Jerome Alexander

Sir Jerome Alexander (c.1585–1670) was an English-born barrister, judge and politician who spent much of his career in Ireland(after he had been professionally ruined in England)and became a substantial Irish landowner. He was a noted benefactor of Trinity College Dublin. As a judge he was so ruthless in securing guilty verdicts in criminal cases, and in imposing the death penalty on the guilty party, that for many yearsafter hisdeaththe saying "to be Alexandered" was an Irish synonym for being hanged.

Hisprecise date of birth is uncertain, but he was stated in 1637 to beseveral years older than Sir Maurice Eustace, who was born about 1590. He was born at Gressenhall,Norfolk, the eldest son of Jerome Alexander senior of Thorpland, an employee of Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel; the younger Jerome was also employed for a time as steward and bailiffto the Earl, and remained on friendly terms with him in later life. Elrington Ballstates that the Alexander family wereof Jewish origin. He was educated at Aylsham school, and thenatGonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1609. He entered Furnivall's Inn and then proceeded to Lincoln's Inn in 1617, and was called to the bar in 1623.

Disgrace

Hislegal career in Englandwas destroyedby afinding of professional misconduct against him: unusually,this did not arise from his services to a client. He was, unlike most barristers, very litigious on his own behalf, and in 1626 the Star Chamber found him guilty of tampering with evidence in one of his own lawsuits; he was disbarred, fined and given a prison sentence. He moved to Ireland,where he entered the King's Inn and began topractice at the Irish Bar. It is unclear if the Benchers of the King's Inn werethen aware of hiscriminal record; if not,they certainly learned of it withinthe next few years.In 1633 he received a Royal pardon, oncondition that he did not return to legal practice in England. In 1644 he published his Breviate, a 100-page pamphlet in defence of his actions. It gives a valuable,if inevitably slanted picture of his early life, and describes all his misfortunes as being due to the machinations of his enemies (this was tobe a constant theme of Alexander's throughout his life).

He entered politics, and sat in the Irish House of Commons as MP for Lifford in the Parliament of 1634–5 and that of 1639–49. He was a friend and client of the wealthy and influential young noblemanJames Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, who granted him the impressive dwellingKilcooly Abbey in County Tipperary; he was also granted lands near Kells, County Meath.

He was also befriended byother influential figures in Ireland, including James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh: but his hope of furthercareer advancement was destroyed by the arrival in Ireland of the newLord Lieutenant, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, who despised Alexander and described him with contempt as "a scurvy puritan". Strafford,whobecamealmost all-powerful in Ireland,and who was well aware thatAlexander had beenprofessionallydisgracedin England,vetoed his appointment as an extra judge of assize in 1637: the ostensible reasonwasthat only Sir Maurice Eustace,the King's Serjeant was qualified to act as an extra judge, butStrafford'sreferences to Eustace as a "man of integrity"can alsobe read asan attack on Alexander's character. He refused him leave to go to England, and whenAlexander went anyway he was imprisoned in the Fleet Prison, nor followinghis release was he able to return to Ireland until after Strafford's downfall.Given the enmity between the two men, it is not surprising that Alexander was active in the impeachmentof Strafford in 1641.

He returned briefly to Ireland after Strafford's death,but on the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641went back to England. He was an active Royalist, and attempted toraise troops to subdue Ireland; at the same time he was among those who urged the King, if necessary, to make an alliance with the Irish Confederacy. Forattempting to arrange such an alliancehe was briefly imprisoned by Parliament in 1643, and on his releasehe went abroad.He was in the service of Charles II at the Hague in 1650, and was active in raising money for his cause, buthe returned to Ireland in 1655. He made his peace with the new regime, and acquired an estate in County Westmeath; but in view of the rewards he received in 1660, (even if they were not overly generous), there is no reason to doubt that he remained a Royalist at heart.

At the Restoration of Charles II, Alexander claimed to have played a major part in securing the support of the Irish Government for the new regime (but in fact there was virtuallyno opposition in Ireland to the Restoration),andhe complained at length about the great losses he had suffered during the Interregnum.He was rewarded with a knighthood and a place on the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland), no doubt largely though the influence of the Duke ofOrmonde,who had the last word on appointments to the Irish Bench at the Restoration,and was always loyal(some thoughtoverlyso)to old friends like Alexander. Nonetheless Alexanderwas plainly dissatisfied at being onlysecond justice of the Court: he claimed that he should have been given the office of Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, and quarreled with Sir William Aston, justiceof the Court of King's Bench (Ireland) over which of them had precedence. Rumourhad it that he challenged Aston to a duel on the issue, but to Alexander'sdisgust Aston refused the challenge. He also acted as legal adviser to the future King James II on his Irish affairs.

He was a stern enforcer of religious conformity: in his will he refers to the Church of England as "the best form of Government in all this world".On the Ulster circuit, to which he was regularly assigned,he became noted for severity against non-conforming Protestants: his ally John Bramhall, Bishop of Derry wrote that if the non-conformists "could not love him, they began to fear him".

Religious beliefsand attitudes

It has been suggested that he had an equally harsh attitude towardsRoman Catholics, but that hewas unable to show similar severity towards them, due to the relaxed attitude ofthe Duke of Ormonde, now Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Ormonderecognised that since Catholics were a large majority of theIrish population, a generous ifunofficialmeasure oftoleration of that faith was inevitable. HoweverAlexander's attitude to Roman Catholics was perhaps more complex than this:he was, for example, on friendly terms with the well-known Catholic barrister Patrick D'Arcy, whooffered to act as his second in theabortive duel with Sir WilliamAston.Through marriage Alexander himself had Catholic connections: his wife Elizabeth Havers belonged toa staunchlyRoman Catholic family [1].Her ancestorMr Havers of Thelton Hall built a chapel on the grounds of Thelton Hall which became the hub of the Catholic community in and around Diss, Norfolk, before during and after the period of the Penal Laws.Elizabeth's elder brother William Havers, who inheritedTheltonin1651, and who died in1670, was a knownrecusant. Thissuggeststhat Alexander, like manyProtestants of histime, was prepared to turn a blind eye to recusancy when it waspracticed by hisownfriends or relatives, and even to marry into an openlyCatholic family himself.

The Duke of Ormonde, who was a merciful man by the standards of the time,is known to have disapproved of Alexander's notorious severity in criminal trials. This attitudewas in notable contrast to the conduct of most other Irish judges of the time who were, like Ormonde, inclined to clemency. Where Ormonde would always reprieve a manwhere he could, Alexander, it was said, would hang as manymen as he could : on one occasionhe sentencedfourteen men to death at a single assize. His reputationfor severity became such that for many years after his death "to be Alexandered" was widely used in Ireland as a synonym for"to be hanged".

He died in the summer of 1670, and was buried in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. Much of his property, including Kilcooley Abbey, passed to his daughter Elizabeth, on condition that she did not marry an Irishman (she did not); he alsoleft £100 to each ofthethree children of his eldestsurviving daughter Jeromina Langham.His law books and other texts he left to Trinity College Dublin, with enough money to pay for a librarian, (the King's Inns, of which he was a senior member, had no facilities for storing books at the time, and had to wait till 1788 for the foundation of its own library). His friend Sir Edward Massey received many of his personal valuables and curiosities, such as "my cane with the silver head of a rhinoceros". As he had already donein his Breviate, he dwelt in his willon the machinations of his enemies, and rejoiced that God's grace had enabled him to triumph over them. More humanely,he noted that God in return required him to help thepoor and needy.

Ball suggests that he would have been most unhappy had he known that his place on the Bench would be taken by Oliver Jones,who was notedfor his impartiality towards Roman Catholics, and was widely suspected of being a secret Catholic himself. However it seems that Alexander, whose wife was a member ofa notableRoman Catholic family,may have been more tolerant of the Catholic faithin private than his severe public stance suggested .

Alexander married Elizabeth Havers, a daughter of John Havers of Shelfhanger,a noted recusant, who like Alexander's father was anemployee of the Earl of Arundel,and his wife Elizabeth Tindal of Banham; she died in 1667. They hadsixteen children, manyof whom died young. Atleast threeof his daughters survived their father:

• Jeromina, who married Humphrey Langham, and hadat leastfive children;
• Rose, who married firstly Roger Mallock of Cockington, Devon, and secondly Thomas Gorges, Deputy Governor of Maine, and died in 1671, leaving a son and a daughter;
• Elizabeth, who heeded her father's warningthat he would disinherit her if she married an Irishman,and instead married an Englishman, Sir William Barker, first of the Barker baronets of Bocking Hall, Essex. Shedied in 1702, leaving issue, including Sir William Barker, 2nd Baronet.

Elrington Ball describes Alexanderas a "strongly complex character". He was a bitter enemy but a good friend; he was merciless towards criminals,butcharitable towards the poor.Throughout his life he was inclined to blame his misfortunes on the machinations of his enemies, even blaming them for those disasters which to any detached observer would seem to be entirely his own fault.As a young barrister he was found guilty of misconduct, but as a judge prided himself on not taking bribes. He publicly called for thepersecution of Roman Catholics, but married into an openly Catholic family. Burke called him a man of strong passions, but also a man of great integrity and public spirit.

• A Breviate of a sentence given against Jerome Alexander, utter-barrister of Lincoln's Inn, in the Court of Star Chamber... with exceptions taken to the said sentence to unfold the iniquity thereof."Published in Londonin 1644.