theless Heath was suspected of a secret sympathy with puritanism and the popular party, and was removed from office without cause assigned on 14 Sept., and replaced by Sir John Finch (1584–1660) [q. v.] He obtained leave from the king to practise as a serjeant in all courts except the Star-chamber, and on 12 Oct. 1636 was appointed king's serjeant. In this capacity he appeared to prosecute Thomas Harrison, a clergyman, indicted in Trinity term 1638 for publicly charging Sir Richard Hutton [q. v.], justice of the common pleas, while sitting in court at Westminster, with high treason. Harrison was convicted. In May 1640 Heath examined the ringleaders in some anti-papistical riotous assemblies held in Lambeth and Southwark.
On 23 Jan. 1640–1 Heath was appointed to a puisne judgeship in the king's bench, and on 13 May following to a mastership in the court of wards and liveries. The latter appointment was cancelled a few days later. He attended the king to York in May 1642, and was ‘sent for by parliament’ as a delinquent, but took refuge in Lord Strange's house in Lancashire. He rejoined the king at Oxford in the autumn, and in October was appointed chief justice of the king's bench in succession to Sir John Bramston, though, according to Dugdale, his patent was not issued until 31 Oct. 1643. In this capacity he tried, at the Oxford Guildhall on 6 Dec. 1642, four prisoners of war, viz. Captain John Lilburne [q. v.] and three other officers of the parliamentary army, on a charge of high treason, in that they had borne arms against the king. The parliament threatened retaliatory measures, and the proceedings were abandoned. On 4 July 1643 he received a commission of oyer and terminer to go circuit in Oxfordshire and the neighbouring counties, with liberty to avoid disturbed districts. He held an assize at Salisbury in the autumn, accompanied by Sir John Bankes [q. v.] and Sir Robert Foster [q. v.], at which the Earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, and Salisbury were indicted for high treason. The grand jury, notwithstanding the utmost pressure from the judges, threw out the bill, no offence being shown but that of assisting the parliament. Heath also tried about the same time Captain Turpin, a parliamentary sea-officer taken by the royalists in their recent attempt to relieve Exeter, and sentenced him to death as a traitor. Though reprieved, Turpin was kept close prisoner by Sir John Berkeley (d. 1678) [q. v.], the governor of Exeter, who in July hanged him by way of retaliation for the execution of Captain Howard, a deserter from the parliamentary army. The House of Commons thereupon impeached Heath and his colleagues of high treason (22 July). In October 1644 he was placed on the list of those to be condemned before the passing of the Act of Oblivion, and in the following December was excepted from pardon. His place was declared vacant, as if he were dead, by ordinance of 22 Nov. 1645, and his estates were subsequently sequestered. He fled to France in 1646, and died at Calais on 30 Aug. 1649. He was buried in Brasted Church, beneath a stately monument.
During his residence in France Heath wrote the brief autobiography published in the ‘Philobiblon Society Miscellany,’ vol. i.; probably also a curious catena of the virtues of a judge twenty-four in number, to correspond with the links of his collar of SS, and each, from studiousness to sanctity, denoted by a term beginning with the letter s, discovered among his autograph papers in the possession of his descendant, Lord Willoughby de Broke, by E. Shirley, esq., and by him communicated to ‘Notes and Queries’ in 1854 (1st ser. x. 357). Heath is the author of a formal treatise on pleading, published under the title of ‘Maxims and Rules of Pleading in Actions Real Personal and Mixt Popular and Penal,’ &c., London, 1694, 8vo. As a constitutional lawyer he was distinguished by learning and ability. He exhibited rare constancy to his principles, and seems to have been sincerely religious and benevolent to the clergy (Proceedings in Kent in 1640, Camd. Soc., 126, 129). He was a friend of learning, and in 1630 showed his attachment to his college by presenting some books to the library (Baker, Hist. of St. John's College, Cambridge, 340, 498). His portrait in ruff and robes, by an unknown hand, is in St. John's College; an engraving of the same by Hollar, done in 1664, adorns the 1680 edition of Dugdale's ‘Origines Juridiciales’ (Chron. Ser. 110); an etching from the engraving by Richard Sawyer (1820) is in the British Museum (Add. MS. 32351). The features are regular, the brow broad and massive, the eyes dark and penetrating.
Heath married, on 10 Dec. 1600, Margaret, daughter of John Miller, by whom he had five sons and one daughter, who survived him. Mary, the daughter, married Sir William Morley of Halnaker, Sussex. The eldest son, Edward, was created a knight of the Bath at the Restoration, recovered his father's estates, and also the fees which he ought to have received as chief justice of the king's bench, but which had been appropriated by the prothonotary of that court. He married a daughter of Ambrose, brother of Sir George Croke [q. v.], through whom he acquired the manor of Cottesmore in Rutlandshire. The
