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merit’s proceedings, for prisoners. Even Scroggs, Pember- 
ton, and Jeffreys treated him with respect. He was given 
the recordership of London, the degree of the Coif, and made 
a King’s sergeant ; but he was removed from office because he 
refused to pronounce sentence of death on a soldier who ran 
away from the colors in peace time. He was made chief jus- 
tice of the King’s Bench by William in 1689. He and Eyre 
resisted the House of Lords when required to give their rea- 
sons for a judgment, by refusing to do so unless the case 
was taken to the House of Lords on a writ of error. He re- 
fused to punish anyone for witchcraft, but put in the stocks 
a man who claimed to have been bewitched. He was asked 
to be lord chancellor on the removal of Somers; but he ex- 
cused himself, saying that he had “never had but one chancery 
case and lost that”. However, he acted as commissioner until 
the vacancy was filled. His name excited universal admira- 
tion. With him began a new judicial era. He kept aloof 
from political intrigues. He was not a mere logician, as the 
common law lawyers of the previous period had been, but he 
was a jurist who believed that justice was more than prece- 
dent; common sense more important than tradition. Our 
modern law of bailments is one of his contributions to the 
reform of the old common law. On one occasion he is said 
to have dispersed a mob after telling an officer that he would 
hang the soldiers if they shot. 
Lord Mansfield (1705-1793). William Murray, Lord Mans- 
field, was not only the greatest common law judge, but the 
greatest judge of any kind in Anglo-American legal history. 
He was born in Perth, Scotland. His father was a landlord. 
He attended Christ Church, Oxford, where he was noted for 
his oratory and where he took both a B.A. and an M.A. de- 
gree. He had been intended for the church, but was enabled 
to gratify his natural inclination for the bar by the generosity 
of a Lord Foley, father of a friend of Mansfield. He entered 
Lincoln’s Inn, was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn, and be- 
gan practice before chancery. At first he had no encourage- 
ment, and lost the girl he wanted to marry; but at the end 
of eighteen months he had three appeals before the House 
of Lords, one of which was in the South Sea Bubble Case. 
Following this he had a great practice. He was solicitor-gen- 
eral from 1742 to 1754 and entered Parliament, which was the 
