(4 April) he expatiated with much learning and eloquence in praise of the royal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical, touched lightly but loyally on supply, and gratefully acknowledged the free course which her majesty allowed to the administration of justice. The speech introduced petitions for freedom from arrest, free access to and considerate audience by her majesty, and free speech. The first three were granted; the last only elicited an intimation that the commons would do well to meddle with no affairs of state but such as might be referred to them by ministers. The revival, in defiance of this injunction, of the whole question of the reformation of religion and church government occasioned an early dissolution (29 May). An act (13 Eliz. c. 29) confirming the charters, liberties, and privileges of the university of Cambridge owed its passage largely to Wray's influence, for which the thanks of the senate were communicated to him by letter (5 June).
Wray was appointed on 14 May 1572 justice, and on 8 Nov. 1574 chief justice, of the queen's bench. The only state trial in which as puisne he took part was that in Trinity term 1572 of John Hall and Francis Rolston for conspiracy to effect the release of Mary Queen of Scots. As chief justice, in addition to his ordinary jurisdiction he exercised functions of a somewhat multifarious character. He was a member of the commission appointed on 23 April 1577 to adjudicate on the validity of the election of John Underhill (1545?–1592) [q. v.] to the rectorship of Lincoln College, Oxford; and as assistant to the House of Lords he advised on bills, received petitions, and on one occasion (14 Sept. 1586) was placed on the commission for its adjournment. He was a strong judge, who well knew how to sustain the dignity of his office, and showed as much firmness in restraining by prohibition an excess of jurisdiction on the part of the ecclesiastical commission in 1581 as in enforcing the laws against the sectaries in that and subsequent years [see Browne, Robert; Cartwright, Thomas, (1535–1603); and Coppin or Copping, John]. It was not until towards the close of his life that he was himself added to the ecclesiastical commission (Christmas 1589).
The principal state trials over which he presided were those of the puritan John Stubbs or Stubbe [q. v.], the jesuit Edmund Campion [q. v.], and his harbourer, William, lord Vaux (son of Thomas, second baron Vaux of Harrowden [q. v.]), and the conspirators against the life of the queen, John Somerville [q. v.] and William Parry (d 1585) [q. v.] He also presided at the Star-chamber inquest by which (23 June 1580) the suicide and treasons of the Earl of Northumberland were certified [see Percy, Henry, eighth Earl of Northumberland]; and was a member of the commissions which attainted Northumberland's accomplice, William, grandson of Sir William Shelley [q. v.], and passed sentence of death upon Anthony Babington [q. v.] and his associates (September 1586). He was present at Fotheringay as assessor to the tribunal before which the Queen of Scots pleaded in vain for her life (14 Oct. 1586), but appears to have taken no part in the proceedings. He presided, vice Sir Thomas Bromley (1530–1587) [q. v.], absent through illness, at the subsequent trial in the Star-chamber of the unfortunate secretary of state, William Davison [q. v.], whose indiscreet zeal he blandly censured as ‘bonum sed non bene’ before pronouncing the ruthless sentence of the court (28 March 1587). The last state trials in which he took part were those of Philip Howard, thirteenth earl of Arundel [q. v.], on 18 April 1589, and of Sir John Perrot [q. v.] on 27 April 1592. At a conference with his colleagues in Michaelmas term 1590 he initiated the revision of the form of commissions of the peace, then full of corruptions and redundancies.
He died on 7 May 1592, and was buried in the church of Glentworth, Lincolnshire, where, by the aid of grants from the profits of the mint, he had built for himself a noble mansion, which was long the seat of his posterity, and of which a portion was afterwards incorporated in the modern Glentworth Hall. By his will he established a dole for the inmates of an almshouse which he had built on the estate. A sessions house at Spittal-in-the-Street was also built by him.
Wray was lord of the manors Brodsworth and Cusworth, Yorkshire, and of Ashby, Fillingham, Grainsby, and Kennington, Lincolnshire. His monument, a splendid structure in alabaster and other marbles, is in the chancel of Glentworth church. ‘Re justus, nomine verus,’ so, in allusion to his motto and with an evident play upon his name, he is characterised by the inscription. Coke (Rep. iii. 26) praises his ‘profound and judicial knowledge, accompanied with a ready and singular capacity, grave and sensible elocution, and continual and admirable patience.’ No less eulogistic, though less weighty, are the encomiums of David Lloyd (State Worthies, i. 467) and Fuller (Worthies of England, ed. 1662, p. 200). Their general accuracy is unquestionable; and
