Sir William Thompson, Brother of Stevens Thompson, Attorney-General of Virginia

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Sir William Thompson, Brother of Stevens Thompson, Attorney-General of Virginia

   Kate Mason Rowland

   William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 3.
   (Jan., 1895, pp. 154-162.

                SIR WILLIAM THOMPSON, BROTHER OF STEVENS THOMPSON,
                         ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF VIRGINIA.

                         By MISS KATE MASON ROWLAND.

   Sir William Thompson was born, most probably, at "Hollin Hall", near Ripon, Yorkshire,
as estate purchased by his grandfather, Henry Thompson in 1658.  He and his elder brother,
Stevens Thompson, were admitted into the Middle Temple in 1688, where they are entered as 
sons of "William Thomson, one of the Masters of the Utter Bar."

Page 155.

Le Neve, in his Pedigree of Knights, etc., has:

   "Thompson, Middlesex.  Sir William Thompson, one of the King's Serjeants-at-Law,
knighted at Whitehall, 31 October, 1689.  See a coat and quarterings by the name of Thomson,
my MSS. book of Docketts of Arms called Shirley, page 103, if the family have a right to
that coat.


   "Sir William Thompson, Serjeant-at-Law, knighted as above, died . . . day of . . ., 169-;
buried at . . . . . . . .
                                 ____
                                  |
                                  |
                                  |
   _______________________________
   |
William Thompson, a barrister at law   =   . . . . , Daughter of Sir Christopher
son and heir; Member of Parliament         Conyers, Bt., of Harden, in the Bish-
for Orford in Suffolk, and one of the      oprick of Durham, relict of Sir Will.
managers against Doctor Sacheverell.       Blackett, bart., of Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Knighted ... day of ...  Recorder          Married 1711 to her second husband.
of London and Solicitor-General."

   Sir William Thompson is here spoken of as his father's heir, and no mention is made of
his elder brother, who is overlooked also by Woolrych in his sketch of the earlier Sir
William. In the Lives of the Recorders of London, by Frith, it is stated that Sir William
Thompson was elected to that office on the 31st of March, 1714, by the casting vote of the
Lord Mayor, and was sworn the 8th of April, 1715.  He was made Solicitor-General in 1716;
called to be Serjeant-at-law on the 26th of November, 1729, having accepted the office of
Coursitor Baron of the Exchequer the previous August; and in this same year he was raised
to the bench as a Judicial Baron of the Exchequer Court.  He was probably knighted on the
accession of George I., and he is called Sir William Thompson in the first Parliament of
George I., 1715.  Sir William Thompson was Recorder of the city of Ipswich, Suffolk, from
1707 to the time of his death in 1739.  In Parliament he first represented Orford, and then
Ipswich, retaining his seat there, with only a short interval in 1710, from 1708 until 1729.
His namesake, William Thompson, the member from scarborough, Yorkshire, was for a number of
years in Parliament contemporaneously with Sir William Thompson.  And while the latter was
a Whig, the other William Thompson was apparently a Tory, as he retained his seat in 1710,
when so many of the opposite party lost their election.  Sir William Thompson was returned
for Orford in 1708, and for Ipswich in 1714, 1722, and 1727.  Nobles, in his manuscript
account of the Recorders of London, says that Sir William Thompson's country seat was
"Osterley Park", Heston, Middlesex.  He died at Bath, on the 27th of October, 1739.  His
tomb is not to


Page 156.

be found at Heston; nor was he buried at Hampstead, where the tomb of his wife is to be seen.
He may have been buried at Bath or possibly in the Temple grave-yard by the side of his 
parents.

   Sir William Thompson was married to Lady Blackett in 1711.  In Foster's London Marriage
Licenses there is recorded the marriage of a William Thompson, of the Middle Temple, a 
bachelor of twenty-three years, in 1701, to Mrs. Joyce Brent, of St. Clement Danes, Middlesex.
So there must have been two of the name barristers of the Middle Temple at the same time,
unless Sir William Thompson married twice.  He was admitted to the Temple in 1688, though
not called to the bar until ten years later, according to Fox.

   Sir William Thompson's career in Parliament is noticeable in its connection with the
several state trials, or prosecutions by impeachment, which took place in the reigns of
Queen Anne and George I.  Of these, the most famous, perhaps, was the impeachment of Dr.
Sacheverell.  Townsend, in his Memoirs of the House of Commons, notices the "frequency and
futilit of impeachment during the three reigns that succeeded the Revolution".  Of the
sixteen that were instituted between 1689 and 1724, but few were carried to a trial; in the
case of Dr. Sacheverell the sentence was so light as to seem a mockery; and in two only,
adds our authority, the trial of Lord Derwentwater and his brother peers for high treason,
"and the prosecution of Lord Macclesfield for perculation was the event worthy of the
occasion".  No impeachment has been instituted in Parliament now for one-half a century, and
it seems probable that this formidable weapon of the Commons will be allowed to lie idle in
the future.  The trial of Dr. Sacheverell took place in February and March, 1710, and
William Thompson, who had aided in drawing up the articles of impeachment, was entrusted with
the enforcement of the third charge.  Henry Sacheverell, a fashionable Tory clergyman of
London, had taken occasion in two sermons, one of them preached at St. Paul's on Guy Fawkes'
Day, 1709, to inveigh against the Whig ministry, asserting that both church and state were
in danger from the party in power.  The sermons were both printed, and the latter, dedicated
to the Lord Mayor, attracted wide-spread interest, and created no small excitement.  The
Tories praised the bold divine, and the Whigs as loudly condemned him.  The ministry finally,
under the leadership of Lord Godolphin, resolved upon his impeachment for high crimes and
misdeameanors.  It proved to be a suicidal measure for the


Page 157.

ministry; and with our modern ideas of the freedom of the press and of the pulpit, such a
prosecution would seem unjustifiable from any point of view.  But there were great questions
of government still open and demanding settlement at this era, and this trial was the 
occasion and the excuse for their discussion and solution.  "Whether the title to the crown
was founded on hereditary right or original contract; whether the duty of the subject could
ever be compatible with resistance", was the problem, says Townsend, which this trial
completely solved; and he adds:  "The true theory concerning the origin of civil government
was debated there with as much fervour as the most momentous dogma in religion, and elicited
a course of eloquence, both in the attack and defence, well worthy of the great occasion".
Of this trial, Burton, in his Reign of Queen Anne, says that whoever has patience to read it
"will, if he be a student of constitutional history, have reaped for himself a rich harvest
of constitutional and historical lore.  It is such a contribution to this great school of
knowledge as no one man, however gifted, could have contributed.  It is of an infinite
variety.  The great orator and statesman gives forth his announcement and vindication of the
ancient liberties of England in brilliant and impassioned oratory, and the great sage of
precedent extracts pregnant matter out of the depths of his learning and wisdom . . . .  All

passed before an audience far too fastidious to tolerate either turgid declamation or solemn
pottering in trifles.  Though thus made up of many and various parts, there is a completeness
of harmony throughout that disqualifies one isolated passage from duly expressing the spirit
of the whole".  Of this distinguished array of legal talent, the young barrister and member
for Orford, William Thompson, formed a part.  Prominent among the managers of the impeachment
may be named Sir Joseph Jekyll, Sir Peter King, Walpole, Lechmere, and Parker.  Lord Chief-
Justice Holt died during the trial, and Sir Thomas Parker filled his place.  To him, after-
wards the erring Earl of Macclesfield, "the palm of eloquence and argument was awarded by
general assent", says Townsend.  The great lawyers, Sir Simon Harcourt and Mr. Phipps, were
the most notable names on the opposite side; and their advocacy of the accused and their
defence of his position as a good churchman and a loyal subject were ably sustained.  When
the articles of impeachment, which were four in number, were drawn up, Mr. Harley wished to
leave out the word "seditious", but he was overruled by Mr. Thompson and others.

Page 158.

The comittee who had drawn up the articles were ordered by the Commons to be the managers
and to make good the impeachment.  After a formidable preamble, the article charged:  first,
that Dr. Sacheverell had suggested that the means which brought about the late Revolution
were unjustifiable; secondly, he had maintained "that the toleration granted by law is
unreasonable, and the allowance of it unwarrantable"; thirdly, he had suggested and asserted
"that the Church of England is in great peril and adversity under her Majesty's administration";
fourthly, he had suggested "that her Majesty's administration, both in ecclesiastical and
civil affairs, tends to the destruction of the constitution", etc; and that he "charges the
government with a general mal-administration".  Mr. Thompson was the first to speak in
support of the third article, on the third day of the trial, and he spoke again on the tenth
day, in "reply to such answsers as had been offered to this article".  That he acquitted
himself to the satisfaction of his party is attested by the fact that he was engaged as
junior counsel in the proceedings against the rioters which took place at Old Bailey in the
following April.  When the long and singular trial came to a close, the verdict against Dr.
Sacheverell suspended him from his office for three years, and condemned his two sermons to
be burnt at the Royal Exchange.  But he was now the popular hero.  His friends were found
in all ranks.  Fine ladies had his portrait painted on their fans and handkerchiefs.  
Fashionable people named their children after him, and invited him to christen them; and
mobs of the lower classes paraded he streets with the party cry, "High Church and Sacheverell!"
The reverend doctor seems to have been scarcely worthy of this enthusiasm; but its existence
testified to the attachment that the nation felt for the Church of England, which, in the
opinion of the Tory majority, had suffered through him.

   With the two sermons of Dr. Sacheverell the House of Lords condemned to be burned "the
judgment and decree of the University of Oxford, 1683".  This judgment condemned certain
propositions, of which the first was that "All civil authority is derived from the people".

This, to us, self-evident axiom, abjured by Oxford in 1683, and reasserted, by implication,
in the action of the Parliament of 1710, with several others of a like character, recalls
the articles of the virginia Bill of Rights.  George Mason, its author, it is not unlikely,
would be familiar with this paper and with the proceedings of an impeachment, in which
"constitutional and

Page 159.


historical lore" were so richly displayed, and in which, moreover, one of his own family,
his mother's uncle, had borne an honorable part.

   The Parliament of 1710 came to an untimely end with its unpopular action in the impeach-
ment of the high-church clergyman, and at the next general election there were but four of
the managers of the trial who were returned to their seats.  William Thompson contested his
seat with a Tory opponent, and his petition was voted by a Tory house "frivolous, false, and
vexatious", and he was forced to pay the costs incurred by the successful candidate, such
was the force of the prejudice that he had inspired.  In the Parliament of 1714 William
Thompson was returned to the House as a member from Ipswich.  This was the last of Queen
Anne's Parliaments; and during this session, as has been said by Townsend, "the chances of
the Stuart and the Hanover dynasties hung equally poised".  Lord Bolingbroke was at the
head of the Jacobite party, and many others were secretly in correspondence with the exiled
family.  It was at this time that the Schism Bill was passed, in order to strengthen the
Tory ascendency; but Queen Anne's death just at this crisis prevented its operation, and the
Whigs were once more in full power.  In the first parliament of George I., 1715, Sir
William Thompson's name appears in the list of members as a representative for Ipswich, he
having been knighted on the king's accession, apparently.


   In this year took place the unfortunate Jacobite rebellion in the interests of the Stuart
dynasty.  But the nation as a whole was in favor of the Protestant Succession, and preferred
the German George, though a foreigner, to their native prince, for the sake of the principles

that he represented.  The civil war was of short duration, and the leaders of the defeated
party, the Earl of Derwentwater and six other peers, were impeached by the Commons for high
treason.  Of these, three were finally respited, and two made their escape from the Tower,
two only suffering the extreme penalty of the law.  Lord Nithsdale, by the aid of his devoted
wife, and dressed in woman's attire, managed to elude the vigilance of the guards; and Lord
Wintoun, making use of his mechanical skill, sawed through the bars of his prison widown.  The
trial of Lord Wintoun took place two months after the case of the other nobles had been
disposed of.  Sir William Thompson, as one of the prominent Whig lawyers in the House, was
selected by the Commons to assist in the management of the impeachment.  The trial was
opened by Mr. Hamp-

Page 160.

den and Sir Joseph Jekyll; and Sir William Thompson, with Sir Joseph Jekyll, examined the
witnesses.  After a speech by Mr. Cowper, brother of Lord Cowper, the high steward, Sir
William Thompson made the closing argument, speaking at some length as to the evidences of
the guilt of the accused.  On the second day the counsel for the prisoner spoke, and they were
answered by Walpole, Cowper, and Sir William Thompson.  The trial lasted for three days,
from the fifteenth to the nineteenth of March, 1716.  Townsend, in his Memoirs of the House
of Commons, in his account of this trial, refers to the hardships to which the English law
at that time condemned state prisoners in not permitting them a full defence by their counsel.
Lord Wintoun was an eccentric and, it was said, a weak-minded nobleman.  On this occasion,
whether from policy, or because he was really unable to do so, he refused to state the point
of law which his counsel wished to make.  It was necessary that the prisoner should state it,
and then the counsel could argue upon it.  Sir Constantine Phipps, one of the prisoner's
counsel, violated the rules by speaking for the prisoner; but he was immediately silenced.
He then asked leave to say but ten words more of explanation; but Sir William Thompson re-
joined:  "My lords, we humbly insist upon it that that gentleman be not heard one word more".
Sir Constantine was then reprimanded for presuming "to be so forward as to speak for the
prisoner at the bar before a point of law was first stated".  And again, when another one of
Lord Wintoun's counsel alluded to his client's condition of mind, he was stopped, as "going
into a matter of fact", when he only had leave to speak to the point of law, which was
stated. Lord Wintoun, who was cleverer, perhaps, than he seemed, was the last of the famous
Seton family, distinguished for generations in Scottish history, and associated with the 
Stuart soveriegns, to whom they had many times proved their loyalty; and it is not surprising
that a Seton should be found in arms in support of the luckless Pretender of 1715.  Lord
Wintoun ended his romantic and chequered life in Rome in 1749.

   Another state prisoner at this time, who had been committed to the Tower before the out-
break of the civil war, was the brilliant and accomplished Earl of Oxford.  As Robert Harley
he had been three times Speaker of the House of Commons, where, as Townsend says, he was
"stabbed into popularity" by the pen-knife of Guiscard.  As Secretary of State and Treasurer,
Lord Oxford had incurred odium for certain public measures, notable for the pro-

Page 161.

ceedings that led to the peace of Utrecht.  In 1717, after two years' imprisonment, Lord
Oxford asked for a trial.  The sixteen articles of impeachment charged him with treason as
well as with high crimes and misdeameanors.  But the feeling against him had in a great 
measure subsided, and the House of Lords sought for an excuse to release him.  In the 
Commons, Nicholas Lechmere and Sir William Thompson urged the prosecution.  The proceedings
were opened by Mr. Hampden, and Sir Joseph Jekyll was about to speak in advocacy of the
first article, when an adjournment was moved. The Lords then urged that the Commons should
not proceed to enforce the articles charging high crimes and misdeameanors until they had
disposed of the articles, which were two in number, charging high treason.  The Commons
maintained that the articles should be taken up in the order of time, the less serious 
charges leading up to the graver ones.  On this ground of dispute the Lords dismissed the
impeachment, addressed the peers:  "My Lords, the managers for the Commons conceive it to be
the undoubted right of the Commons to proceed in their own method in maintenance of the 
articles exhibited by them, and do apprehend that this resolution of your lordships may be
of such fatal consequence to the rights and privileges of all the Commons of Great Britain
that they cannot take upon them to proceed any further without resorting to the House of
Commons for direction therein".  The lawyers led the van, as had been said, in advocating
the rights and privileges of the Commons.  However, in this case they were not to be
successful; and, to mark their resentment of this slight put upon them, they asked of the

King that the Earl might be excepted from the act of grace then extended, and their request
was granted.  Lord Oxford, it is said, was saved from trial by the fact that he had it in
his power to implicate the Duke of Marlborough has having been in correspondence with the
Pretender.  This is highly probable; and though, had the impeachment proceeded, it would not
have been possible to prove any treason, yet the ministerial accountability for compromising
acts in connection with the peace negotiations would no doubt have been made good, to the
satisfaction of a people jealous of national honor.

   Lord Oxford, as the friend of Swift and of Pope, the patron of letters, and the founder of
the Harleian Collection in the British Museum, is remembered with interest by all lovers
of literature.

Page 162.

   The journals of Parliament show Sir William Thompson speaking on several occasions in the
House in the session of 1717.  He urged compliance with the King's message asking for a
supply against Sweden.

   In November of this year the quarrel between the King and the Prince of Wales came to an
open rupture.  The former wished to control the family of the prince, and he asked the opinion
of the twelve judges whether it was the sovereign's right to direct the education and the
marriages of his grandchildren.  Ten of the judges pronouced in favor of the King's having
the power in both cases, and two of the judges opposed the right of the King to direct the
education of the royal grandchildren, maintaining that this was the father's privilege, but
asserting the King's authority in respect to directing their marriages.  This opinion was
given in 1718, and reference is made to it in the debates of Parliament in 1719, on the bill
for strengthening the Protestant interest.  The bill, passed in the twelfth year of Queen
Anne, to prevent the growth of schism, against occasional conformity, was read, and Sir
William Thompson spoke in favor of its repeal.  He "urged that the schism bill deprived
parents of their natural right of educating their children as they think proper; to which Mr.
Shippen answered:  "That it as somewhat strange to see so able a lawyer inconsistent with
himself.  For when the twelve judges were consulted in a case relating to a great family (the
Prince of Wale's children), he was of the opinion of ten of them, 'That children may be
taken from their parents, and educated as the good of the nation requires'".  To this Sir
William Thompson replied:  "That as he never was consulted, so had he never declared his
thoughts in the nice case hinted by that gentleman; and therefore he could not, with any 
color of justice, be said to have changed his opinion; but that the member who taxed him
with it, and who thereby declared against the opinion of the ten judges, if he would be
consistent with himself, must now be for the bill that repeals the Schism Act, which
restores parents to their natural rights".

                               [To be Continued.]