Catalogue description Court of King's Bench, and Supreme Court of Judicature, High Court of Justice: Oath Rolls and Files

Rolls and (after 1837) files of signed oaths acknowledging the supremacy of or allegiance to the crown, or of abjuration to deny any rights of the exiled Jacobite pretenders to the throne, under the Test Act of 1672, the Security of the Succession Act of 1701, and the Security of King and Government Act 1695, all of which specified that the oaths could be taken in, among other places, the court. Among notable signatories were Christopher Wren, Horace Walpole and David Garrick, William Blackstone and other notable judges. Women appear only rarely.

One roll contains oaths of allegiance and supremacy being taken by alien refugee protestants becoming naturalised under statute 7 Anne c 5. There is also a stray attorneys' oath roll of the mid eighteenth century. Legislation of the nineteenth century gradually eroded the need for the oaths to be taken, but the latter part of the series includes 8 volumes recording the judicial oaths of judges, magistrates and recorders during the twentieth century, with indexes. The later 19th century records clearly indicate, as earlier ones do not, the office for which the oaths were administered.

Later oath rolls are in

Association oath rolls are in C 213

Rolls of oaths of allegiance and test oaths are in C 214

KB 4

List of pieces 1-3 in List and Index Society Volume 106