The Mother of Parliaments

by Harry Graham

CHAPTER VI

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

From the days of Sir Thomas More to the present time the Woolsack has continuously enriched the annals of English history with famous and distinguished names. The well-known biographies of Lord Campbell, whose habit of writing the lives of the deceased as soon as the breath was out of their bodies added, as Brougham declared, a new terror to death, supply abundant evidence of the statesmanlike qualities that attach to the holders of the office. The most eminent men of their day have held the Chancellorship, proving the truth of Burke's well-known assertion that of all human studies the law is the most efficacious in forming great men, and that to be well versed in the laws of England is to be imbued in the sublimest principles of human wisdom.

The office of Chancellor is of very ancient origin.[153] It existed in England in the days of the Anglo-Saxon kings, when the official who acted as judicial secretary or clerk to the sovereign is supposed to have derived his title from the cancelli or screens behind which he carried on his clerical duties.

After their conversion to Christianity, the kings employed the services of a priest as chaplain or confessor, and in the person of the Chancellor the posts of "Keeper of the King's Conscience" and secretary were thus naturally combined. In King Ethelred's time the Chancellorship was divided between the Abbots of Ely, Canterbury and Glastonbury, who exercised it in turn, each for four months.

The appointment continued for several centuries to be held by a cleric. In the early days of Parliament, indeed, the Chancellor received his writ of summons as a Bishop and not as Chancellor, and, though he attended in the latter capacity in any case, no summons was sent to him if he did not happen to be a bishop. Ecclesiastics were appointed to the Chancellorship, without exception, until the time of Sir Robert Bourchier in 1340, and it was not for a long time after this that spiritual statesmen wholly gave place to lawyers. Thomas à Beckett, William of Wykeham and Cardinal Wolsey, figure prominently among the clerical Chancellors of early times, and it was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century that laymen succeeded in establishing themselves firmly upon the Woolsack. Since that time no cleric, with the single exception of Bishop Williams, in 1621, has been entrusted with the Chancellorship or the custody of the Great Seal.

One of the chief duties of the Chancellor in early times consisted in affixing the royal Seal with which from time immemorial the will of the sovereign has been expressed. At the present day Royal grants and warrants, Letters-Patent of Peerage or for inventions, Commissions of the Peace, etc., are issued under what Coke calls the Clavis Regni. When the sovereign is absent it acts as his representative, and Parliament itself is opened by a Commission under the Great Seal. This emblem of sovereignty may therefore be considered one of the most important instruments of the Constitution, and, as its loss would entail endless inconvenience, it is given into the custody of the Lord Keeper or Lord Chancellor.[154] As secretary to the King the Chancellor would seem to have been its natural custodian, but when he fell sick or died, or went abroad, it was occasionally placed in other hands. Later on it became the custom to make the Keepership of the Great Seal a regular appointment, separate and distinct from the Lord Chancellorship.

The post of Lord Keeper has been held by statesmen, courtiers, and divines, and the duties of the office have even been undertaken on two occasions by women. Queen Eleanor, the first Lady Keeper, was also the most unpopular. While her husband was abroad in 1253, and the Great Seal was in her custody, she made use of her delegated power to lay a heavy tax on all vessels bearing cargo to London, and showered gifts of English land and places upon her foreign relatives. She thus succeeded in arousing the hatred of the London mob, who expressed their dislike in a material fashion by pelting her with mud. To avoid the fury of the populace Queen Eleanor fled abroad, and only returned to England to take refuge in a convent.[155] The other Lady Keeper, Queen Isabella, who held the Great Seal in 1321, had no actual commission, and was not entrusted with any judicial power. But she kept the Seal in a casket, and delivered it each day as it was required to the Master of the Rolls, and may therefore claim to be included in the list of Keepers.

The post of Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor first became identical in Queen Elizabeth's time, when the Great Seal was entrusted to Sir Nicholas Bacon, who, with his son Sir Francis and the great Lord Burghley, may be considered the most eminent of Elizabethan Chancellors. Sir Nicholas has been called an "archpiece of wit and wisdom",[156] and was also well suited physically to combine the two important offices. By nature a man of gigantic size, he grew more bulky with advancing years, and though his dignity was thus increased, the progress of Chancery business suffered in proportion. When he took his seat on the bench, after walking from the Court of Chancery to the Star Chamber, Sir Nicholas always spent some considerable time in recovering his breath. The proceedings were accordingly delayed until he had struck the ground three times with his stick as a signal that he was in a condition to resume work. As was fitting in a man of his position, Lord Keeper Bacon inspired intense awe amongst his subordinates. Indeed, the reverence with which he was universally regarded eventually proved the indirect cause of his death. One day, while he was having his hair cut, he fell into a profound slumber, from which no one had the courage to rouse him. "I durst not disturb you," said the barber, when Sir Nicholas at last awoke, chilled to the bone. "By your civility I lose my life," was the Lord Keeper's reply; and in a few days his prophecy was fulfilled. Though, with Sir Nicholas Bacon, the two posts of Keeper and Chancellor became united, it was not until the time of George III. that the modern system originated of conferring the Great Seal and the title of Lord Chancellor simultaneously.