Legal Career
He was recorder of Northampton from 1568 to 1599, JP for Northamptonshire from about 1573, and called to the bar and elected treasurer of Gray's Inn in 1579 and 1585. He was Reader in 1574 and 1584, when his subject was the statute of 1540 relating to execution for debt. He was created serjeant-at-law in 1589, served as Queen's Serjeant from 1598 to 1602, and was Lord Justice of the Court of King's Bench from 1602 to 1612.
Yelverton was an excellent technical lawyer and was regarded as a good judge, one of the few to escape criticism by Sir Robert Cecil, principal secretary, in his memorandum on the state of the judicial bench in 1603. As Queen's Serjeant he led the prosecution in Westminster Hall on 19 February 1601 of those involved in Essex's rebellion. He was also one of the judges ruling on the Postnati case in 1608. In addition, he had a broader interest in legal culture, passing on to his son a collection of legal manuscripts; and, like many other lawyers of his generation, he made his own reports of cases. These reports remained unpublished and the well-known Yelverton report is by his son Henry Yelverton.
For all his finesse as Speaker Yelverton was a man of considerable toughness. He was appointed second justice at Lancaster in 1598. As justice of the assize on the northern circuit and JP of many northern counties from 1599, he was in the forefront of the common lawyers' attack on the Council of the North. Friction developed in 1600, when he snubbed Ralph Eure, 3rd Lord Eure, vice-president, who was sitting with Sir John Savile as justice of jail delivery. Matters came to a head in 1601 when he required the lord president, Sir Thomas Cecil, 2nd Lord Burghley, to leave the court. Legal opinion was at first behind Yelverton, but in June 1602 he was summoned to the Star Chamber and publicly reprimanded for his conduct. There were more complaints about him but he weathered the criticism. Elizabeth I did not bestow a knighthood on him and it was left to James VI and I to do so. The king was more generous still, making him KB on 23 July 1603.
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