Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Noye, William

by James McMullen Rigg ‎

NOYE or NOY, WILLIAM (1577–1634), attorney-general to Charles I, son of Edward Noye of Carnanton, Mawgan-in-Pyder, Cornwall, by Jane Crabbe, his wife, was born in 1577. He matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, on 27 April 1593, and was admitted on 24 Oct. 1594 a member of Lincoln's Inn. Leaving the university without a degree, he was called to the bar in 1602, was autumn reader in 1622, a bencher from 1618 until his death, and treasurer in 1632.

His rise in his profession was slow, and was not achieved without intense and unremitting application. ‘I moyle in law’ he early adopted as his anagram, and by such moyling he gradually acquired a knowledge, both intimate and extensive, of the abstruser branches of the law. He thus attracted the notice of Bacon, by whom he was recommended in 1614 for the post of official law reporter, as one ‘not overwrought with practice and yet learned, and diligent, and conversant in reports and records.’

Noye represented Grampound, Cornwall, in the first two parliaments of James I, 1604–11 and 1614. In subsequent parliaments he represented other constituencies in the same county, viz. Helston in 1621–2, Fowey in 1623–4, St. Ives in 1625–6, and Helston in 1628–9. He took at first the popular side, and led the attack on monopolies with skill and spirit in 1620–1. As counsel for Sir Walter Earl, one of the five knights committed for refusing to contribute to the forced loan of 1626, he argued, 22 Nov. 1627, the insufficiency of the return to their habeas corpus. On 16 April 1628 he replied to Attorney-general Heath in the argument on the liberty of the subject before the House of Lords, and he afterwards in the commons proposed a habeas corpus act. He also stoutly resisted, in the conference of 28 May following, the clause saving the royal prerogative appended by the lords to the Petition of Right. In the debate on tonnage and poundage of 12 Feb. 1628–9, he proposed the insertion in the grant of a clause expressly negativing the right of the king to levy those contributions by virtue of his prerogative.

It accordingly excited no little surprise when, on 27 Oct. 1631, Noye was appointed attorney-general. On being offered the post he is said to have bluntly asked what his wages were to be, and to have hesitated until it was pressed upon him with importunity. Once in office, the view he took of his duties is evinced by his witty translation of ‘Attornatus Domini Regis’ as ‘one that must serve the king's turn.’ One of his first official cares was to take order for the reverential use of St. Paul's Cathedral, which, by the negligence of the dean and chapter, had been suffered to become a public thoroughfare (Documents illustrating the History of St. Paul's Cathedral, Camden Soc. p. 131).

In the Star-chamber it fell to his lot to prosecute two members of his own inn, Henry Sherfield and William Prynne [q. v.] Sherfield, to show his zeal for the glory of God, had, in October 1629, defaced his image in a stained-glass window in St. Edmund's Church, Salisbury, of which city he was recorder. An information had been issued against him by Noye's predecessor, Attorney-general Heath, but it did not come on for hearing until February 1632–3, when the crown case was stated by Noye with equal moderation and cogency, and Sherfield was let off with the comparatively light penalty of a fine of 500l. and a public acknowledgment of error. In the autumn Noye was occupied with the revision of the ‘Declaration of Sports’ preparatory to its reissue, and in the supervision of the arrangements for a grand masque which the loyal gentlemen of the Inns of Court had determined by way of protest against Prynne's recently published ‘Histriomastix’ to present before the king and queen at Whitehall at the ensuing Candlemas. The pageant was followed by Prynne's trial in the Star-chamber, 13–17 Feb. 1633–4, in the conduct of which Noye manifested great zeal. On 7 May following he was an unsympathetic spectator of Prynne's sufferings in the Westminster pillory, and the puritans, not unnaturally, saw the hand of God in a vesical hæmorrhage by which he was seized on his return home (A Divine Tragedy lately acted, 1634, 4to, p. 44). When Prynne's ‘libellous’ letter to Laud brought him again into the Star-chamber, 18 June, Noye's zeal outran his discretion. Denouncing Prynne as past grace, he moved to deprive him of the privilege of attending divine service. Laud was shocked at so heathenish a proposal, and at his intercession Prynne was remanded without further censure. Noye, however, was not to be baulked (cf. Winthrop Papers in Massachusetts Hist. Coll. 4th ser. vi. 414–19). At the beginning of the long vacation, when most of the Star-chamber lords were out of town, he contrived to get an order drawn up for Prynne's close confinement, and having thus secured his prey went down to Tunbridge Wells to drink the waters. The waters failed to afford the relief he sought, and, tortured by the stone and weakened by frequent hæmorrhage, he soon retired to his house at New Brentford, where he died on Saturday, 9 Aug. 1634. He was buried on the following Monday in the chancel of the parish church.

Noye was mourned by Laud as ‘a dear friend’ and stout champion of the church. By the unscrupulous manner in which he had prostituted his vast learning and ingenuity to the service of tyranny—the revival of the forest laws, the infamous soap monopoly, the writ of ship money, were his work—he had incurred much popular odium, and he was hardly cold in his grave when he was dissected in effigy on the London stage in a farce entitled ‘A Projector lately Dead,’ a ‘hundred proclamations being found in his head, a bundle of moth-eaten records in his mouth, and a barrel of soap in his belly’ (ib. p. 418).

Though no orator, Noye was a lucid and effective speaker. As a lawyer he had in his day no superior. Prynne calls him ‘that great Gamaliel of the law,’ and among his pupils were Sir Orlando Bridgman, Sir John Maynard, and Sir Matthew Hale. Notwithstanding his early connection with the popular party it is probable that he took from the first a somewhat high view of the royal prerogative, and entertained a cordial antipathy to the puritans. In 1626 he gave a noble stained-glass window to Lincoln's Inn Chapel. He appears to have been a good scholar, and though, by the testimony of his contemporaries, ‘passing humorous,’ or, as we should say, whimsical, and of a somewhat rough and cynical demeanour, was nevertheless a man of solid and sterling parts. ‘His apprehension,’ says Wood, ‘was quick and clear, his judgment methodical and solid, his memory strong, his curiosity deep and searching, his temper patient and cautious.’ Clarendon imputes to him an inordinate vanity, and some colour is given to the charge by his epitaph, written by himself at the close of his statute book:—

‘Hic jaceo judex Astrææ fidus alumnus,
Quam, simul ac terris fugit, ad astra sequar.
Non ego me—defunctus enim mihi vivo superstes,
Sed mecum doleo jura Britanna mori.’

On the other hand he left express injunctions that he should be buried without funeral pomp.

Noye was painted by Cornelius Janssen and William Faithorne the elder [q. v.] A copy of the picture by Janssen, presented by Davies Gilbert [q. v.], the historian of Cornwall, hangs in the hall of Exeter College, Oxford. There is an excellent engraving from the original in Charles Sandoe Gilbert's ‘Historical Survey of Cornwall,’ vol. i. facing p. 132 (cf. Clarendon, Rebellion, ed. 1721, vol. i. facing p. 73). An engraving of the picture by Faithorne forms the frontispiece to Noye's ‘Compleat Lawyer,’ ed. 1674. Unless extremely flattered by both painters, Noye was a man of handsome and distinguished appearance, to whom the epithet ‘amorphous’ applied to him by Carlyle (Cromwell, Introduction, chap. iv. ad fin.) is singularly inappropriate.

Noye married, 26 Nov. 1606, Sara, daughter of Humphrey Yorke of Phillack, near Redruth, Cornwall, by whom he had issue two sons and a daughter. By his will, printed in ‘European Magazine,’ 1784, pp. 335–6, he devised the bulk of his property, including an estate at Carnanton, Mawgan-in-Pyder, Cornwall, to his eldest son Edward, whom, with grim humour, he enjoined to waste it, adding, ‘nec melius speravi.’ An estate at Warbstow in the same county went to his second son, Humphrey. The spendthrift heir was killed by a Captain Byron in a duel in France within two years of his father's death, and left no issue. Humphrey Noye (1614–1679), B.A. of Exeter College, Oxford, fought for the king during the civil war, was in the commission of the peace for Cornwall, and died in 1679, being buried at Mawgan-in-Pyder, and leaving by his wife Hester, daughter of Henry Sandys, and sister of Edwyn, last baron Sandys of The Vine, two sons, both of whom died without issue, and three daughters, of whom the second, Catherine, was the ancestress of Davies Gilbert. Bridgeman, the third daughter, married, in 1685, John Willyams of Roseworthy, and brought with her the Carnanton estates, which have remained in the hands of their posterity.

From Noye's papers were published after his death the following:

1. ‘A Treatise of the Principall Grounds and Maximes of the Lawes of this Kingdome. Very useful and commodious for all Studients and such others as desire the Knowledge and Understanding of the Lawes’ (originally written in law French), London, 1641, 1642, and 1660, 8vo, and 1677, 12mo; later editions with abridged title-page and additions or notes, London, 1757, 1792, 1794, 1806, 1817, 12mo, 1821, 8vo, Richmond, Virginia, 1824, 8vo, Philadelphia, 1845, 8vo, and Albany, 1870.
2. ‘The Great Feast at the Inthronization of the Reverend Father in God George Neavill, Archbishop of Yorke, Chancellour of England in the sixt yeare of Edward the Fourth. Wherein is manifested the great pride and vaine glory of that prelate. The copy of this feast was found inrolled in the Tower of London, and was taken out by Mr. Noy, His Majesties late Attorney-General,’ London, 1645, 4to (reprint in Leland's ‘Collectanea,’ ed. 1770, vol. vi.).
3. ‘The Compleat Lawyer, or A Treatise concerning Tenures and Estates in Lands of Inheritance for Life and for Yeares; of Chattels Reall and Personal; and how any of them may be conveyed in a legal Forme by Fine, Recovery, Deed, or Word, as the case shall require,’ London, 1651, 8vo; later editions with somewhat different title-page, 1661, 1665, 1670, 1674, 8vo.
4. ‘Reports and Cases taken in the time of Queen Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles … conteining most excellent Matter of Exceptions to all manner of Declarations, Pleadings, and Demurrers, that there is scarce one Action in a Probability of being brought, but here it is thoroughly examin'd and exactly layd,’ London, 1656, 4to, 1669, folio (a work of no authority).
5. ‘A Treatise of the Rights of the Crown, declaring how the King of England may support and increase his Annual Revenue. Collected out of the Records in the Tower, the Parliament Rolls, and Close Petitions, Anno x. Car. Regis. 1634,’ London, 1715, 8vo.

He is also said to have had ‘a greate hande in compilinge and republishinge the late declaration for pastimes on the Lords daye’ (Winthrop Papers in Massachusetts Hist. Coll. 4th ser. vi. 414).

Some of Noye's legal drafts are printed in ‘The Perfect Conveyancer: or, Several Select and Choice Presidents such as have not formerly been printed,’ London, 1655, 4to. His award adjusting a difference between Laud and the Bishop of Lincoln in regard to the former's right of metropolitical visitation of the diocese of the latter is in Wilkins's ‘Concilia,’ iv. 488. A few of Noye's arguments, opinions, and other miscellaneous remains, are preserved in various Harl. MSS.; in Lansd. MSS. 253 art. 26, 254 art. 2, 485 art. 3; Cotton. MSS. Titus B. viii. art. 63 (being Noye's will in Latin); Addit. MSS. 5832 f. 219 b, 6297 ff. 385, 12511; and in the Hargrave MSS.; the Tanner MSS. (Bodl. Libr.), 67 f. 61, 70 art. 48, 104 art. 74; MS. Camb. Univ. Libr. Dd. xi. 73, 370 (being Noye's will and epitaph); MSS. Linc. Inn Libr. 76 art 5, 79 ff. 1–87; MS. Inner Temple, 177; MS. Exeter Coll. Libr. 189 ff. 94–114; MS. Queen's Coll. Libr. 155; Lambeth MSS. 642 ff. 49–141, 943 f. 529.

[Rushworth's Hist. Coll. pt. ii. vol. i. p. 247; Burton's Diary, ii. 444 n. et seq.; Whitelocke's Mem.; Lords' Journ. iii. 806; Cases in the courts of Star-chamber and High Commission (Camd. Soc.); D'Ewes's Autobiog. 1845, i. 406, ii. 79; Heylyn's Cyprianus Anglicus, 1671, pp. 301–2; Wallington's Hist. Notices, 1869, i. 64–77; Smith's Obituary (Camd. Soc.), p. 9; Strafforde Letters, i. 262, 266; Epist. Hoelianæ, sect. vi. ep. xvii.; Granger's Biogr. Hist. Engl. 2nd edit. ii. 225; Gilbert's Cornwall, ii. 66, 160, iii. 143–5, 151–6, 161, 342; Polwhele's Cornwall, iv. 94–6; Biogr. Sketches in Cornwall (1831), i. 53 et seq.; Complete Parochial Hist. of Cornwall (1870), iii. 288, 29 ff. 1–145, 257, 346, 351; Vivian and Drake's Visitation of Cornwall (Harl. Soc.), pp. 158 n. 270 n.; Boase's Reg. Exeter Coll. Oxf. 1879; Harl. MS. 1079, f. 113 b; Hamon L'Estrange's Reign of King Charles, pp. 135–6; Weldon's Court of King Charles in Secret History of the Court of James I, ii. 39–40; Cobbett's State Trials, iii. 11, 158, 535, 562; Spedding's Bacon, xii. 86, xiv. 187; Proc. and Deb. House of Commons in 1620 and 1621 (Oxford, 1766), i. 63, 100–92, 208, ii. 52; Court and Times of Charles I, i. 291, ii. 240; Peyton's Catast. House of Stuart (1811), ii. 427; Dugdale's Orig. pp. 255, 264; Spilsbury's Lincoln's Inn, p. 77; Isaac D'Israeli's Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles I, 1850, i. 387–90; Proceedings against William Prynne (Camd. Soc.); Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 581–3; Vernon's Life of Heylyn (1682), pp. 43, 57, 65; Laud's Works (Anglo-Cath. Libr.); Anecdotes and Traditions (Camd. Soc.), p. 35; Faulkner's Brentford (1845), p. 143; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. vi. 399, vii. 35, 3rd ser. viii. 465, 7th ser. vi. 297; Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. App. pp. 13, 191, 4th Rep. App. p. 16, 7th Rep. App. p. 429, 10th Rep. App. ii. 136, 11th Rep. App. vii. 272; Sloane MS. 4223 f. 111; Addit. MS. 32093, f. 55; Massachusetts Historical Society's Collections, 4th ser. vi. passim; Boase and Courtney's Bibliotheca Cornubiensis and Boase's Collect. Cornub.]

J. M. R.