Christopher Wray (English judge)

The ancient doubts, revived by Lord Campbell as to his legitimacy, were removed by the publication in 1853 of the wills of his mother[1] (by her second marriage wife of John Wycliffe, auditor of issues in the Richmond district) and his brother-in-law, Ralph Gower.

[4] Tradition ascribes to him the adornment of the college with the rich Renaissance west porch, and a deed dated show of 16 July 1587s that he had then built or rebuilt a portion of the edifice containing three stories of four rooms apiece, which were appropriated to the use of two fellows and six scholars, whose maintenance he secured by a rentcharge.

Like most of the gentlemen of the north, he was probably a Catholic at heart, but he evidently steered a wary course, for in the religious census of justices of the peace, compiled by episcopal authority in 1564, he is entered as ' indifferent.'

In his address to the throne on presentation he expatiated with much learning and eloquence in praise of the royal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical, touched lightly but loyally on supply, and gratefully acknowledged the free course which her majesty allowed to the administration of justice.

The only state trial in which as puisne he took part was that in Trinity term 1572 of John Hall and Francis Rolston for conspiracy to effect the release of Mary, Queen of Scots.

He was a strong judge, who well knew how to sustain the dignity of his office, and showed as much firmness in restraining by prohibition an excess of jurisdiction on the part of the ecclesiastical commission in 1581 as in enforcing the laws against the sectaries in that and subsequent years.

He was present at Fotheringhay Castle as assessor to the tribunal before which the Queen of Scots pleaded in vain for her life (14 October 1586), but appears to have taken no part in the proceedings.

He presided, vice Sir Thomas Bromley (1530–1587), absent through illness, at the subsequent trial in the Star Chamber of the unfortunate secretary of state, William Davison, whose indiscreet zeal he blandly censured as bonum sed non-bene before pronouncing the ruthless sentence of the court (28 March 1587).

Wray's judgments and charges are recorded in the reports of Dyer, Plowden, Coke, and Croke, Cobbett's State Trials, and Nicolas's Life of Davison.

His speech to the throne in 1571 may be read in Sir Simonds D'Ewes's Journals of all the Parliaments during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, or in Cobbett's Parliamentary History.