therefore we 
ean scarcely expect that he would write the life of a Wiltshireman, 
whose ancestors came from Devonshire, without a strong and un- 
favourable prejudice. There are some facts which do not look as if 
he was a briefless barrister. He had been six years in Parliament, 
representing the Borough of Westbury, when he became a serjeant, 
and in the same year he was knighted. We must remember that 
he was a younger son, and did not succeed to his patrimony by the 
death of all his elder brothers until four years after this. Moreover 
he must have had a residence here in Westbury as well as in London, 
for he was married, and his eldest son, the second earl, was baptised 
in Westbury Church in 1595. 
His colleague in the representation of Westbury was Matthew 
Ley, his elder brother, who presented the seal of the borough to the 
corporation in 1574, By the time the two brothers sat together 
for Westbury, one at least must have been a man of considerable 
local influence. Heywood had been bought. It is said that the 
house was built by James, but it may been commenced by the elder 
brother, Matthew, and only completed by him. Sir R. C. Hoare 
thinks that it was purchased either from the St. Maurs or from the 
