James Ley

, a younger Son of Henry Ley of Teffont-Evias in Wilts. Son of Henry Ley of Ley, in the parish of Bere-Ferres in Devonsh. Esq; was born at Teffonts-Evias, became a Commoner of Brasenose coll. in the beginning of 1569. aged 17. or thereabouts, took one degree in Arts, and on the first of May 1577. he was admitted a Student of Lincolns Inn, where making great proficiency in the Municipal Law, which was much advanced by his Academical learning, he became a Councellour of great repute, was call’d to the Bench. 22. Eliz. and in the 44. of that Qu. was Lent reader of that Inn. After which, his profound learning and other great abilities deservedly rais’d him to sundry degrees of honour and eminent employment: For in the 1. of Jac. 1. he was called to the state and degree of Serjeant at Law, and in the year following he was constituted Chief Justice of the Kings-Bench in Ireland, in which place he continued till Mich. term 6. Jac. 1. and then, being a Knight, he was made Attorney of the Court of Wards and Liveries in England. Shortly after he obtained a Privy Seal from the Kings Maj. dat. 15. May 7. Jac. 1. to take place in the said Court of the Kings Attorney General, which till then was never used, but since hath constantly been observed. By virtue of that Seal, and by appointment of Rob. Earl of Salisbury, then Master of the said Court, he took the place the same day of Sir Hen. Hobart Knight, then Attorney General to his Majesty. During his continuance in that place he was made a Baronet, and in the 18. Jac. he was removed from that Court, having been Attorney 12 years, and upwards, and was made Lord Chief Justice of the Kings-Bench in England. In 22. Jac. he was made Lord High Treasurer of Engl. and a Counsellour of State, and on the last day of the same month, he was advanced to the dignity (*)(*) Baronage of England, Tom. 3. p. 451. b. of a Baron, by the title of Lord Ley of Ley before mentioned. In the 1. of Car. 1. he was created Earl of Marlborough in wilts, and in the fourth of that King, he resign’d his place of Treasurer, and was made Lord President of the Council. He was a person of great gravity, ability and integrity, and of the same mind in all conditions. He hath written,

Treatise concerning Wards and Liveries, Lond. 1642. oct. composed by the author, while he was Attorney of the Court of Wards and Liveries.

Reports of divers resolutions in Law, arising upon cases in the Court of Wards, and other Courts at Westminster, in the Reigns of King James and King Charles. Lond. 1659. fol. He also collected, with intentions to publish, some of the historical writers of Ireland: for which end he caused to be transcribed and made fit for the Press, the Annals of John Clynne a Fri [•] r Minor of Kilkenny, (who lived in the time of K. Ed. 3.) the Annals of the Priory of St. John the Evangelist of Kilkenny, and the Annals of Multifernan, Resse and Clonmell, &c. But his weighty occasions did afterwards divert his purpose. After his death the copies came into the hands of Henry Earl of Bathe, who also did intend to make them publick, but what diverted him, I cannot tell. Our author, Sir Jam. Ley E. of Marlborough, ended his days in his lodgings in Lincolns Inn on the 14. of March in sixteen hundred twenty and eight,1628-9. and was buried in an Isle joyning to the Church of Westbury in Wilts. in which Parish he had purchased an Estate. Over his grave was soon after a stately monument erected by Hen. Ley his Son, who succeeded him in his honour, begotten on the body of his Father’s first Wife, named Mary, Daughter of John Pettie of Stoke-Talmach and Tetsworth in Com. Oxon: Esq;.