table,’ Gerard ‘was permitted to plead on her behalf, and performed his part so well that he suffered imprisonment for the same in the Tower during the remaining term’ of the reign. What truth there may be in this statement is not clear. That Gerard had rendered some important service to Elizabeth is made probable by the fact that she appointed him attorney-general immediately on her accession, but it is also clear that he was not then in prison (Ormerod, Cheshire, ed. Helsby, iii. 893; Wotton, Baronetage; Gregson, Portfolio of Fragments, Lancashire (Harland), p. 237; Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 141; Douthwaite, Gray's Inn, p. 53; Dugdale, Orig. pp. 91, 295, 298; Lists of Members of Parliament, Official Return of). He was employed in Ireland in 1560 to reform the procedure of the court of exchequer, and to this end drew up certain ‘orders and articles for the better collecting the queen's rents, revenues, and debts,’ to which the lord-lieutenant (the Earl of Suffolk) affixed the seal on 2 Sept. (Sloane MS. 4767, f. 22). In 1561 he was made counsel to the university of Cambridge, and in May 1563 commissioner for the sale of crown lands. In 1565 he went the home circuit, and on 23 July was entertained with Sir John Southcote and other judges at a magnificent banquet given by Archbishop Parker at the palace, Canterbury. On 12 June 1566 he was appointed one of the special commission for hearing causes ‘infra virgam hospitii,’ i.e. within the bounds of the palace or other place where the sovereign might for the time be residing. He seems to have been a member of the ecclesiastical commission in 1567, when he materially assisted Archbishop Parker in introducing certain reforms into Merton College, Oxford. During a great part of 1570 he was actively engaged in trying participators in the northern rebellion, as one of a special commission constituted for that purpose, with the Earl of Sussex at its head, and which sat principally at York and Durham. In January 1571 he received a letter of thanks from the senate of the university of Cambridge for his services in connection with the passing of the statute 13 Eliz. c. 29, confirming the charters and privileges of the university and for services rendered in connection with other statutes. He appears in a deed (printed in ‘Trevelyan Papers,’ Camden Soc., ii. 74–83) of 23 Oct. 1571 as trustee for the queen of certain manors in Chelsea and elsewhere mortgaged to her by the Earl of Wiltshire to secure 35,000l. He probably drew the interrogatories administered to the Duke of Norfolk concerning his intrigues with the Bishop of Ross and Ridolfi on 13, 18, and 31 Oct. 1571, on each of which occasions he was present at the examination and signed the depositions (Murdin, State Papers, pp. 158–63; Hist. MSS. Comm. Cal. Cecil MSS., 1883, pp. 535, 544), and he ably seconded the queen's serjeant, Nicholas Barham [q. v.], in the prosecution of the duke on the charge of conspiring to depose the queen, which followed on 16 Jan. 1571–2. His argument is reported at considerable length in Cobbett's ‘State Trials,’ i. 1000–11. He also in the following February took part in the prosecution of Robert Higford or Hickford, the duke's secretary, for the offence of adhering to and comforting the queen's enemies (ib. p. 1042), and on 5 May he was occupied at the Tower with Sir Ralph Sadler and other commissioners in taking the examination of Thomas Bishop, another of the duke's dependents. The same day he sent to Burghley the depositions of the Bishop of Ross, taken on interrogatories prepared by himself two days before with remarks on the obstinacy of the bishop. He also drew the interrogatories for the examination of the Earl of Northumberland in the following June. A curious case submitted to him the same year by Fleetwood, recorder of London, is preserved in Strype's ‘ Annals’ (fol.) ii. pt. i. 240, pt. ii. App. bk. i. No. xxv. One Blosse (alias Mantel) had asserted that Edward VI was still alive, and that Elizabeth had about 1564 married the Earl of Leicester and had four children by him. Blosse was accordingly charged with treason before Fleetwood, who reserved the case in order that Gerard might advise whether it fell within the statutes of treason. Gerard held that it did not, and the man was released. In 1573 Gerard was a member of three commissions: (1) a commission of gaol delivery for the Marshalsea, (2) a commission of inquiry as to the ownership of certain ships and Spanish goods on which an embargo had been laid (both in the month of April), and (3) in October a commission of oyer and terminer for Middlesex (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, pp. 225, 433, 443; Addenda, 1566–79, pp. 251, 261, 267, 270, 305–6, 400; Scotland, 1509–1603, p. 911; Strype, Parker (fol.), i. 190, 253; Rymer, Fœdera, ed. Sanderson, xv. 660, 718, 720, 725). In 1576 the Irish lord deputy, Sydney, requested the privy council to send Gerard to Ireland to advise him on various legal questions. It does not appear whether he was sent or not. He was a member of the ecclesiastical commission of this year. On 23 Feb. 1579 he took the examination of the Irish rebel, Richard Oge Burke, second earl of Clanricarde, at Durham House, Strand. On 5 July following he received the honour
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