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 1 curate to perform the service. It may have 

 been done in the bond fide 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 Header. 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 

 can 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 i£ 

 he was a briefless barrister. He had been six years in Parliament, 

 representing the Borougb 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 



