Sir James Altham | |
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Baron Altham | |
Born | City of London |
Died | Oxhey Hall Place, Hertfordshire, England |
Wife | Margaret Skinner Mary Stapers Helen Saunderson |
Father | James Altham |
Mother | Elizabeth Blancke |
Occupation | barrister judge member of parliament |
Sir James Altham (about 1554[1] - 1617), of Oxhey, Hertfordshire,[2] was an English judge, briefly a member of the Parliament of England, and (from 1607) a Baron of the Exchequer.[3][4] A friend of Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon, Altham opposed Edward Coke but advanced the laws of equity behind the fastness of the Exchequer courts, so long considered almost inferior. Through advanced Jacobean royalism he helped to prosecute the King's enemies and centralise royal power of taxation. With Sir Edward Bromley, he presided at the Lancashire witch trials in 1612.