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Sir Leoline Jenkins (1625 – 1 September 1685) was a Welsh academic, diplomat involved in the negotiation of international treaties (e.g. Nimègue), jurist and politician. He was a clerical lawyer who served as Judge of the High Court of Admiralty from 1668 to 1685, and enjoyed a high reputation for judicial integrity. [1] As a statesman he served as Secretary of State from 1680 to 1684. [2]
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He was originally from Llantrisant in south Wales, son of Leoline (an anglicisation of Llewellyn ) Jenkins, a small landowner. He himself spoke fluent Welsh, and was fond of quoting Welsh proverbs, sometimes to the bewilderment of his listeners. He went to school in the nearby town of Cowbridge and then to Jesus College, Oxford.
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He fought on the Royalist side during the English Civil War. On the failure of the Royalist cause, he retired to Glamorgan in 1648, and entered the household of the Welsh Royalist Sir John Aubrey, first of the Aubrey baronets, at Llantrithyd, as did his two most valuable patrons, Gilbert Sheldon, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, and Sir Francis Mansell, Jenkins' predecessor as Principal of Jesus College.
He set up a small private school for the education of Aubrey's son and other local boys, but it was broken up by Parliament in 1651 as a seminary for potential traitors. He moved with some of his pupils to Oxford, where he set up another school known popularly as "the Little Welsh Hall", but in 1655 he was forced to flee to the Continent. At the Restoration of Charles II he was made a fellow of Jesus College and became Principal on Mansell's retirement the following year.
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As Principal of Jesus College from 1661 to 1673, he was responsible for much construction work, including the college library. The position was one of several rewards he received from King Charles II of England for his loyalty to the Royalist cause during the English Civil War.
Due to his close friendship with Archbishop Sheldon, he was also created a judge, first of the consistory court of Westminster, then of the Arches Court and finally of the Court of Admiralty. [3] As Judge of the Court of Admiralty he won Samuel Pepys' warm praise for his ability and integrity, although Pepys was told that his appointment had not been welcomed by the advocates at Doctors Commons. [4] He played a crucial role in the development of English Admiralty law as a coherent body of legal principles.
He was also an expert on international law. On the death of the queen mother Henrietta Maria at Colombes in August 1669, Jenkins was sent to Paris to argue that the disposition of her personal property was governed by English, not French law: the result would be that the property would pass in its entirety to Charles II, rather than to his sister Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, who would have been the beneficiary under French law. His arguments were successful and on his return to England, Charles rewarded him with a knighthood.
He was one of the Commissioners appointed to negotiate the abortive Union with Scotland in 1669. In the 1670s he spent much of his time on the Continent engaged in a number of diplomatic missions. Notably, he was England's principal representative at the Congress of Nijmegen (1676-1679) which brought to an end the Franco-Dutch War, and for a time the sole representative. Critics said that he was "in agony" at being left with the sole responsibility for making decisions. Certainly, as the English government ruefully admitted, Nijmegen was "far from being such a peace as his Majesty would have wished for", [5] although the unsatisfactory outcome from the English point of view was largely due to the resentment of English interference by both French and Dutch representatives at the Congress, rather than to any blunder by Jenkins. [6]
Jenkins was made a privy counsellor in February 1680. During the Exclusion Crisis he vehemently opposed Exclusion, and acted as the effective Government leader in the Commons. After the failure of Exclusion he played a major role in the so-called "Tory Revenge", the 1681-4 campaign to crush the Whig opposition. [7]
He served as Secretary of State for the Northern Department from 26 April 1680 to 2 February 1681 and Secretary of State for the Southern Department from 2 February 1681 to 14 April 1684. His major legislative achievements include authoring the Statute of Frauds (29 Cha. 2. c. 3) and the Statute of Distributions (22 & 23 Cha. 2. c. 10), dealing with the inheritance of personal property. Whilst Secretary of State, he was served by the Welsh lawyer (and former student of Jesus College) Owen Wynne, who has been called "an early example of the permanent civil servant." [8]
As a Minister, if not noted for brilliance, he was hard-working and incorruptible. Though Gilbert Burnet found him "heavy and dull" he could show great spirit and determination when necessary. At a meeting of the Privy Council in October 1681, some of the Councillors, Jenkins wrote to a colleague, "were pleased to fall upon me" for not sharing with them important items of foreign policy. [9] Jenkins staunchly defended the practice of keeping such information strictly confidential. He argued that the Secretaries of State "were not at liberty to carry any part of their intelligences to the Council, unless his Majesty directed it specifically": this was a rule which he had always followed and by which he was "indispensably bound". [10]
In failing health, he retired in 1684 to his house at Hammersmith and died there the following year. He never married.
He is regarded as the second founder of the eminent Cowbridge Grammar School, renowned for its academic standards which he had himself attended. He is buried in the chapel of Jesus College, at which he had previously been a student before becoming Principal, and to which he bequeathed most of his estate. [11]
In his will, Jenkins stated: "It is but too obvious that the persons in Holy Orders employed in his Majesty's fleet at sea and foreign plantations are too few". To address this, he established two Fellowships at Jesus College, whose holders should serve as clergy "in any of his Majesty's fleets or in his Majesty's plantations" under the direction of the Lord High Admiral and the Bishop of London respectively. The last such fellow, Frederick de Winton, was appointed in 1876 and held his fellowship until his death in 1932. This category of fellowship was abolished in 1877 by the Oxford and Cambridge Universities Commission, without prejudice to the rights of existing holders such as de Winton. [12]
Samuel Pepys was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament, but is most remembered today for the diary he kept for almost a decade. Though he had no maritime experience, Pepys rose to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and King James II through patronage, diligence, and his talent for administration. His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of the Royal Navy.
Jesus College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is in the centre of the city, on a site between Turl Street, Ship Street, Cornmarket Street and Market Street. The college was founded by Queen Elizabeth I of England on 27 June 1571. A major driving force behind the establishment of the college was Hugh Price, a churchman from Brecon in Wales. The oldest buildings, in the first quadrangle, date from the 16th and early 17th centuries; a second quadrangle was added between about 1640 and about 1713, and a third quadrangle was built in about 1906. Further accommodation was built on the main site to mark the 400th anniversary of the college, in 1971, and student flats have been constructed at sites in north and east Oxford. A fourth quadrangle was completed in 2021.
Sir William Williams, 1st Baronet was a Welsh lawyer and politician. He served as a Member of Parliament for Chester and later Beaumaris, and was appointed Speaker for two English Parliaments during the reign of Charles II. He later served as Solicitor General during the reign of James II. Williams had a bitter personal and professional rivalry with Judge Jeffreys.
Cowbridge Grammar School was one of the best-known schools in Wales until its closure in 1974. It was replaced by Cowbridge Comprehensive School.
George Feilding, 1st Earl of Desmond was an English nobleman, awarded the title of Earl of Desmond in the Peerage of Ireland by Charles I under the terms of a letter patent issued by James I. He was created Registrar of the Court of Admiralty, for life, in 1625.
The Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty also known as the Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Board of Admiralty was a position on the Board of Admiralty and a civil officer of the British Royal Navy. It was usually filled by a Member of Parliament. Although he attended Board of Admiralty meetings informally he was not made a full member of that Board until 1929. He served as the deputy to the First Lord of the Admiralty in Parliament and was mainly responsible for all naval finance and spending proposals from 1625 until 1959.
William Petre, 4th Baron Petre was an English peer and victim of the Popish Plot.
Francis Mansell was Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, on three occasions: from 1620 to 1621; from 1630 to 1648, when he was ejected by the Parliamentary visitation of the University of Oxford; and from 1660 to 1661. Mansell remained an inhabitant of the college until his death on 1 May 1665. He had previously studied there and left all his property to the college.
Thomas Ellis was a Welsh clergyman and antiquarian.
Sir Thomas Jones KS was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1676.
Sir Trevor Williams, 1st Baronet of Llangibby, Monmouthshire, was a Welsh gentry landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1660 and 1692. He played a significant part in events during and after the English Civil War in South Wales, siding first with King Charles, then with the Parliamentarians, before rejoining the Royalists in 1648.
Owen Wynne (1652–1700) was a lawyer and civil servant in the seventeenth century.
Evan Seys (1604–1685) was an eminent lawyer of his day who rose to national office under Oliver Cromwell as Attorney General, and served as a member of parliament after the Restoration. From c.1649 until his death he was involved in the politics of his native Glamorgan, and of Gloucestershire. He was a committed and active Protestant and an antiquarian scholar.
Sir Nicholas Slanning, 1st Baronet FRS of Maristow in the parish of Tamerton Foliot, Devon, was an English courtier and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1667 and 1689.
Sir Alexander Fraizer FRS, was a Scottish physician.
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Sir Robert Thomas, 2nd Baronet was a Welsh politician who sat in the House of Commons of England from 1661 to 1681. He was knighted and succeeded as baronet in 1673 on the death of his father.
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John Jeffreys (c.1623-1689) was a Welsh soldier, landowner and politician, much of whose career was spent in Ireland. He fought in the English Civil War on the Royalist side, and later sat in the Houses of Commons of both England and Ireland. He is best remembered as the first Master of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
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