Bloody Assizes, the name given by the people to those courts which were held in England by the infamous Judge Jeffreys, in 1685, after the suppression of the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion. Upward of 300 persons were executed after short trials; very many were whipped, imprisoned, and fined; and nearly 1,000 were sent as slaves to the American plantations, some of whom established families.
Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia, 1912.