J oin us as Professor Andrea McKenzie provides a tal k on George Treby\, an important late seventeenth- century figure at a particularly significant and t umultuous period in English legal and political hi story. To accompany this talk\, some of the Treby manuscripts in the collection will be on display.< /p>\n \n
George Treby’s hitherto undeciphered s horthand notes provide a unique\, behind-the-scene s glimpse into the mental world of a prominent lat e Stuart lawyer\, MP and judge. Shorthand\, a scri bal technology first widely used in seventeenth-ce ntury England\, \;functioned not just as a tim e- and space-saving tool\, but also as a kind of ‘ secret writing’ to safeguard private or sensitive information\, or indiscreet expressions\, from hos tile eyes. In his Middle Temple case notes (1667-7 2)\, written when he was a young law student and n ewly-minted barrister\, Treby’s carefully coded an notations range from commonplace editorial explana tions and observations to irreverent and gossipy a sides about Restoration judges such as Kelynge\, V aughan\, Twisden and Hale\; they also include some pointed criticisms of Charles II and his entourag e. Treby’s later shorthand\, held in the Derbyshir e Record Office\, sheds new light on his activitie s as Chairman of the Commons Committee of Secrecy investigating the Popish Plot (1679-81) and his ev olution from a leading member of the Whig oppositi on to high office – as Solicitor and Attorney Gene ral and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas – under William III.
\n \nAndrea McKenzie&n bsp\;is a Professor of History at the Uni versity of Victoria specializing in seventeenth- a nd eighteenth-century English legal and cultural h istory. She is the author of numerous articles on early modern trial and execution\, last dying conf essions\, peine forte et dure\, spouse murder\, se venteenth-century shorthand and Restoration conspi ratorial politics\, as well as two monographs: Tyb urn’s Martyrs: Execution in England\, 1675-1775&nb sp\;(published in 2007) and Conspiracy Culture in Stuart England: the Mysterious Death of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey (2022). She is currently completing a book on rumour\, news and conspiracy beliefs du ring the “Popish Plot”\, c. 1678-81.
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