Christopher Layer

Christopher Layer (1683–1723) was an English Jacobite conspirator, executed for high treason in 1723 for his part in what became known as the Atterbury Plot.

Born on 12 November 1683, he was the son of John Layer, a laceman, of Durham Yard, The Strand, London and Anne his wife. He was brought up by his uncle, Christopher Layer, a fox-hunting Norfolk squire, who sent him to Norwich grammar school, and later placed him with an attorney named Repingale at Aylsham, Norfolk.

Layer's uncle, finding himself in difficulties, offered to make over to his nephew the remains of his estate, in exchange for cash and an annuity. Layer made the deal but refused to pay any part of the annuity. Soon after this he quarrelled with his master, went up to London, and qualified himself under Hadley Doyley, an attorney of Furnival's Inn. Returning to Norfolk, he obtained business, but then entered the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar.

Layer was an agent and legal advisor to the "notorious Jacobite" Lord North and Grey, and was reputed to be unscrupulous. His Jacobitism led him to hope to be made Lord Chancellor in the event of a restoration of the House of Stuart. He went to Rome in the summer of 1721, and there unfolded to the Old Pretender the details of a plot. He proposed to enlist broken soldiers, seize the Tower of London, the Royal Mint, the Bank of England, and other public buildings; also to secure the royal family, and murder the commander-in-chief and ministers.

Layer boasted of having a large and influential following. He did meet some confederates regularly at an inn in Stratford-le-Bow. He tried to entice soldiers at Romford and Leytonstone, and succeeded in enlisting a handful of malcontents. Layer used the house of one of his many mistresses; and compromising of his papers were left in the care of a brothel-keeper, Elizabeth Mason.

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