North was the sixth son of
Dudley North, 4th Baron North, and his wife Anne Montagu and was the brother of
Francis North,
Elizabeth (became) Wiseman and
Dudley North. He was born in
Tostock,
Suffolk. He attended
Bury St Edmunds Grammar School and then
Thetford Grammar School from 1663, followed by
Jesus College, Cambridge, and the
Middle Temple. He was
called to the bar in 1674, and was Steward of the
Diocese of Canterbury in 1678. He became
King's Counsel and a Bencher of Middle Temple in 1682. North developed a good practice at the bar, helped by his elder brother Francis, who became
Lord Chancellor.
Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon, called him "one of only two honest lawyers I ever knew". During the
Popish Plot, while Francis succumbed to the prevailing anti-Catholic hysteria, Roger remained detached and sceptical. Although he was always loyal to his brother's memory, Roger admitted that during the Plot "wise men behaved like stark fools". In 1684 he became
Solicitor-General to the
Duke of York. After this his career suffered something of a check: Francis' unexpected early death in September 1685 was both a personal loss and a blow to Roger's career, since Francis was replaced as Lord Chancellor by the formidable
Lord Jeffreys. Roger, who left a scarifying picture of Jeffreys in his memoirs, was a rather shy and diffident man, and frankly admitted to being terrified of Jeffreys; as a result, in his own words, his practice "declined so as to be scarce worth attending Court". The check was only temporary: in 1685, he was chosen as a
Tory Member of Parliament for
Dunwich, and became
Recorder of
Bristol. He was further advanced in 1686 to the office of
Attorney General to Queen
Mary of Modena. The
Glorious Revolution stopped his advancement, and he retired to his estate of
Rougham in Norfolk and increased his fortune by marrying the daughter of Sir Robert Gayer. North died at Rougham on 1 March 1734, leaving a family from whom the Norths of Rougham were descended. ==Works==