Gird with a seynt of silk, with barres smale
Of his array telle I no lenger tale.
How lifelike that touch of the fussy man, who “seemede besier than he was”! But each line might serve as text for a long dissertation! The old court hours were early: the judges sat from eight till eleven, when your busy Serjeant would, after bolting his dinner, hie him to his pillar where he would hear his client’s story, “and take notes thereof upon his knee.” The parvys or pervyse of Paul’s—properly, only the church door—had come to mean the nave of the cathedral, called also “Paul’s Walk,” or “Duke Humphrey’s Walk,” from the supposed tomb of Duke Humphrey that stood there. In Tudor times it was the great lounge and common newsroom of London. Here the needy adventurer “dined with Duke Humphrey,” as the quaint euphemism ran; here spies garnered in popular opinion for the authorities. It was the very place for the lawyer to meet his client, yet had he other resorts: the round of the Temple Church and Westminster are noted as in use for consultations.
Chaucer’s Serjeant “rood but hoomly” because he was travelling; in court he had a long priest-like robe, with a furred cape about his shoulders and a scarlet hood. The gowns were various, and sometimes parti-coloured. Thus, in 1555 we find each new Serjeant possessed of one robe of scarlet, one of violet, one of brown and blue, one of mustard and murrey, with tabards (short sleeveless coats) of cloths of the same colours. The cape was edged, first with lambskin, afterwards with more precious stuff. In Langland’s Vision of Piers Plowman (1362) there is mention of this dress of the Serjeants, they are jibed at for their love of fees and so forth, after a fashion that is not yet extinct! But the distinctive feature in the dress was the coif, a close-fitting head covering made of white lawn or silk. A badge of honour, it was worn on all professional occasions, nor was it doffed even in the King’s presence. In monumental effigies it is ever prominent. When a Serjeant resigned his dignity he was formally discharged from the obligation of wearing it. To discuss its exact origin were fruitless, yet one ingenious if mistaken conjecture may be noticed. Our first lawyers were churchmen, but in 1217 these were finally debarred from general practice in the courts. Many were unwilling to abandon so lucrative a calling, but what about the tonsure? “They were for decency and comeliness allowed to cover their bald pates with a coif, which had been ever since retained.” Thus the learned Serjeant Wynne in his tract on the antiquity and dignity of the order (1765). In Tudor times, if not before, fashion required the Serjeant to wear a small skull-cap of black silk or velvet on the top of the coif. This is very clearly shown in one of Lord Coke’s portraits. Under Charles II. lawyers, like other folk, began to wear wigs, the more exalted they were the bigger their perukes. It was wittily said that Bench and Bar went into mourning on Queen Anne’s death, and so remained, since their present dress is that then adopted. Serjeants were unwilling to lose sight of their coifs altogether, and it was suggested on the wig by a round patch of black and white, representing the white coif and the cap which had covered it. The limp cap of black cloth known as the “black cap” which the judge assumes when about to pass sentence of death was, it seems, put on to veil the coif, and as a sign of sorrow. It was also carried in the hand when attending divine service, and was possibly assumed in pre-Reformation times when prayers were said for the dead.
A few words will tell of the fall of the order. As far back as 1755 Sir John Willis, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, proposed to throw open that court as well as the office of judge to barristers who were not Serjeants, but the suggestion came to nothing. In 1834, the Bill for the establishment of a Central Criminal Court contained a clause to open the Common Pleas; this was dropped, but the same object was attained by a royal warrant, April 25, 1834. The legality of this was soon questioned and, after solemn argument before the Privy Council, it was declared invalid. In 1846 a statute (the 9 & 10 Vict. c. 54) to the same effect settled the matter, and the Judicature Act of 1873 provided that no judge need in future be a Serjeant. On the dissolution of Serjeants’ Inn its members were received back into the Houses whence they had come.
As for centuries all the judges were Serjeants, the history of the order is that of the Bench and Bar of England; yet some famous men rose no higher, or for one reason or other became representative members. Such a one was Sir John Maynard (1602-1690). In his last years William III. commented on his venerable appearance: “He must have outlived all the lawyers of his time.” “If your Highness had not come I should have outlived the law itself,” was the old man’s happy compliment. Pleading in Chancery one day, he remarked that he had been counsel in the same case half a century before, he had steered a middle course in those troubled times, but he had ever leant to the side of freedom against King and Protector alike. His share in the impeachment of Strafford procured him a jibe in Butler’s Hudibras, yet it was said that all parties seemed willing to employ him, and that he seemed willing to be employed by all. Jeffreys, who usually deferred to him, once blustered out, “You are so old as to forget your law, Brother Maynard.” “True, Sir George, I have forgotton more law than ever you knew,” was the crushing retort. Macaulay has justly praised his conduct at the Revolution for that he urged his party to disregard legal technicalities and adopt new methods for new and unheard-of circumstances. Edmund Plowden (1518-1585) deserves at least equally high praise. He was so determined a student that “for three years he went not once out of the Temple.” He is said to have refused the Chancellorship offered him by Elizabeth as he would not desert the old faith. He was attacked again and again for nonconformity, but his profound knowledge of legal technicalities enabled him on each occasion to escape the net spread for him. He was an Englishman loyal to the core, and Catholic as he was opposed in 1555 the violent proceedings of Queen Mary’s Parliament. The Attorney-General filed a bill against him for contempt, but “Mr. Plowden traversed fully, and the matter was never decided.” “A traverse full of pregnancy,” is Lord Coke’s enthusiastic comment. On his death in 1584 they buried him in that Temple Church whose soil must have seemed twice sacred to this oracle of the law. An alabaster monument whereon his effigy reposes remains to this day. A less distinguished contemporary was William Bendloes (1516-1584), “Old Bendloes,” men called him. A quaint legend reports him the only Serjeant at the Common Pleas bar in the first year of Elizabeth’s reign. Whether there was no business, or merely half-guinea motions of course, or the one man argued on both sides, or whether the whole story be a fabrication, ’tis scarce worth while to inquire.
I pass to more modern times. William Davy was made Serjeant-at-law in 1754. His wit combats with Lord Mansfield are still remembered. His lordship was credited with a desire to sit on Good Friday; our Serjeant hinted that he would be the first judge that had done so since Pontius Pilate! Mansfield scouted one of Davy’s legal propositions. “If that be law I must burn all my books.” “Better read them first,” was the quiet retort. In recent days two of the best known Serjeants were Parry and Ballantine, the first a profound lawyer, the second a great advocate, but both are vanished from the scene.
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