# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jenkins, David

​JENKINS, DAVID (1582–1663), Welsh judge and royalist, was the son of Jenkin Richard of Hensol, in the parish of Pendeulwyn, Glamorganshire, where he was born in 1582. He became a commoner of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, in 1597, and took the degree of B.A. 4 July 1600. He was admitted on 5 Nov. 1602 a student of Gray's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1609; he was made ancient in 1622, and elected summer reader in 1625, but refused to act. At this period he was opposed to the methods used by Charles I for raising money (cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1662). In 1640, according to his own statement, he ‘lay under three excommunications, and the examination of seventy-seven articles in the high commission court, for opposing the excesses of one of the bishops.’
On 18 March 1642–3 Jenkins was appointed judge of the great sessions for the counties of Carmarthen, Pembroke, and Cardigan (Patent Rolls, 18 Car. I., third part), an honour conferred on him against his will, for the salary attached to it was only 80l., while the necessary travelling expenses were double that amount (Introduction to Works, pp. 2, 3). On the breaking out of the civil war he remained firmly loyal to the king, and overstepping the bounds of his office, indicted of high treason several parliamentarians within his circuit, such as Sir Richard and Erasmus Phillips and Major-general Laugharne. Others he condemned to death, but they succeeded in effecting their escape out of prison (Cal. of Committee for Advance of Money, 1642–56, iii. 1195; Commons' Journals, 21 Feb. 1647–8). He is also said to have encouraged some cruelties practised in Pembrokeshire by the Irish levies under Colonel Charles Gerard, who was in command of the royalists in South Wales (Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, No. 77, 15–23 Oct. 1644), and he appears to have taken arms himself, riding with Gerard's men, ‘with his long rapier drawn, holding it on end’ (Aubrey's Account in Wood, Athenæ, i. cxlix). Towards the end of 1645 he fled to Hereford for refuge, and on the surprise of that town on 18 Dec. 1645 he and a large number of other prominent royalists were taken prisoners. A newspaper stated that there was found on his person 6,000l. in gold, which he had carried from one garrison to another, and which he would not part with to further the king's cause (Exact Journall of Parliament, No. 84). With the other chief prisoners he was sent to London and committed to the Tower. Before his arrival in London the House of Commons decided to proceed against him for high treason in the king's bench in the following term (Commons' Journals for 3, 7, 9, and 22 Jan. 1645–6).
On 10 April 1647 he was brought before the parliamentary committee of examinations, presided over by Miles Corbet. He refused to answer, but delivered to the chairman a paper, in which he denied that his adherence to the king was treason, and argued that as the king was the fountain of justice, so without his authority the parliament had no jurisdiction (Answer, published in Clarendon State Papers, ii. 365). This paper was immediately published, but was misleadingly styled ‘A Recantation of Judge Jenkins’ (London, 1647, fol.), and the prisoner at once denied his submission in ‘The Vindication of Judge Jenkins,’ which is dated from the Tower, 29 April 1647 (London, 6 May 1647, 4to). Both pamphlets were referred to the committee appointed to prepare the indictment, with instructions that the printer, as well as the author, should be prosecuted (Commons' Journals for 23 April, 11 May, and 22 June 1647). An outbreak of royalists in Glamorganshire in June 1647 was, according to a letter, dated 19 June 1647, from the parliamentary committee at Usk to the House of Commons, ‘contrived by Jenkins and other delinquents in the Tower,’ but the ‘great plot’ was discovered, and the revolt suppressed (King's Pamphlets, No. 318 (5); Commons' Journals, 22 June 1647). In September he was removed from the Tower to Newgate (ib. 25 Sept.), where he remained until he was summoned to appear as defendant in a chancery suit, brought on behalf of an orphan relative of his, before the commissioners appointed to sit in chancery. On 14 Feb. 1647–1648 he was brought from Newgate to Westminster, and when the speaker asked him what he had to say to the charges of treason he answered by a paper in which he denied their right to try him (Kingdom's Weekly Intelligencer, 9–16 Feb. 1647; Clarendon State Papers, ii. App. xlv). This paper was ​published under the title, ‘Judge Jenkin's Plea.’ An ordinance for his attainder was passed, and on 21 Feb. he was brought to the bar of the house by the serjeant-at-arms, but absolutely refused to kneel or do any other obeisance, for which he was fined 1,000l. When the ordinance was read he replied that the house had no power to charge him, and ‘ran into a discourse of many particulars touching the laws of the land’ (Commons' Journals, 21 Feb. 1647–8). Wood says that Henry Marten pleaded to his fellow-members that ‘sanguis martyrum est semen ecclesiæ,’ on which account it was decided to spare his life, and the proceedings were adjourned. Jenkins at once issued ‘The Answer of Judge Jenkins to the Imputation put upon his Plea in Chancery,’ and his ‘Remonstrance to the Lords and Commons of the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster, the 21 of February, 1647.’ In ‘A True and Just Account of what was transacted in the Commons House … A.D. 1648’ (London, 1719, 8vo), it is stated, without corroboration elsewhere, that the house subsequently offered Jenkins a free pardon and a pension of 1,000l. a year if he submitted to its power, but that he indignantly repudiated the proposal. Early in October 1648 Jenkins was removed from Newgate to Wallingford Castle, where he appears to have written a letter (said to have been intercepted) on 12 Oct. to King Charles, urging him to sign the treaty of Newport; its substance is given in ‘The Declaration of David Jenkins … concerning the Parliament's Army, with a copy of his Letter to his Dread Soveraign the King’ (London, 16 Oct. 1648, 4to). According to Wood he ‘used his utmost endeavours to set the parliament and army at odds, thereby to promote the king's cause, but it did not take effect according to his desire’ (Athenæ, iii. 643). In a pamphlet entitled ‘The Army's Indemnity’ (1647) he argued that the Act of Indemnity just passed by parliament was insufficient to secure the soldiers. On 14 March 1648–9, it was ordered that at the next assizes Jenkins should be indicted ‘in the proper county’ by the judges on the Welsh circuit, and on 28 June 1650 it was again ordered that he and three others should be tried in the high court ‘upon their former offences,’ with the view of making examples of them as a reprisal for the murder of Antony Ascham (d. 1650) [q. v.] (Commons' Journals, 14 March 1648, 28 June 1650; Cal. State Papers, Dom., 28 June 1650). But on neither occasion was any action taken. An order for his removal to Windsor Castle was made on 19 Nov. 1652, and on 12 Jan. 1656–7 it was resolved that he should be liberated from Windsor and ‘allowed to come of Gray's Inn’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom.) After this he lived for a time at Oxford. In June 1657 he was again at Wallingford (Wynne, Life of Sir Leoline Jenkins, ed. 1724, ii. 643), still apparently under surveillance, and does not appear to have been fully released till the Restoration (cf. Reports, Introd.). According to the first edition of Wood's ‘Athenæ Oxonienses,’ ‘after the restoration of K. Charles II it was expected by all that he [Jenkins] should be made one of the judges in Westminster Hall, and so might he have been, would he have given money to the then lord chancellor.’ For this charge against Lord Clarendon, Wood was expelled from the university of Oxford (see a report of the proceedings in Miscellanies on Several Curious Subjects, London, 1714, 8vo; Wood, Athenæ, ed. Bliss, i. cxl–cxlix); but his statement is supported by John Aubrey and Hearne (Wood, loc. cit.) Jenkins amply deserves the eulogium of Wood, who describes him as a ‘vigorous maintainer of the rights of the crown, a heart of oak, and a pillar of the law.’ He was elected a bencher of Gray's Inn in 1660, and soon afterwards retired to his own estate at Hensol in Glamorganshire, where he became a patron of Welsh bards, and presided at the annual eisteddfod held at Ystradowen in the neighbourhood. He died 6 Dec. 1663, and was buried at Cowbridge. By his wife Cecil, daughter of Sir Thomas Aubrey of Llantrithyd, and granddaughter of Dr. William Aubrey [q. v.], he had four sons and six daughters, but his issue soon became extinct in the male line. A great-granddaughter married Charles Talbot, lord Talbot (1684–1737) [q. v.], lord chancellor (Clark, Genealogies of Glamorgan, pp. 203–4, 340).
A collection of Jenkins's controversial pamphlets was published in 1648 under the title ‘The Works of that Grave and Learned Lawyer, Judge Jenkins’ (London, 12mo), which, in addition to the pamphlets already referred to, contains the following: 1. ‘Lex Terræ, or a Briefe Discourse collected out of the Fundamentall Lawes of the Land.’ 2. ‘Some Seeming Objections to Master Prinn's … answered,’ dated from the Tower, 28 April 1647. 3. ‘A Declaration of Mr. David Jenkins,’ dated 17 May 1647. 4. ‘The Cordiall of Judge Jenkins for the Good People of London, in reply to a Thing called An Answer to the poysonous seditious Paper of Mr. D. J. by H. P[arker] of Lincolns Inne.’ The seditious paper referred to was the ‘Vindication.’ Parker replied in ‘The Cordiall of Mr. D. Jenkins … answered’ [London, 1647, 4to]. 5. ‘The Inconveniences of a Long-continued Parliament.’ 6. ‘An Apology ​for the Army.’ 7. ‘A Scourge for the Directory and Revolting Synod, which hath sitten these five years, more for 4s. a day than for Conscience Sake.’ A second edition of this volume was published in 1681 (London, 12mo) under the title of ‘Jenkinsius Redivivus.’ Several of these pamphlets have also been published in Lord Somers's ‘Collection of Tracts’ (vol. v.) The ‘Works’ contain an engraving of the judge by William Marshall, and underneath some verses in his praise by John Birkenhead.
Jenkins was also the author of the following works: 8. ‘A Preparative to the Treaty: or a Short … Expedient for Agreement and Peace tendered to the two Houses of Parliament,’ London, 1648, 4to. 9. ‘God and the King; or the Divine Constitution of the Supreme Magistrate, especially in the Kingdom of England,’ London, 1649, 4to. 10. ‘A Proposition for the Safety and Happiness of the King and Kingdom, by a Lover of Sincerity and Peace,’ London, 1667, 4to.
Wood mentions three other works which were published under Jenkins's name, but were ‘disowned and disclaimed by him.’ They are ‘Pacis Consultum. The Antiquity, Extent, &c., of several Countrey-Corporation-Courts, especially the Court Leet,’ London, 1657, 8vo; ‘Exact Method for Keeping a Court of Survey for setting forth and bounding of Manors;’ and ‘Some Difficult Questions in Law, proposed unto and resolved by Judge Jenkings,’ London, 1657, 8vo.
During his long imprisonment most of his time was devoted to writing his reports, in Latin and French, of eight hundred leading cases in common law, a work which he entitled ‘Rerum Judicatarum Centuriæ Octo,’ London, 1661, folio. A second edition, known as ‘Eight Centuries of Reports,’ was published in 1734 (London, fol.); a third edition, translated by Theodore Barlow, in 1771, and a fourth, with additional notes by C. F. Morell, in 1885 (London, 8vo). The cases selected are from those decided in the exchequer chamber, and upon writs of error from 1220 to 1623, all obsolete cases in the year-books and the common abridgments being omitted. Jenkins's method is to give a short statement of the case and the decision, with a marginal reference to the authority from which it was taken. But when the case is important he adds a note of his own discussing the principle, and furnishing any necessary illustrations, so that his reports form a commentary on the judicial decisions of the preceding reigns. This method was in Jenkins's time unique, but has been generally adopted since the publication of John William Smith's ‘Leading Cases’ in 1837 (Bridgman, Legal Bibliography, pp. 174–6; Wallace, Reporters, ed. 1882, pp. 69–72).
[Authorities quoted; Introduction to Lex Terræ in Jenkins's Works; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. i. cxl–cxlix, and iii. 643–8; Lloyd's Memoires, pp. 589–90; Roland Phillips's Civil War in Wales and the Marches, i. 216, 254, 347, 387, ii. 286, 341.]
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