Sir John Denham (1559–1639) was an English-born judge who spent part of his career in Ireland. He is chiefly remembered now as one of the "Ship-money judges" who decided the so-called Ship Money case, Rex v. Hampden, a dispute which helped to kindle the English Civil War. He was the father of the poet Sir John Denham.. Mistakenly makes Cecily Denham daughter rather than widow of Richard Kellefet. From 1609 he was Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer; from 1612, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Ireland, and a member of the Privy Council of Ireland; and from 1615, following the dismissal of Arthur Chichester, he became one of the Lords Justices of Ireland. In 1617 he was recalled to England to be appointed one of the Barons of the Exchequer in England. Sir Francis Bacon held him in high esteem.

He is not to be confused with Sir John Dynham of Boarstall, High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1621–1622, whose will was proved in 1636.

Background

John Denham was born in 1559, the second of five sons (and ten daughters) of William Denham (died 1583, and buried at Thorpe, Surrey),J. Aubrey, The Natural History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey, 5 vols (E. Curll, London 1718), III, pp. 169-70 (Internet Archive).Will of William Denham, Goldsmith of the City of London (P.C.C. 1583, Rowe quire). and his wife Joan (died 1589).Will of Joan Denham, Widow (P.C.C. 1589, Leicester quire). His father was a Warden of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in London, in which capacity he requested the patent granted in 1571 of heraldic arms with crest and supporters, on behalf of the Goldsmiths' Mistery;"The 1571 Grant of Arms to the Goldsmiths' Company" in L. Jefferson (ed. and transl.), The Register of the Goldsmiths' Company: I: Deeds and Documents c. 1190 - c. 1666, 3 vols (Boydell and Brewer, 2022), I, Introduction and supplementary material, at pp. 100-126: see index p. 174 re anno 1571, fol 400v (C.U.P./Cambridge core, online 2023) (restricted access). he later lived at Thorpe. John's elder brother was William, and his sisters were Judith, Sarah and another probably named Joan. John (as of Furnivall's Inn) was admitted to Lincoln's Inn in August 1579.The Records of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, vol. I: Admissions, from A.D. 1420 to A.D. 1799 (Lincoln's Inn, London 1896), p. 88 (Internet Archive). He was called to the Bar in 1587 and became a bencher of Lincoln's Inn in 1603.

Having married in 1596 to Cicelie, the widow of a royal Groom of Egham, Surrey, in 1604 he held the site of the manor of Imworth in Egham which became his permanent home. He rebuilt the Manor House, called "The Place, or Palace (by which name the vulgar sort of people call the Manour-House, or chief House of the Town)", also called the Parsonage-House, because Denham held the advowson of Egham. (This building, since demolished, is distinct from the mansion of Great Fosters nearby, being the part-manor of Imworth-Fosters, which was the home of Sir John Doddington.) John Aubrey said of it: "A House it is very convenient, not great, but pretty, and pleasantly, and healthfully situated, in which his son Sir John (though he had better Seats), took most Delight."J. Aubrey, The Natural History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey, 5 vols (E. Curll, London 1718), III, pp. 163-66 (Internet Archive).

In March 1606/7, as Reader in Lincoln's Inn, at his request Thomas Hunloke of Derbyshire and Charles Monk of Buckinghamshire were admitted: Hunloke became his sister Judith's husband.The Records of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, vol. I: Admissions, from A.D. 1420 to A.D. 1799 (Lincoln's Inn, London 1896), p. 145 (Internet Archive). Sarah Denham married Francis Morley, and they were parents of George Morley, afterwards Bishop of Winchester.'George Morley', in A. à Wood, ed. P. Bliss, Athenae Oxonienses, 4 vols (Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mayor and Jones, London 1820), IV, col. 149 ff. (Internet Archive). John became serjeant-at-law in 1609. He was steward of Eton College, and also acted as counsel to the school.E. Foss, 'Denham, John', in The Judges of England with sketches of their lives, 9 vols (Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, London 1857), VI: 1603-1660, pp. 299-301 (Internet Archive). His first wife, Cecily, died in April 1612.

Career in Ireland In 1609 he was knighted and sent to Ireland as Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer. He made vigorous efforts to bring the procedures of the Irish Court into line with those of its English counterpart. A serious difficulty was that the other Barons were "old and infirm". In 1612 he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Ireland, and he was made also a member of the Privy Council of Ireland. He was a leading supporter of the policy of extending the English common law system to the whole of Ireland, and criticised the widespread use of palatine Courts by powerful nobles, which deterred litigants from bringing their cases to the royal courts.

It was during his service in Ireland that Denham made his second marriage, to Ellenor, one of the daughters of Sir Garret Moore, lord baron of Mellifont.John Aubrey, ed. Andrew Clark, Brief Lives (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1898), Vol. I, pp. 216-21, at p. 217 (Internet Archive). Hence it was in Dublin, also, that his son John was born in 1614 or 1615. Following their return to England in 1617, Ellenor died in chilbed at Egham in 1619.

He was regarded by Sir Arthur Chichester, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, as a valuable ally and was sent by him to England in 1613 to defend the proceedings of the Parliament of Ireland from attacks on it by the Roman Catholic members of the House of Commons, who were still a numerous and quite influential party. He fully shared Chichester's hostility to the Roman Catholic faith, and his determination strictly to enforce the Penal Laws despite strong opposition from the Catholic upper and middle classes. Despite his frequent complaints of ill-health he regularly travelled on assize. He was also a Commissioner for the Plantation of Ulster, and after Chichester's dismissal in 1615, he was one of the Lords Justices of Ireland.C.W. Russell and J.P. Prendergast (eds), Calendar of the State Papers relating to Ireland, of the reign of James I, 1615-1625 (Longman & Co., London 1880), '183, 187, 188, 193. Letters of appointment (November–December 1615)', pp. 98-101, and '194. Instructions from the King to the Lords Justices (December 1615)' and pp. 101-05 (Internet Archive).

He was credited with greatly increasing the Irish revenues, at a time when the Crown was heavily in debt, and in 1617 was praised by Francis Bacon for his hard work and prudence as a judge in Ireland.'The Lord Keeper's Speech... to Sir John Denham... in 1617', and '...to Sir William Jones', in J. Spedding (ed.), The Letters and the life of Francis Bacon, Volume VI (Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London 1872), pp. 203-05 (Internet Archive). Even after his return to England, he advised the Crown on Irish affairs, and in 1623 was appointed to the newly created committee of the Privy Council for Irish affairs.'John Denham, Knight', in F. Elrington Ball, The Judges in Ireland, 1221-1921 (John Murray, London 1926), at pp. 321-22 (Internet Archive). Mistakenly makes Cecily Denham daughter rather than widow of Richard Kellefet.

Denham's Almshouse In 1617 Sir John returned to England to take up office as a Baron of the Exchequer, in the place of Sir James Altham, deceased. He established an almshouse in Egham in 1624. This charitable action may have been a response to the deaths of his wife and infant daughter in 1619 and that of his brother William in 1623. John Aubrey observed that the gateway to the building bore the inscription "Donum Dei, et Deo, 1624" (A Gift of God, and Unto God, 1624). "It was built and endow'd by baron Denham", he wrote. "It is for the Maintenance of five poor old Women of this Parish; (one, if not two of the number, being added upon the birth of his son John)... It is a neat Alms-House built of Brick, and every Woman hath her particular Orchard." The terms of the foundation were set out in Denham's will: "[the women] were to have new Gowns every Christmas, and Stockings and Shoes twice a year of 14 d. the Ell, [and] Cloth for the Gowns 14 Groats the Yard."J. Aubrey, The Natural History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey, 5 vols (E. Curll, London 1718), III, pp. 163-68, at pp. 164-65 (Internet Archive). Denham's charity, having served his intention for some 370 years, was wound up in 1991.HM Charity Commission for England and Wales: Sir John Denham's Almshouses GB-CHC-221459 (Register of Charities).

The case of Ship Money As one of the Barons of the Exchequer, he was among the judges in the celebrated Case of Ship Money, Rex v. John Hampden,'The Opinion of Sir John Denham, Knight, in the great case of Ship-Money' (13 Charles I, 1637), in T.B. Howell and T.J. Howell (eds), Cobbett's Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason (etc.) (T.C. Hansard for R. Bagshaw, etc., London 1809), III: 1627-1640, pp. 1201-02 (Google). which concerned the prerogative of the King to levy the tax on his simple assertion that a need for it existed. When King Charles I in 1636 first consulted the twelve High Court judges on his power to levy ship money, Denham was one of ten of them who advised that it was the King's royal prerogative to determine whether the national good required the imposition of the tax.C.V. Wedgwood, The King's Peace, 1637-1641 (William Collins Son and Co., London 1955).

By the time the case of John Hampden was heard by the Court of Exchequer in 1637, Denham is known to have been increasingly doubtful about the legality of ship money; indeed it was due to Denham's doubts that the Lord Chief Baron, Sir Humphrey Davenport, decided to remove the case to the Court of Exchequer Chamber, where it would be heard by twelve rather than the usual four judges.Wedgwood The King's Peace, p. 194. When the twelve came to give judgement, Denham was one of the five who voted in favour of Hampden. Although he was then so ill "of my old disease" (probably the "severe ague" which had afflicted him while on assize the previous year), that he could not leave home, he sent in a short opinion that "the King's Majesty..... can neither take any lands or goods of any of his subjects but only upon a judgment on record."

Had he lived longer his opinion would very likely have saved him from being impeached, as most of his surviving colleagues were; in the event, he died at his home at Egham, Surrey, the following year.

Family

Sir John Denham the judge married first, on 30 September 1596, Cicely, née Farr, a woman already twice widowed, by whom he had no children. She was, first, the second wife of Anthony Bond of Egham (died 1576), Writer of the Court Letter of London,'Egham', in J. Aubrey, The Natural History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey, 5 vols (E. Curll, London 1718), III, p. 153 (Anthony Bond monument); p. 154 (Richard Kellefet monument); pp. 155-56 (Baron Denham monument); p. 157 (Cecily and Ellenor Denham monument) (Internet Archive). and secondly of Richard Kellefet of Egham (died 1595), 'Chief Groome of Her [Majesties] Removing Gardrobe of Beddes, and Yeoman also of Her Standing Gardrobe of Richmount, Sonne of George Kellefet and Margaret his Wife, whoe maryed Cycelye widow of Anthony Bonde of Rusham Gentleman.''Pedigree of Denham', in F. Turner, 'Notes on some Surrey Pedigrees, (1) The Denhams and the Bonds (2) The Bonds', Surrey Archaeological Collections, XXX (1917), pp. 1-12, at p. 11 (Internet Archive). Cicely died in April 1612.

He married secondly Eleanor Moore, daughter of Garret Moore, 1st Viscount Moore, by his wife Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Colley. He and Eleanor had one surviving son: