which he professed to feel for her imprisoned step-father, that his previous interference with the king to prevent the introduction of More's name into the bill of attainder with reference to Elizabeth Barton the Holy Maid of Kent, seems to have been dictated rather by the dread of a defeat in the House of Lords, than by any friendly interest in More's behalf. His spiteful reminder to Cromwell, to mark, in his report to the king, that More would not even swear to the succession "but under some certaine maner;" his omission, as president on the trial of the ex-chancellor, when about to pass the dreadful sentence of the law, to put the usual question to the prisoner, "whether he could give any reason why judgment should not be pronounced against him ;" and his ready adoption, after hearing More's argument, of the chief justice's equivocal reply, and hastily proceeding with the sentence, all manifest that he was imbued with the same spirit which prompted his vindictive master to seek for More's destruction. Of his legal acquirements there is little evidence, beyond the reputation that he gained at the Inner Temple for his reading on the Statute of Privileges, which recommended him to the Duke of Suffolk, his first patron. The judicial decisions in which he was engaged during his period of office, were too much mixed up with the political questions of the day, and too clearly controlled by the sovereign whose will he was so ready to obey, to have any weight attached to them. To this, perhaps there is one exception; for the privilege that is now exercised by the Commons, of punishing those who imprison their own members, is said to have been first established under Audley's sanction, in 34 Henry VIII., in the case of George Ferrers, M.P. for Plymouth, for whose arrest the sheriff of London was sent to the Tower. His interpretations of the law on the various criminal trials at which he presided, are a disgrace not only to him, but to every member of the bench associated with him, while both branches of the legislature are equally chargeable with the ignominy of passing the acts he introduced, perilling every man's life by the new treasons they invented, and every man's conscience by the contradictory oaths they imposed. It is a degradation to the pious and excellent Sir Thomas More, to mention him, even in contrast, with such a man as Audley; and the name of More's less estimable predecessor, Cardinal Wolsey, acquires an added brightness when the moderation of his ministry, during the earlier years of the reign, is compared with the persecuting spirit which prevailed while Audley held the Seals at its close. Lord Audley left no son to inherit his title; but by his marriage, apparently late in life, with Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, he had two daughters. Mary, the elder, died unmarried; and Margaret, thus his sole heir, became the wife, first, of Lord Henry Dudley, a younger son of John the first Duke of Northumberland, and secondly, on Lord Henry's death at St. Quintin's in 1557, of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, who had been previously married. By the latter she had a son Thomas, who erected on the ruins of the abbey of Walden, which he inherited from his mother, the stately mansion called, in memory of her father, Audley End. He was summoned to parliament by Queen Elizabeth as Baron Howard de Walden, and was created Earl of Suffolk by James I. Both titles still survive in different branches of the family, and were not divided till the death of James the third possessor, in 1706. The barony then fell into abeyance between Essex and Elizabeth, his two daughters, and continued so for seventy-eight years, being terminated in 1784 in favour of the great grandson of the elder daughter. He was created Baron Braybroke in 1797 (with a special limitation in favour of the present Lord Braybroke's father), but dying in the same year with out issue, and no other descendant of Essex the elder daughter remaining, the representative of Elizabeth the younger daughter was found to be Frederick Augustus Hervey, fourth Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry, on whom therefore devolved the Barony of Howard de Walden; and his great-grandson now enjoys the title. The Earldom of Suffolk, on the death of James the third earl, passed to his brother, whose family held the title till the death of the tenth earl in 1745, when, as he left no son, it passed to the descendant of the second son of the first earl, and again in 1783 to the descendant of a younger grandson of the first earl. By this change in the descent, the titles of Baron Howard of Charleton, Viscount Andover, and Earl of Berkshire, creations acquired by the second son of the first Earl of Suffolk, have been all united to the latter title.1 BALDWIN, JOHN. CH. C. P. 1535. JOHN BALDWIN was the son of William Baldwin and Agnes the daughter of William Dormer, Esq., of Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, the ancestor of Lord Dormer. At the Inner Temple, where he studied the law, he attained so high a reputation that he received the uncommon distinction of being thrice appointed reader, in autumn 1516, in Lent 1524, and in autumn 1531. The last occasion was on account of his having been called upon to take the degree of the coif, which he accordingly assumed in the following November, when he was immediately constituted one of the king's serjeants. In 1530 he held the office of treasurer of his inn. He probably practised in the Court of Chancery, as he 'Dugdale's Baron. ii. 382.; Morant's Essex, i. 138.; Biog. Dict. Chalmers; Stow's London; Lingard; Nicolas's Synopsis. was one of the persons assigned in June, 1529, to aid Cardinal Wolsey in hearing causes there. He and Serjeant Willoughby were knighted in 1534, being the first serjeants, as is noticed in Spelman's MS. Reports, who ever submitted to receive that honour. In 1535 he was elevated to the chief justiceship of the Common Pleas. The precise date of his patent is not known; but as the last fine levied before his predecessor, Sir Robert Norwich, was in February, and the first before him in April, it must have been granted between those dates. Within a few weeks he was called upon to act as a commissioner on the trials of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, in which, however, he does not appear to have taken any active part. He continued chief justice for ten years, resigning between Trinity Term, 1545, the date of the last fine levied before him, and November 6, when his place was supplied by Sir Edward Montagu.1 His death occurred on December 22. Notwithstanding his early promise, he does not seem to have been much esteemed as a judge. He differed frequently from his brethren, and was certainly thought little of by Chief Justice Dyer, who on one occasion says in his Reports, "But Baldwin was of a contrary opinion, though neither I, nor any one else, I believe, understood his refutation." He possessed the manor of Aylesbury in Bucks, and in the last year of his life he obtained some valuable grants from the king, of the farms of several manors in that county and in Oxfordshire, which had been either forfeited by the attainder of their former possessors, or seized on the dissolution of the monasteries. All his property, for want of male heirs, was divided among his daughters, one of whom, Catherine, was married to Robert Pakington, M.P. for London (assassinated in the streets in 1536), who was 1 Dugdale's Orig. 47. 137. 163, 164. 170.; State Trials, i. 387. 398. the ancestor of the baronets of that name, of Aylesbury, whose title became extinct in 1830.1 BATH and WELLS, BISHOPS OF. See T. WOLSEY, J. CLERKE. BLAGGE, ROBERT. B. E. 1511. By one of Dyer's reported cases it appears that Robert Blagge was made king's remembrancer in the Exchequer for life, in 18 Henry VII., 1502. He was advanced to the bench of that court as third baron on June 26, 1511, 3 Hen. VIII.2, still continuing to exercise the office of remembrancer by deputy. In the seventh year of that reign, the king granted him an annuity of eighty marks during pleasure 3; and in the same year he obtained a patent of the remembrancership for his son Barnaby for life, in reversion on his own death or other vacancy. This patent was the subject of discussion in Dyer; and the result was that it was annulled and revoked in 3 Eliz. as insufficient and not good, because Robert Blagge had no legal estate at the time of its date, nor at any other time after he was constituted a baron. He is stated in the case to have been in possession of his place on the bench in 15 Henry VIII., 1523-44; but it does not appear how soon afterwards he died. He was descended from an ancient family in Suffolk; and by his marriage with Katherine, sole daughter and heir of Thomas Brune or Brown, he became possessed of Horseman's Place in Dartford, and of considerable property in the county of Kent, which descended to his sons Robert and the above Barnaby. His widow married Sir Richard Walden.5 1 Wotton's Baronet. i. 388. Rot. Pat. 3 Hen. VIII., p. 1. Dugdale in his Chronica Series names Stag as a baron; but as no such name occurs in any other place, I have no doubt it has been misread for Blagge. 3 Rot. Pat. 7 Henry VIII., p. 3. 4 Dyer's Reports, 197. Hasted's Kent, ii. 312. 375.; MS. Hist. of Suffolk, |