1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Caesar, Sir Julius

CAESAR, SIR JULIUS (1557-1558–1636), English judge, descended by the female line from the dukes de’ Cesarini in Italy, was born near Tottenham in Middlesex. He was educated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, and afterwards studied at the university of Paris, where in the year 1581 he was made a doctor of the civil law. Two years later he was admitted to the same degree at Oxford, and also became doctor of the canon law. He held many high offices during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., including a judgeship of the admiralty court (1584), a mastership in chancery (1588), a mastership of the court of requests (1595), chancellor and under treasurer of the exchequer (1606). He was knighted by King James in 1603, and in 1614 was appointed master of the rolls, an office which he held till his death on the 18th of April 1636, He was so remarkable for his bounty and charity to all persons of worth that it was said of him that he seemed to be the almoner-general of the nation. His manuscripts, many of which are now in the British Museum, were sold by auction in 1757 for upwards of £500.

See E. Lodge, Life of Sir Julius Caesar (1810); Wood, Fasti Oxonienses, ed. Bliss; Foss, Lives of the Judges.