Credibility in the Court of Chancery: Salesbury v. Bagot, 1671-1677

ABSTRACT

Between 1671 and 1677, William Salesbury of Rhug fought a bitter legal battle in Chancery against his cousin, Dame Jane Bagot, and her family. William contested Jane’s inheritance of the Bachymbyd estate, Denbighshire, which once belonged to their shared paternal grandfather. According to the Chancery records, their grandfather wrongfully disinherited William’s father. The Lord Chancellor judged five out of six points in William’s favour. However, the estate archives demonstrate that William’s father had no lawful claim to Bachymbyd and William built his suit on forgeries and half-truths. In a case where a daughter inherited an estate from a younger son, William manipulated the contemporary social norms of gender and primogeniture. The suit provides a unique opportunity to understand how credibility was constructed in the seventeenth century. This article suggests that credibility depended on social norms and played a larger role in the law, and perhaps wider society, than evidence-based truth.