and what I
mean) it may be you may hear further from us, in a deferring the
execution.

On the intercession of 'some divines of the church of Winchester'
execution was respited till 2nd of September; and her sentence was
afterwards commuted to beheading. She was accordingly beheaded on the
afternoon of the 2nd of September 1685 in the market-place of
Winchester.

In 1689, on the petition of her daughters Mrs. Lloyd and Mrs. Askew, her
attainder was annulled by Act of Parliament on the ground that the
verdict was 'injuriously extorted and procured by the menaces and
violences and other illegal practices of George Lord Jeffreys, baron of
Wem, then Lord Chief-Justice of the King's Bench.'[63]

FOOTNOTES:

[53] George Jeffreys, Baron Jeffreys of Wem (1648-1689), was born, of
good family, near Wrexham in Denbighshire. He was educated at
Shrewsbury, St. Paul's, Westminster, and Trinity College, Cambridge,
where he was admitted in 1662. He first practised at the Old Bailey and
the Middlesex Sessions, then held at Hicks's Hall. His learning in law
was never extensive; but his natural abilities were very great, and, as
far as one can judge from the reports, he practised cross-examination
with much more real skill than most of his contemporaries. In fact, his
cross-examinations from the bench, though scandalous and brutal to the
last degree, seem to be the earliest instances we have of the art as now
understood. He was appointed Common Serjeant in 1671, left the popular
party and was made Solicitor-General to the Duke of York in 1677, and
became Recorder of London in 1678. He did what he could to aid in the
persecutions connected with the Popish Plot, and was made Chief-Justice
of Chester in 1680. The House of Commons petitioned the King for his
removal from office in the same year, for the part he had taken in
opposing petitions for a Parliament; and he was reprimanded by the House
and resigned his Recordership the same year, but was made Chairman of
the Middlesex Sessions soon afterwards. He was the chief promoter of the
_Quo Warranto_ proceedings by which the City was deprived of its
charter, and was engaged in the prosecution of Lord Russell. He was made
Lord Chief-Justice in 1683. He presided at the trials of Algernon Sidney
and Titus Oates. He was called to the House of Lords in 1685, and tried
Richard Banks in the same year. On his return from the 'Bloody Assize'
he was made Lord Chancellor. He suggested the r