Jerome Alexander

Sir Jerome Alexander (c.1590–1670) was an English-born barrister, judge and politician who spent much of his career in Ireland (after he had been professionally ruined in England) and became a substantial Irish landowner. He was a noted benefactor of Trinity College Dublin. As a judge he was so ruthless in securing guilty verdicts, and in imposing the death penalty, that for many years after his death "to be alexandered" was an Irish synonym for being hanged.

He was born at Gressenhall in Norfolk, the eldest son of Jerome Alexander senior of Thorpland, an employee of Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel; the younger Jerome was also employed for a time as steward and bailiff to the Earl, and remained on friendly terms with him in later life. Elrington Ball states that the Alexander family were of Jewish origin. He was educated at Aylsham school, and then at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1609. He entered Furnivall's Inn and then proceeded to Lincoln's Inn in 1617, and was called to the bar in 1623.

His career in England was destroyed beyond repair by a finding of professional misconduct against him, but, unusually, this did not arise from his services to a client. He was, unlike most barristers, very litigious on his own behalf, and in 1626 the Star Chamber found him guilty of tampering with evidence in one of his own lawsuits; he was disbarred, fined and given a prison sentence. He moved to Ireland, where he entered the King's Inn and began practice at the Irish Bar. It is unclear if the Benchers of the King's Inn were then aware of his criminal record; if not, they certainly learned of it within the next few years. In 1633 he received a Royal pardon, on condition that he did not return to legal practice in England. In 1644 he published his Breviate, a 100-page pamphlet in defence of his actions. It gives a valuable, if inevitably slanted picture of his early life, and describes all his misfortunes as being due to the machinations of his enemies (this was to be a constant theme of Alexander's throughout his life).

...
Wikipedia