Francis Pemberton - Judicial Career

Judicial Career

On 30 April 1679 Pemberton was appointed a puisne judge. Having offended the Government by his conduct in relation to the Popish Plot, he was dismissed within two years, whereupon he returned to his practice at the bar. However, he rapidly returned to favour and was appointed Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench on 11 April 1681.

In the same year, he presided over the trumped-up trial of Oliver Plunket, the Primate of the Catholic Church in Ireland, who was wrongly convicted of treason and executed. To his further discredit, he also sought unsuccessfully to promote the trial for treason of Lord Shaftesbury. He nevertheless managed to retain among his contemporaries a reputation for independence and integrity and it was because of suspicions of his political loyalties in a forthcoming case concerning the City of London that he was removed from office in 1682. He accepted instead the lesser position of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.

In the following year he was appointed to head the Commission set up to deal with the Rye House Plot and presided over the trial of Lord Russell. Although Russell was convicted, Pemberton was regarded as having conducted himself with unbefitting moderation during the trial and he was dismissed from all judicial employment on 28 September 1683. John Evelyn wrote in his Diary for 4 October 1683: "He was held to be the most learned of the judges and an honest man".