James Whitelocke

Sir James Whitelocke SL (28 November 1570 – 22 June 1632) was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1610 and 1622.

The subsequent proceedings drew from him (2 July) a defence of the rights of the subject and delimitation of the royal prerogative which was long attributed to Henry Yelverton.

As legal adviser to Sir Robert Mansell, who was interested in defeating the investigation, Whitelocke drew up a series of 'exceptions' to the commission, in which he very strictly circumscribed the prerogative.

Evidence was wanting; but his contemporaneous opposition to the transfer of a cause in which he was retained from the chancery to the court of the Earl Marshal furnished a pretext for his committal to Fleet Prison (18 May); and he was not released until he had made full submission in writing (13 June).

Because of the sudden dissolution on 7 June the conference never met and on the following day Whitelocke and his colleagues were summoned to the council chamber, and told to destroy the notes of their intended speeches.

[1] Whitelocke stood, on the whole, well with Francis Bacon, to whom he owed his investiture as serjeant-at-law on 29 June 1620 and subsequent advancement on 29 October.

Shortly afterwards he was elected recorder by each of the four boroughs of Bewdley in Worcestershire, Ludlow and Bishop's Castle in Shropshire, and Poole, Cheshire.

Differences with the president of the council in the Welsh marches (the Earl of Northampton) led to Whitelocke's transfer from the Chester court to the king's bench, where he was sworn in as justice on 18 October 1624.

He was continued in office by Charles I, and in the following autumn it fell to him, as junior judge in his court, to discharge the hazardous duty of adjourning term during the plague outbreak of 1625.

He also concurred in the course taken after the argument upon the writs of habeas corpus, the application by letter to the king for directions, and the remand of the prisoners pending his answer (June).

At a private audience with the king at Hampton Court on Michaelmas day he obtained consent to the release of the prisoners on security given for their good behaviour, a concession which they unanimously rejected.

[1] Whitelocke was greatly interested in antiquarian studies, and was the author of several papers which are printed in Thomas Hearne's Collection of Discourses (1771); his journal, or Liber famelicus, was edited by John Bruce and published by the Camden Society in 1858.

Whitelocke's twin brother, William, served under Francis Drake, and fell at sea in an engagement with the Spaniards.