382 CHARGE AGAINST WHITELOCKE. 



only to be sorry for his error, is a contempt of a high 

 nature, and resting upon two parts : on the one, a 

 presumptuous and licentious censure and defying of 

 his majesty s prerogative in general ; the other a 

 slander and traducement of one act or emanation 

 hereof, containing a commission of survey and refor 

 mation of abuses in the office of the navy. 



This offence is fit to be opened and set before 

 your lordships, as it hath been well begun, both in 

 the true state and in the true weight of it. For as I 

 desire, that the nature of the offence may appear in 

 its true colours ; so, on the other side, I desire, that 

 the shadow of it may not darken or involve any thing 

 that is lawful, or agreeable with the just and rea 

 sonable liberty of the subject. 



First, we must and do agree, that the asking, 



the same with James Whitelocke, who was born in London 

 28 November, 1572, educated at Merchant-taylor s school there, 

 and St. John s college in Oxford, and studied law in the Middle 

 Temple, of which he was summer reader in 1619. In the pre 

 ceding year, 1618, he stood for the place of recorder of the city 

 of London, but was not elected to it, Robert Heath, Esq. being 

 chosen on the 10th of November, chiefly by the recommendation 

 pf the king, the city having been told, that they must choose 

 none, whom his majesty should refuse, as he did in particular 

 except to Mr. Whitelocke by name. [MS. letter of Mr. Cham 

 berlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, November 14, 1618.] Mr. 

 Whitelocke, however, was called to the degree of Serjeant in 

 Trinity-term 1620, knighted, made chief justice of Chester; and 

 at last, on the 18th of October, 1624, one of the justices of the 

 King s Bench ; in which post he died June, 1632. He was 

 father of Bulstrode Whitelocke, Esq. ; commissioner of the 

 great seal. 



