# Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 11 - Section IX

Layout 2
IX. Chief-Justice Lefroy, D.C.L.
Right Hon. Thomas Lefroy, M.P. (whose pedigree I have already detailed), was born in Ireland on 8th January 1776. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, on 2d November 1790, and after a brilliant University career, took his degree. He was called to the Irish Bar in 1797, but did not practise until he had completed a course of legal study at Lincoln’s Inn. He formed a friendship during his college life with a fellow-student, which ended in his engagement to be married to that student’s sister. The incident became unusually romantic. The Irish rebellion broke out in the County of Wexford in May 1798; the young lady and her mother took refuge in Wales, while the father, Jeffry Paul, Esq., of Silverspring, remained in Wexford to fight as an officer of yeomanry. Accordingly, Thomas Lefroy was married to Mary Paul (eventually her father’s heiress) at Abergavenny, on 16th March 1799. He practised at the Irish Bar with eminent ability and success; in 1816 he became a King’s Counsel; in November 1818 he was made His Majesty’s Third Serjeant-at-law; he rose to be First Serjeant, and was long known as Serjeant Lefroy. He was often styled Dr. Lefroy, his university having conferred on him tHe degree of D.C.L.
Mr. Lefroy became a very wealthy gentleman. As such, he devoted himself to the Tory or Conservative party. He also aimed at the highest seats on the Bench without serving as Solicitor-General and Attorney-General for Ireland. In those ​days elections were as expensive as they have been since, and election petitions (i.e., petitions to the House of Commons against the validity of a specified election) were much more expensive than now. He and his eldest son long sat in Parliament in order to support their party, at the expense to the former of eighteen contested elections and four Parliamentary petitions. He and his family were persons of remarkable personal piety; and in those days, being Irish Episcopal Protestants, they believed it to be a religious duty to be Conservatives or Tories. It was otherwise in the days of the Earl of Galway, a Protestant and a Christian as eminent as any modern worthy. That Lord’s Tory opponent, the Duke of Ormond, Lord-Lieutenant, burnt publicly, as “Whiggish,” a sermon printed in Dublin under the Lords-Justices, his predecessors, in favour of the Protestant succession, concluding thus:—
“If there be any (thou God, Protector and Guardian of virtuous and religious Kings!) who, making profession of thy pure religion established in these nations, yet are not sensible of the blessing of their condition under the present happy constitution — who, making profession of the true Protestant religion, are yet in the interests of another Prince, an enemy to it — if there be any who prefer the tyranny of a Popish knight-errant Pretender to the just dominion of a religious and illustrious Protestant Queen and her established successors — if there be any who would remove the noble patriots from the ministry and management of public affairs (who are the bulwarks of the nation’s honour, liberties, and religion, against all enemies both foreign and domestic) to make way for principles of Passive Obedience and Divine Right, sources of slavery — or if there be any, who are either fools or knaves enough to think to secure the Protestant Religion and Interest under the tyranny of a Catholic Prince and Government — do Thou, O Lord God of truth, equity, and justice (of what distinction soever they may be) confound ’em in all their devices, and let all the people say with me, Amen.”
Thus the old Irish Tories indignantly burnt what their successors would print, preach, and circulate.
Following out his deliberate and legitimate ambition, Mr. Lefroy refused Puisne Judgeships in 1820, 1821, and 1823. In 1830 he went to London as M.P. for Dublin University, having at that date only ninety-two constituents. In 1835 Sir Robert Peel made him an Irish Privy Counsellor, and designed him to be Master of the Rolls on the Irish Bench, but Sir Robert was out of office before the occurrence of the expected vacancy. It was at the age of fifty-four that Mr. Lefroy entered Parliament, and he never became a Parliamentary orator. On his elevation to the Bench as a Baron of Exchequer in 1841, his speeches in the House of Commons were characterized by Sir Robert Peel as having been perfectly judicial in their tone and the reverse of exciting. The reporters (represented by the late James Grant) said of him: “The reporters consider his rising to speak to be quite a windfall; the time he is up affords them a corresponding cessation from their arduous labours; strangers in the gallery, who know no better, consider that the House itself has risen whenever Serjeant Lefroy rises. I have seen the honourable and learned gentleman thin the House with such incredible expedition, that the benches, which but a few minutes before were crowded, have become almost entirely deserted. The reading of the Riot Act does not more effectually disperse a mob than the honourable member does the legislators of the Lower House.”
In 1841 when Sir Robert Peel returned to office, all parties considered Mr. Lefroy entitled to the position of Lord Chancellor of Ireland; but Sir Edward Sugden, the great English lawyer, was preferred, Mr. Lefroy (as already stated) becoming a Baron of the Exchequer. In 1852 the Earl of Derby made Sir Edward Sugden Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, and Chief-Justice Blackburne Lord Chancellor of Ireland; Baron Lefroy succeeded the latter as Lord Chief-Justice of Ireland. The new Chief-Justice continued to be immensely admired as an acute, profound, and distinguished lawyer, and intensely respected as a courageous and consistent Christian, and heartily beloved, not only by his family, but by the whole community. His publications were connected with the legal profession. In 1802 he published a tract on “Proceedings by elegit for recovery of Judgment Debts;” in that year Lord Redesdale came to Dublin as Lord Chancellor, and Mr. Lefroy had a large share in the publication of his “Decisions.” In 1822 he became secretary to the Irish Scripture Readers’ Society, and drew up its rules; he, in fact, suggested the formation of the Society, and started it with a donation of £1000. The present manor-house of Carrig-glas, rebuilt by him, is a monument to his memory. When he was approaching his ninetieth year, it was understood that he was willing to retire from public life, when he could resign “gracefully” — namely, whenever his ​own political friends should return to power. This change of government did not occur immediately, and some animadversions having been made, he had the advantage of receiving and reading numerous monumental eulogies on himself. Such panegyrics were just; they are well summed up by a sentence in the Illustrated London News: “Calm, dignified, learned and courteous, a profound lawyer and Christian gentleman, Chief-Justice Lefroy will long be remembered as one of the greatest lawyers who have adorned the Irish Bench during the last half century.” The Register states, “He continued to take his seat on the bench and to hear causes until his ninetieth year, when the return of Lord Derby to place gave him the opportunity of gracefully resigning his post in the month of May 1866.” He died at Bray, near Dublin, on 4th May 1869, aged ninety-three, “the oldest member of the legal profession in the three kingdoms.”
* ↑ Rev. Prebendary Stoughton’s (Lord Chancellor’s Chaplain) Sermon preached before the State in Christ Church in Dublin on Monday, 31st January 1709 (n.s.).
* ↑ “Random Recollections of the Lords and Commons.” Second series vol. ii., Chapter xi.