Sir Charles Caesar (27 January 1590 – 6 December 1642), of Benington in

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

, was an English judge who served as

Master of the Rolls The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the President of the Court of Appeal (England and Wales)#Civil Division, Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales ...

in the period leading up to the outbreak of the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

; his father,

Sir Julius Caesar Sir Julius Caesar (1557/155818 April 1636) was an English lawyer, judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1589 and 1622. He was also known as Julius Adelmare. Early life and education Caesar was born near T ...

, had held the same office for many years. Caesar entered

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and ...

, aged 12 in 1602, and was a fellow of All Souls from 1605 to 1611. He was incorporated at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

with a

LL.B. A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

in 1609, but continued at Oxford, where he was made Doctor of Civil and Canon Law in 1612. In 1611 he joined the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...

and began to practice in the

ecclesiastical courts In organized Christianity, an ecclesiastical court, also called court Christian or court spiritual, is any of certain non-adversarial courts conducted by church-approved officials having jurisdiction mainly in spiritual or religious matters. Histo ...

; he was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

in 1613, and served as MP for Weymouth in the

Addled Parliament The Parliament of 1614 was the second Parliament of England of the reign of James VI and I and sat between 5 April and 7 June 1614. Lasting only two months and two days, it saw no bills pass and was not even regarded as a parliament by contemp ...

of 1614. In 1615, he was appointed a master in chancery, no doubt through the influence of his father, and continued in this post until 1639; he was also from before 1626 a judge of the Court of Audience and

Master of the Faculties The Master of the Faculties is a judicial officer in the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury and has some important powers in English law, in particular the appointment and regulation of public notaries. Since 1873 the position has al ...

, both appointments which held until his death. In 1639 the Mastership of the Rolls became vacant on the death of Sir Dudley Digges, and Caesar consulted

Archbishop Laud William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms; he was arrested by Parliament in 164 ...

on whether he might obtain it, but was warned ''"that as things then stood, the place was not like to go without more money than he thought any wise man would give for it"''. Caesar apparently paid the

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

£15,000 in a lump sum with a further £2,000 loan, and was duly appointed. Foss in his ''Lives of the Judges'' comments that "It is difficult to regret that he did not live long enough to profit by this iniquitous traffic of the judicial seat, as disgraceful to one party as the other". He had made little mark through his tenure of the post when his family was struck down by

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (W ...

in November 1642: one of his daughters died on 2 November, he himself did so on 6 December 1642 (even though, as he declared in the will he made on his death-bed, he had already had the disease as a younger man), and his eldest son, Julius, followed five days later. He was succeeded by his second son,

Henry Henry may refer to: People and fictional characters * Henry (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters * Henry (surname) * Henry, a stage name of François-Louis Henry (1786–1855), French baritone Arts and entertainmen ...

, still a minor at the time of his father's death.

References

Sources

Edward Foss Edward Foss (16 October 1787 – 27 July 1870) was an English lawyer and biographer. He became a solicitor, and on his retirement from practice in 1840, devoted himself to the study of legal antiquities. His ''Judges of England'' (9 vols., 1848� ...

, ''The Judges of England'', Volume 6 (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts, 1857

*Edward Wedlake Brayley, ''The Beauties of England and Wales '' (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, etc., 1808

* Evan Haynes, ''The Selection and Tenure of Judges'' (Newark: The National Conference of Judicial Councils, 1944, reprinted January 2005 by the Lawbook Exchange, Ltd

* Maija Jansson (ed.), ''Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons)'' (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Caesar, Charles 1590 births 1642 deaths English MPs 1614 17th-century English judges Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford Members of the Middle Temple Masters of the Rolls Knights Bachelor English people of Italian descent People from Benington, Hertfordshire

Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''* ...

Deaths from smallpox in England