| OCR Text |
Show 94 ATROCIOUS JUDG£5. (A. D. 1G07. . b tl ho pretend to narrate oul· annals, for it was s1lence y 10se w . . . . . , d b Co urt of competent Junsd1ctlon, and 1t "as pronounce Y a . . l r rs as settlin<Y the law and constltutwn of actec upon 10r yea o the country.* KinO' James declared 0 that Chief Baron Fleming \\'aS a judge to his heart's content. when be came to England that be might hear such unpalata- He had been son1e,vhat afraid ble doctrines as had excited his indignation in Buchanan's treatise, "De Jure Regni apud Scotis," and he expressed great , joy in the solemn 1·ecognition that he was an :1bs~lute sovm:eic: n. Our indio-nation should be diverted from him and his '-' 0 • unfortunate son, to the ba~e sycophants, legal and eccleslaS· tical, who misled them. On the death of Popham, no one was thought so fit to suc-ceed him as Fleming, of whom it was always said that, "though slow, he was sure;" anU he became chief justice of England the very same day on which Fr:tncis :Bacon mounted the fir ·t step of the political ladder, receiving the comparatively humble appointment of solicitor general. Lord Chief Jtrtice Fle1ning remained at the head of the common law rather n1ore than six year·. During that time the only ca e of general interest which arose in 'Vestminster Hall was that of the Postnati. As might be expccteu, to please the king, he joined cordially in what I consider the illegal decision, that persons born in Scotland after the accession of James to the throne of En O'land, were entitled to all the b • privileges of natural horn subjects in England, although II * One striking instance, among a thousand, both old and new, howyttl: the so much vaunted decisions of courts virtually amount to. Dec 1510 n d that are to stand, can only stand upon their own inherent rectitud: ~d. reasonableness, and not upon the authority of those who make them. .!. D. 1607 .] TTlO:\[AS FLE:\II:NG. was allowed that Scotland was an entirely separate and indepen~ ent kil~gdo1~1. Luckily, the question is never ljkcly ngmn to anse 1nce the seYcrance of the crown of I-Iano,·e1~ from that of Great Britain; bnt if it should, I do not think tha:t Calvin's case could by any means be con ·ider e<l a con-c,~ l.u ~, ive a ~ tll O. l·l· ty , b e1· ng ..r1 0unclcd upon such r easoning as that . If our long conquer a Christian country, its laws remain tlll duly a1tered; whereas if be conquer an infidel country the laws arc 'lP. so j' t t' J 7 ac o ex 1nct, ann he 1nay n:wssacre all the inhabitants." . Lord Chief Justice Fleming took the lead in the prosecution of the Conntess of Shrewsbury before the Privy Council, on the charge of having r efuseu to be examined re~pectinCY the part she had acted in bringing about a clandestine m:u~ riagc, in the Tower of London, between the Lady Arabella Stuart' the kin g ,:,:.s, cou I· n, anc1 ~".-:.>.1 1' ,v·1 lh· am Somer ·ct, after-wards Duke of Somerset. IIc laid it down for law1 that " it '~as a high misden1canor to n1arry, or to connive at the marrmge of any relation of the king without hi consent, and that the countess's rcfu.::al to be exn.m.inec1 was 'a contempt of the k. inoo·~ his crown anc1 d1' gn1· ty, w 1n · ch, 1· f it ·were to go unpun- Ished ' mioo· ht }en,.,,ul t o rn~ny n~ angerous enierpn. ..ocs again t the state.' He thtn··o---fo r e gave 1' t a. 1n . s op1. n1. 0n that she should be fined £10,000 and confined during the king's plea 'ure." vVhile this poor ereature presided in the Kino·'s Bench he was no d ou0 t told by his officer. and dependantos that he 'w as the greatnst chief justice that had appeared there since tho days of Gn co:()'nn 1 F ' 1o ...., anc 'ortcscue ; but he '\Ya con idered a very small man by all the rest of the worltl, and he was cornpletely eclipsed b Y S.u · E1 CJt ward Coke, who at the san1e titne was chiP~ f J. ustI' c. e o f tl1 e C onunon Pleas, and who, to a n1uch |
