Volume II 1603-1660 - The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

INTRODUCTION. cxiii
familys rich, not all to one. Among others one Davis my old school
fellow at Paul's and since a bookseller in Paul's Church yard ; and
it seems do forgive one man £6,000 which he had wronged him
of, but names not his name ; but is well known to be the Scrivener
in Fleet Street, at whose house he lodged." He
1603, was called to the bar in 1611, and was elected an assistant to
the bench, as chief clerk of the court of wards and liveries, in P. 247
November, 1638. His name is given in the clerk's book as one
of the benchers of the Inner Temple in 1638, and it comes last but
one on the list, he having only recently been elected. He was no
credit to the inn, being a notorious usurer. His life has formed the
subject of an article on the " Usurers of the Seventeenth Century," by
Isaac D'Israeli,2 who vouches the following anecdote. On Audley's
appointment to be registrar or chief clerk of the court of wards, he
was asked by a friend what the value of such appointment might be.
" It might," said he, " be worth some thousands of pounds to him
who after his death would go instantly to heaven ; twice as much to
him who would go to purgatory ; and nobody knows what to him
who would adventure to go to hell." Having started life in the
early part of the century with £200, he died in 1662, having held
for many years his office in the court of wards, and accumulated the
colossal fortune of _4.400,000. Mr. Davis, the bookseller, whom he
appointed one of his heirs, published his life,' a somewhat ungrateful
return for an unexpected legacy. He was, however, acknowledged
to be a sound and diligent lawyer, with a practical knowledge of
real property and conveyancing hardly equalled by any man of his
day.' It must also be placed to his credit that among other bequests
he left ‘ioo to the Inner Temple for the benefit of the church.
Prideaux is always, up to October, 1659, mentioned as treasurer,
but whether he regularly attended the bench does not appear.
According to Whitelock, the lawyers, after the abolition of royalty,
was admitted in
1 In the original MS. at Magdalen College the figures are 6o,000, which is
possibly a clerical error of Pepys.
" Curiosities of Literature." London, 1849, i4th edition, vol. ii., p. 174.
" The way to be rich, according to the practice of the great Audley, who begun
with two hundred pound in the year 1605 and dyed worth four hundred thousand pound
this instant November, 1662. London, printed for E. Davis, 1662." 4to.
" Notes and Queries," 9th Series, vol. i., p. 189. See also " Dict. of Nat. Biog.,"
vol. ii., p. 249.
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