Called to the bar in 1668, Jeffreys rose to prominence through vigorous activity and astute cultivation of business and political contacts. As recorder of London and later Chief Justice of Chester, his royalist sympathies were apparent in his decisions and opinions, and Charles II made him a baronet in 1681. In 1683 he was appointed to the king's bench, where he presided over some of the proceedings consequent on the Rye House plot to assassinate Charles II as well as a large number of prosecutions for seditious libel. In 1685 Jeffreys presided in the western assizes, also remembered as "The Bloody Assizes" after the unsuccessful rebellion mounted by the Duke of Monmouth culminated in nearly 1400 cases tried under Jeffreys, most resulting in conviction and sentencing for execution. Many were transported, but roughly 200 were actually put to death, earning Jeffreys the epithet "The Hanging Judge." In the political upheaval of the Glorious Revolution, Jeffreys was himself accused of treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he died the following spring.