Pollexfen, Sir Henry

, an English lawyer and judge, was descended from a good family in Devonshire, where he probably was educated, as Prince intimates that he was of no university. He studied the law, however, at one of the inns of court, and acquired very considerable practice in the reign of Charles II. He was counsel for the earl of Danby in 1679, whom he advised to plead his pardon and the corporation of London afterwards engaged him to plead, with Treby, in behalf of their charter. Iti 1688 he sat as one of the members for the city of Exeter, and he was retained as one of the counsel for the bishops. After the revolution he was knighted, called a serjeant April 11, 1689, and appointed chief justice of the common pleas on May 5 following but he held this office a very short time, dying in 1692. Burnet calls him “an honest and learned, but perplexed lawyer.” In 1702 was published his “Arguments; and Reports in some special cases in the King’s Bench from 22 to 36 Car. II. with some cases | in the Common Pleas and Exchequer, together with divers decrees in the High Court of Chancery, upon Limitations of Trusts of Terms for years,” fol. with two tables. The copies of these reports, Mr. Bridgman informs us, are very incorrect, varying in the pages, and in the dates. In the pages there is a chasm from 173 to 176, and from 181 to 184, with other errors. 1

1

Noble’s Continuation of Granger. Prince’s Worthies. Burnet’s Times. Bridgman’s Legal Bibliography.