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were able to exert pressure upon a king who had need of the support of Parliament. That pressure affected the whole future development of equity, just as the same pressure, a few years later, affected the whole future development of the land law, because it shaped the statute of Uses in such a way that the common law courts got control over the most important variety of uses.1

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More's beautiful character would have made him an ideal chancellor at any time. It was exactly fitted to the difficult position which he was then called upon to fill. He was scrupulously pure, and strictly impartial, to the disappointment, on two occasions, of his relations. He is said to have quickly cleared off all arrears of business. He was easy of access, and made it a habit never to grant a subpoena till he was satisfied that the plaintiff had some real ground of complaint. The result was that the number of injunctions granted considerably diminished. And, when he heard that some of the judges were still complaining of their issue, he invited them to dinner, "and after dinner when he had broken with them what complaints he had heard of his injunctions, and moreover showed them both the number and causes of every one of these in order so plainly, that upon full debating of those matters, they were all enforced to confess, that they in like case could have done no otherwise themselves, then offered he this unto them, that if the justices of every court, unto whom the reformation of rigour of the law, by reason of their office, most specially appertained, would upon reasonable considerations, by their own discretions (as they were, as he thought, in conscience bound) mitigate and reform the rigour of the law themselves, there should from thenceforth by him no more injunctions be granted. Whereupon, when they refused to condescend, then said he unto them: 'Forasmuch as yourselves, My Lords, drive me to that necessity for awarding our injunctions to relieve the people's injury, you cannot hereafter

1 Vol. iv 453-455, 461.

2 Roper, Life of More (Everyman's Library) 41-43; Life of More, by his grandson Th. More, 207-210.

Roper, 28, 29; Life of More, by his grandson Th. More, 164-165.

4 Which gave rise to the following verse, cited Campbell, Chancellors i 551:—

"When More sometime had Chancellor been,

No more suits did remain :

The same shall never more be seen,
Till More be there again.'

5" This Lord Chancellor used commonly every afternoon to sit in his open hall to the intent, if any person had any suit unto him they might the more boldly come to his presence, and there open complaints before him. Whose manner was also to read every bill himself, ere he would award any subpoena, which bearing matter sufficient worthy a subpoena would he set his hand unto, or else cancel it," Roper

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any more justly blame me. The result of his tenure of office was to restore harmonious relations between the Chancery and the common law courts till the revival of the struggle in the latter part of the sixteenth century--a revival which culminated in the dispute between Coke and Ellesmen. That harmonious relations had been restored can be seen from the fact that Bacon and the other lawyers, whom James I. called in to advise him,2 were able to report that injunctions had been issued by the chancellor for the last sixty years-" and that in the time when the same authority was managed, not only by the bishops, which might be thought less skilful or less affectionate towards the laws of the land, but also divers great lawyers, which could not but know and honour the law as the means of their advancement Sir Thomas More, and the Lord Audley, the Lord Rich, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Thomas Bromley, and Sir John Puckering; and further, that most of the late judges of the kingdom, either as judges when they sat in Chancery by commission, or as counsellors at law, when they set their hands to bills, have by their judgment and counsel upheld the same authority."3

There were, as I have said, occasional reversions to chancellors

of the older type. But they were generally due to temporary political causes. From 1551-1558 there are a succession of episcopal chancellors. The appointment of Goodrich, bishop of Ely, as Lord Keeper in 1551 was not at first intended to be permanent.1 It was not till 1552 that he was made permanent chancellor possibly Northumberland thought that it would be easier to persuade the bishop to put the great seal to Edward's attempted resettlement of the throne than a common lawyer. Mary's appointments of Gardiner and Heath were in agreement with her general policy of restoring so far as possible the old order in church and state. But otherwise, except for the short chancellorship of Wriothesley 5 (1544-1547), and the purely temporary appointment of Lord Paulet in 1547, the seal was in the hands of common lawyers. Audley, who had attained the rank of king's serjeant, held it from 1532-1544;" and Rich, who had been solicitor-general, held it from 15471551. Neither can be said to have adorned the office. Audley

1 Roper, Life of More 30, 31.

2 Vol. i 463.

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3 Cary, Reports in Chancery 125; for an instance in 1581 where the judges advised the plaintiff, a widow, who had got two verdicts at law in an action for dower, to get an injunction from the chancellor to quiet possession, see Monro, Acta Cancellaria 506-507.

Dict. Nat. Biog.

5 He was a member of Gray's Inn, but he had made his way at Court, and not by following the profession of the law.

"A long judgment delivered by Audley as chancellor is reported in Y.B. 27 Hy. VIII. Mich. pl. 6 (pp. 18-20),

was a pliant instrument of Henry VIII.'s caprice, and took a leading part in most of the state trials of the period. Rich's character has been branded for all time by Sir Thomas More;1 and the latest historical research, adjudicating upon Rich's whole career, has pronounced a sentence quite as severe.2 Both he and Audley stand condemned for the part which they took in More's trial and condemnation.3

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The growing influence of the common lawyers upon the administration of equity is also illustrated by the fact that, from the latter part of Wolsey's chancellorship, when commissions were issued to help the chancellor or to perform his duties during his absence or during a vacancy in his office, common law judges were usually placed upon them. It is true that they were not placed upon the authorized commission issued by Wriothesley in 1544,5 or upon the unauthorized commission issued by him in 1547.6 But the issue of the latter commission was, as we have seen, made the occasion for his deprivation; and the fact that it was composed mainly of civilians was given prominence in the petition of the students of the common law against the doings of the court of Chancery. These students clearly regarded it as irregular that the court of Chancery should be wholly controlled by civilian masters and clerks unassisted by any representative from among the common lawyers.

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1"In good faith, Master Rich, I am sorrier for your perjury than for mine own peril, and you shall understand that neither I, nor no man else to my knowledge ever took you to be a man of such credit as in any matter of importance I or any other would at any time vouchsafe to communicate with you. And I (as you know) of no small while have been acquainted with you and your conversation, who have known you from your youth hitherto, for we long dwelled together in one parish. Whereas yourself can tell you were esteemed very light of your tongue, a great dicer, and of not commendable fame. And so in your house at the Temple you were likewise accounted," Roper 59-60.

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2 A time server of the least admirable type, he was always found on the winning side, and he had a hand in the ruin of most of the prominent men of his time, not a few of whom had been his friends and benefactors-Wolsey, More, Fisher, Cromwell, Wriothesley, Seymour, Somerset, and Northumberland," A. F. Pollard, Dict. Nat. Biog.

3 Roper 59.63; More, Life of More 257.

4 For the commission issued in 1529 see Rymer, Foedera (ed. 1713) xix 299it was addressed to the Master of the Rolls, the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, a judge of the King's Bench and Common Pleas, a baron of the Exchequer, six clerks of the Chancery and ten others; for other similar commissions granted to two judges, six Masters and the Master of the Rolls under Rich and Goodrich see Foss, Judges v 279; judges were on the commission to hear cases in Chancery after Hatton's death, ibid 397; and also on the commission issued after the fall of Bacon, ibid vi 4; Bishop Williams was assisted by two judges in dealing with the difficulties which arose from the fire in the Six Clerks' Office in December, 1621, Sanders, Chancery Orders i 143, 146. 5 Rymer, Foedera xv 58.

"Dasent ii 51-52; both commissions were composed of the Master of the Rolls, a master and two clerks of the Chancery.

7 Vol. iv 253, 257.

8" And for a more amplyfyeing and inlarging of the jurisdiction of the saide Courte of Chauncery and deroyacion of the saide Čommen Lawes there is of late a

VOL. V.-15

With the accession of Elizabeth the process of transition to the lawyer chancellors, under whom equity gradually began to assume its modern shape, is, in effect, complete. From 1558 to 1649 it was only for the space of eight years-between 1587 and 1591 when Christopher Hatton was chancellor, and between. 1621 and 1625 when Bishop Williams was chancellor that the seal was held by one who had not been educated as a common lawyer. Let us glance at the careers of these two exceptional chancellors before passing on to the important holders of the office.

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Hatton was pre-eminently a courtier, and, in addition, something of a statesman. There is evidence that in an age, not very marked for administrative purity, he set a high standard.1 He admitted that he was not “acquainted with the course of the law." 2 But he had a clear idea of the place of equity in the legal system-addressing a newly made serjeant, he told him that he would so far as possible help the due administration of the law, and that disputes should so far as possible be settled by the law alone, as equity only exists to help "the rigour and extremities of the law." He was always assisted by some of the masters; and Camden tells us that, though the lawyers grumbled at his appointment, "he supplied by his equity and justice what he wanted in legal knowledge."5 Williams had studied in his youth the elements of the common law; and, while a chaplain in Egerton's house, he had discussed with him. cases which had come before him in the Chancery and Star Chamber. Rumour said that the king, after Bacon's fall, insisted upon appointing him because he despaired of finding an Commission made contrary to the saide Commen Lawes unto certaine persones, the more parte whereof be Civilians not learned in the saide Lawes of this realme," Dasent ii 50.

1 Nicolas, Memoirs of Sir C. Hatton 388.

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2 Speech to Serjt. Clerke, Sanders, Chancery Orders ii 1036, "I have not bene acquainted withe the course of the lawe, althoughe in my youthe I spent some time in the studye thereof."

3 Ibid "I will be an assistannte and servaunte unto you in all your good proceedings. But I tell you and mark it well I finde that manye are called hether and muche money spent and in the ende their cawses dismissed to the lawe, where they might have begonne at the first if the parties had been well informed and councelled. We sitte heare to helpe the rigor and extremeties of the lawe.

4 Ibid i 60, 61.

5 Annales (ed. 1615) i 475—“Christopherus vero Hattonus florentissima apud principem gratia, suffectus erat ex Aula Cancellarius, quod Juris Anglici consultissimi permoleste tulerunt. Illi enim ex quo Ecclesiastici de gradu dejecti, hunc Magistratum, summum togatæ dignitatis culmen, viris Ecclesiasticis et Nobilibus plerumque olim delatum, magna cum æquitatis et prudentiæ laude gesserunt. Splendidissime tamen omnium quos vidimus gessit, et quod ex Juris scientia defui æquitate supplere studuit."

6 Hacket, Life of Williams i 27.

7" He would impart to him the narration of some famous causes that had been debated in Chancery or Star Chamber," ibid i 28.

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honest lawyer.1 After his appointment he furbished up his law with the help of Henry Finch.2 To appease criticism he let it be known that his appointment was merely temporary; and he promised in the speech which he made on entering office, "to make no decree that shall cross the grounds of the common or statute laws," to use expedition, and not without cause to disturb the decrees of his predecessors. Clarendon tells us that the general opinion was that he was " unequal to the place; 5 but, by acting upon the principles which he had laid down, he appears to have been successful in conciliating both the common lawyers and the officials of the court.'

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We must now turn to the careers of those lawyer chancellors who may justly be considered the fathers of our modern system of equity.

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Nicolas Bacon 8 was lord keeper during the first twenty-one years of Elizabeth's reign (1558-1579). At Cambridge he had been one of the famous band of humanists; and he was a friend of Cecil and Parker, to the former of whom he became related through his second wife. Throughout his life he was keenly interested in all educational projects. He, Denton, and Cary prepared a scheme for the establishment of a college for the education of statesmen; in 1561 he wrote a letter to Cecil, who had just been appointed master of the wards, as to the proper method of educating the Queen's wards; 10 and in his later years he founded a grammar school, and scholarships to enable boys from his school to go to Cambridge." Already in Edward VI.'s reign he was attorney of the court of Wards, and a bencher of Gray's Inn; and he managed to retain his post in the court of Wards under Mary. As lord keeper he distinguished himself for

1S.P. Dom. 1619-1623 267, cxxi 121, Chamberlain writing to Carleton says-— "the king said that he was resolved to have no more lawyers, for they were so nursed in corruption that they could not leave it off."

2" Having the assistance of Sir Harry Finch, a most profound lawyer, whom he kept in his lodgings from May to October, for all sorts of advice," Hacket, op. cit. i 60; for Finch see below 233, 399-401.

3 Ibid 56.

5 History of the Rebellion (ed. 1843) 19.

4 Ibid 73.

6 Buckingham, trying to find an excuse for getting rid of him, tried to persuade Hobart C.J. to say he was not fit for the post, to whom Hobart replied, "somewhat might have been said at the first, but he should do the Lord Keeper great wrong that said so now," Hacket, op. cit. i 201.

Similarly, Evelin, one of the Six Clerks, spoke well of him, ibid.

8 Foss, Judges v 447-456; Dict. Nat. Biog.

9 Maitland, English Law and the Renaissance 72-73.

10 Archæologia xxxvi 343-344-he points out that "the chiefe thing, and most ot price, in wardeship is the wardes mynde; the next to that, his bodie; the last and meanest his land. Nowe, hitherto the chiefe care of governaunce hath bin had to the land, being the meaneste; and to the bodie, being the better, very small; but to the mynde, being the best, none at all, which me thinkes is playnely to sett the carte before the horse."

11 Dict. Nat. Biog.

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