Dismissal
On the fall of the First Danby ministry, King Charles II formed a new council of thirty (the Privy Council Ministry, with Lord Shaftesbury as Lord President, Bertie was discharged from his office of judge on 29 April 1679. With him were discharged also Sir William Wilde, Sir Edward Thurland, and Sir Francis Bramston. [1]
This move came at the height of the Popish Plot allegations, and Bertie, along with those judges, had four days previously been among those who tried Nathaniel Reading in the court of king's bench at Westminster. Reading was indicted on the evidence of the perjured informer William Bedloe for stifling king's evidence against the Catholic Lords in the Tower of London. None of these judges concurred in the sentence—a £1,000 fine, one year's imprisonment, and one hour in the pillory—pronounced by the other judges, who were Sir Francis North, William Montagu, Sir Robert Atkins, Sir Thomas Jones, and Sir William Dolben. [1]
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1885). "Bertie, Vere". Dictionary of National Biography . Vol. 4. London: Smith, Elder & Co.