The Bloody Assizes by John Shirley edited by J.G. Muddiman with a special introduction by Alan Dershowitz

England’s turbulent history and the last quarter of the 17th century
records the name of George Jeffreys in a most unflattering manner.
Jeffreys became Lord Chief Justice in 1682 and held, in 1685, the brutal
assizes following the defeat of Monmouth’s rebellion. By his order,
hundreds of prisoners were condemned to gruesome deaths without adequate
evidence of their guilt.

The story of these notoriously defective trials, The Bloody Assizes, edited by J. G. Muddiman, amply documents why the word “bloody” became permanently attached to the judgments of the 1685 Western Circuit and puts a human face on the consequences.

Professor Alan M. Dershowitz refers, in his introduction to our facsimile of the 1929  edition, to an important connection with the early United States:

“This terrible event in British history was well known to the framers of our Constitution, and the rights included in that document and in the Bill of Rights that followed soon after were designed to prevent the wrongs inflicted on British citizens by the infamous Jeffreys.”

This volume recounts in all its sad detail this critical episode in British history.