page_title: Humphrey Mackworth (Parliamentarian)
section_title: Legal and judicial appointments
hierarchical_section_title: Humphrey Mackworth (Parliamentarian) / Legal and judicial appointments
caption_attribution_description: English: Quaker James Nayler (1618–1660) being the pilloried Français&#160;: Le quaker James Nayler (1618–1660) au pilori
context_page_description: Humphrey Mackworth was an English lawyer, judge, and politician of Shropshire landed gentry origins who rose to prominence in the Midlands, the Welsh Marches and Wales during the English Civil War. He was the Parliamentarian military governor of Shrewsbury in the later phases of the war and under The Protectorate. He occupied several important legal and judicial posts in Chester and North Wales, presiding over the major trials that followed the Charles Stuart's invasion in 1651. In the last year of his life, he attained national prominence as a member of Oliver Cromwell's Council and as a Member of the House of Commons for Shropshire in the First Protectorate Parliament.
context_section_description: In September 1647 Mackworth added the recordership of Wenlock to that of Shrewsbury and, at some stage, he also became recorder of Bridgnorth, although this is not attested before December 1653, when he was ordered to consider a petition concerning compensation for the burning of the town more than seven years earlier. In March 1648 he was appointed Attorney General for North Wales, alongside his Gray's Inn colleague Thomas Fell. In June Mackworth was granted a commission of oyer and terminer to sit with Peter Warburton and Robert Duckenfield to try conspirators arrested by William Brereton in connection with a royalist plot to seize Chester Castle.
  In the same year he became Vice Chamberlain of the Palatine County of Chester. This involved preparing cases to be decided by the Chamberlain, who headed the county's judiciary and administration, as well as deputising for him on the numerous occasions he was absent. A manuscript thought to date from around the time of Mackworth's birth seeks to define the preconditions for the success of the distinct local judicial system of Cheshire:
  Fyrste that there bee a good Vice Chamberlaine appointed to governe the Courte well and to please and content the Countrey, who must bee no comon Lawyer, such being men more fitt to bee imploied in Courtes of Learninge then in cases of Conscience, for yf those shall bee corrupted with affection (as all men of flesh and bloud may bee) they have a farre greater scope to do amysse than other men, inclyninge sometimes on the one side with the Lawe...It will be good therefore in this Office, to appointe an honest reasonable gentleman to be Vice Chamberlayne, such a one as feareth God, regardeth the honor of him under whom hee serveth, and respecteth his own credytte.''
  Mackworth seems to have done his best to "please and content the country" promising to exercise circumspection in issuing writs relating to the City of Chester, where there were jurisdictional conflicts dating back at least a century. In 1649 Mackworth was appointed deputy chief justice of the Chester circuit. On 20 July 1649 he was consequently removed from his post as attorney general, as was Fell, who was moved to join him at the Chester circuit, taking the post of Puisne Justice of Chester: fittingly they were called to the bench of their Inn together in the following year.
  Mackworth was active in trials resulting from the royalist uprisings and invasion of 1651. By May there were numbers of suspects in custody at Chester and Liverpool and the Council of State recruited Mackworth to help with investigations. In June he was seconded as a commissioner, along with Mytton and others, to the court dealing with a rebellion in Cardiganshire. A week after the Battle of Worcester, the Council of State resolved that James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby, and a number of other key figures in the invasion and the supporting rebellions should face a show trial before a "council of war" in Chester, specifying Mackworth first and foremost to take part in the reckoning. The trials were held under a specific act of 12 August, prohibiting communication with Charles Stuart. Among the others tried before Mackworth in October were Sir Timothy Fetherstonhaugh, and John Benbow. Derby had led the incursion from the Isle of Man and Fetherstonhaugh had joined the ensuing Lancashire rebellion, defeated at the Battle of Wigan Lane. Although he was acting as judge, not prosecutor, the Council briefed Mackworth on how best to present witnesses and evidence against the defendants, as well as supplying him with its own papers to be introduced into the proceedings as he saw fit. They were subsequently found guilty and beheaded. The defector Benbow was discovered hiding in Shrewsbury and was named as one of the "fit persons to be brought to trial, and made examples of justice," grouped with Derby and Fetherstonhaugh as a prime example. The Council of State singled him out in a letter to Mackworth as requiring to be tried "speedily and effectually." After his trial he was returned to Shrewsbury and executed by firing sq
caption: James Nayler, a Quaker leader, being pilloried and whipped, in stark contrast to Harrison's treatment by Mackworth and Fell.
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