By W. W. Raven7iiU, Esq. 



159 



four years of the Restoration in a foreign land, at the hands of a 

 Cavalier, we will hope not Royalist, assassin. We look back on 

 him in the proceedings of this circuit, as chiefly giving weight to 

 the commission from the magnitude of his office. 



A very different man was the Lord Chief Justice Rolle, 1 one of 

 the brightest characters of that time. He was born in Devonshire 

 about the year 1589. Exeter College, Oxford, the Inner Temple, 

 made him "non, sine labore" a highly educated gentleman and lawyer. 



" Justum et tenacem propositi virum." — Hor. 



We see his industry and ability to-day, in his well-known legal 

 works (the Abridgement and Reports) . We see his integrity in the 

 story of his blameless life. He was a member of the last parliament 

 of King James the First, and of the first three of King Charles, re- 

 presenting successively Kellington and Truro in the popular interest. 

 So much was he respected by the House of Commons, that in the 

 negotiations betwixt the King and themselves, February 1st, 1643, 

 he was recommended to the King for a puisne Judgeship. The 

 negotiations fell through, but the Parliament themselves appointed 

 him to that office in 1645. Three years later he was promoted to 

 the rank of Chief Justice. Thinking the powers that then were, 

 the only possible ones for his distracted country, he, with five other 

 judges, consented to act under them, " provided that the fundamental 

 laws of the kingdom should not be abolished/'' In 1650 he and Mr. 

 Baron Nicholas went the western circuit, and won the thanks of 

 Parliament for their services. In their charges to the various juries 

 they had advised " settlement under that present government." 



1 Tbe Lord Chief Justice Rolle, whilst at Salisbury very discreetly demanded 

 his horses from Captain Crook. The horses were amongst the spoils of South 

 Molton, having been borrowed thither by the Cavaliers. Crook politely declined, 

 saying the horses belonged to his ' soldiers. The Chief Justice then pressed 

 Serjeant Glynn and the Attorney General to move the Protector, saying ''he could 

 not go circuit without them." They wrote to Thurloe with no love to the Chief, 

 and apparently he got his horses, for I find the following entry in the Draft 

 Order Book of the Council of State : — (Domestic Statu Papers. Interregnum.) 



" May 4th, Friday 1655. (His Highness present.) Order for payment of three score and eighteen 

 pounds to the soldiers who recovered the horses of L.C..I. Rolles and Mr. Baron Nicholas seized by 

 the rehclls at Salisbury as satisfaction to the said soldiers— to be 'paid to Robert Roberts out of 

 Counsells contingent expenses." 



