СНАР. His de cisions. to be instructed as to the facts and law of the case by the counsel who had been studying them - never interrupting to show quickness of perception, or to anticipate authorities. likely to be cited, or to blurt out a jest yet venturing to put a question for the right understanding of the points to be decided, and gently checking wandering and prolixity by a look or a hint. He listened with undivided attention to the evidence, and did not prepare a speech in parliament or write letters to his correspondents under pretence of taking notes of the arguments addressed to him. Nor did he affect the reputation of great despatch by deciding before he had heard both parties, or by referring facts and law to the Master which it was his own duty to ascertain and determine. When the case admitted of no reasonable doubt, he disposed of it as soon as the hearing was finished. Otherwise, he carried home the papers with him, not throwing them aside to moulder in a trunk, till, driven by the importunity of counsel asking for judgment, he again looked at them, long after the arguments he had heard were entirely forgotten and he could scarcely make out from his "breviate book" the points that had been raised for his decision, — but within a short time spontaneously giving judgment in a manner to show that he was compléte master of the case, and never aggravating the anguish of the losing party by the belief that if the Judge had taken more pains the result would have been different. Being himself Master of the Rolls, and in those days there being no Vice-chancellors — he was tried as a Judge of appeal only on exceptions to the Master's reports; but on such occasions he did not grudge the necessary trouble to understand the matters submitted to him, nor shrink from the responsibility of reversing what he considered to be erroneous. Although a few of his judgments are mentioned in Tothill and other compilers, none of them have come down to us in a shape to enable us to form an opinion of their merits; but they are said to have been distinguished for sound learning, lucid arrangement, and great precision of doctrine. The only persons by whom he was not entirely approved CHAP. XLVII. law were the Common-law Judges. He had the boldness to question and correct their pedantic rules more freely than Lord Keeper Puckering, Lord Keeper Bacon, or any of his pre- Offends decessors had done, and not unfrequently he granted injunc- Commontions against execution on common-law judgments on the Judges, by ground of fraud in the plaintiff, or some defect of procedure granting injuncby which justice had been defeated. He thus not only hurt tions. the pride of these venerable magistrates, but he interfered with their profits, which depended mainly upon the number of suits brought before them, and the reputation of their respective Courts. These jealousies, which began so soon after his appointment, went on constantly increasing, till at last, as we shall see, they produced an explosion which shook Westminster Hall to its centre. in attempts decrees in Equity by imposing fines. to enforce In this struggle he finally triumphed over the common-law Is defeated Judges; but they entirely defeated him in an attempt which he made to strengthen the jurisdiction of his Court by the imposition of fines. It had always been held, as it now is, that a decree in Chancery does not directly bind the land like a judgment of the Court of Common Pleas, and that it can only be enforced by imprisonment of the person. Egerton imposed a fine upon Sir Thomas Thomilthorp for not performing his decree in Chancery concerning lands of inheritance, and estreated it into the Exchequer, with a view of its being there levied by Crown process. The party pleaded that the fine was illegal, "and upon debate of the question in Court and good advisement taken, it was adjudged that the Lord Chancellor had no power to assess any such fine, for then, by a mean, he might bind the interest of the land where he had no power, but of the person only, and thereupon the said Sir Thomas Thomilthorp was discharged of the said fine." Not satisfied with this, Egerton made another experiment with the like view and the like success. For non-performance of a decree against one Waller he fined him, and upon process of extent out of Chancery seized his lands in Middlesex, "whereupon Waller brought his assize in the Court CHAP. XLVII. A parlia ment. Oct. 25. Lord Keeper's speech. of Common Pleas, where the opinion of the whole Court agreed in omnibus with the Court of Exchequer.” * During a year and a half, Lord Keeper Egerton had few distractions from the discharge of his judicial duties; but in the end of 1597, the exhausted state of the Exchequer, from the great charges of the Spanish war, compelled Elizabeth reluctantly to call a parliament. On the first day of meeting, the Queen being seated on the throne, he, by her command, declared to the two Houses the cause of the summons. After confessing that the royal presence of her Majesty, the view of such an honourable assembly, the weightiness of the service, and his own weakness, appalled him much, he gives a florid description of the prosperity of the kingdom, with a compliment to the Queen's extraordinary modesty. "This Her Majesty is pleased to ascribe to the great power and infinite mercy of the Almighty; and therefore it shall well become us all most thankfully, on the knees of our hearts, to acknowledge no less unto his holy name." Next comes a most excellent passage on Law Reform, very applicable to the present time. "And whereas the number of the laws already made are very great, some also of them being obsolete and worn out of use; others idle and vain, serving to no purpose; some again over heavy and too severe for the offence; others too loose and slack for the faults they are to punish, and many of them so full of difficulties to be understood that they cause many controversies; you are therefore to enter into a due consideration of the said laws, and where you find superfluity to prune, where defect to supply, and where ambiguity to explain, that they be not burthensome, but profitable to the commonwealth. He then strongly presses for a supply,- thus concluding, "Quod justum est necessarium est, nothing can be more just than this war; nothing ought to be more necessary than carefully to provide due maintenance for the same." Serjeant Yelverton being presented at the bar as Speakerelect, the Lord Keeper, in the Queen's name, overruled his disqualification †, and gave her assent to his prayer for the * Waller's case, 4 Inst. 84. We have not the particulars of Yelverton's disqualifying speech at the bar of the House of Lords, but it was probably a repetition of that in the Commons, ancient liberties and privileges of the Commons, "with admonition, however, that the said liberties and privileges should be discreetly and wisely used, as was meet.' CHAP. XLVII. Lord admonition 1598. Question The Lord Keeper not yet being a Peer, during the session Keeper's he had only to put the question in the House of Lords, without to the taking any share in the debates; but he was once asked his Speaker. opinion on a question of precedence. Thomas Howard, Feb. 9. second son of the Duke of Norfolk, being created Baron Howard de Walden, claimed to take place next after Earls, of preceas the younger son of a Duke was considered by the Heralds of higher rank than a Viscount; but, by the advice of the Lord Keeper, he was placed below all Barons, without prejudice to his precedence elsewhere. dence. monopo A subsidy being granted, the attempts in the Commons at Bill against law reform became very distasteful to the Queen; particularly a bill to put down the nuisance of monopolies, now becoming intolerable and causing deep and universal discontent; and she brought the session to a speedy close. The Lord Keeper then, by her order, rebuked the Commons for their presumption: "Touching the monopolies, her Majesty hoped that her dutiful and loving subjects would not take away her prerogative, which is the chiefest flower in her garden, and the principal and head pearl in her crown and diadem, but that they would rather leave that to her disposition."† Aug. 4. 1598. Lord After the death of the great Lord Burghley, although his son, Sir Robert Cecil, was the Queen's chief Councillor, she never was under the sway of any one minister, and Egerton Keeper enjoyed a considerable share of her confidence. He was treaty with accordingly named chief Commissioner to negotiate in London Dutch. where he expressed wonder how he came to be chosen, "as it could not be for Hist. 898. negotiates CHAP. XLVII. Treaty mark. a treaty with the Dutch, and after long conferences with their ambassadors, an advantageous treaty was signed-by which the Queen was eased of an annual charge of 120,000, the payment of the debt due to her was secured, and a large subsidiary force was stipulated for in case of a Spanish invasion. In 1601, the Lord Keeper was again employed as a diplowith Den- matist in concluding a treaty with Denmark, whereby an important ally was secured, and the Protestant interest in Europe was materially strengthened. Egerton's A. D. 1598. box on ear He nowhere appears to greater advantage than in his conThis duct to the Queen's favourite, the Earl of Essex. young nobleman had high and generous qualities along with great faults. Egerton did not, like others, flatter his vices during his prosperity, nor abandon him when his imprudence had involved him in difficulties and ruin was impending over him. Although unequal in age, and of very dissimilar characters and pursuits, a great intimacy had subsisted between them almost from the time of Essex's first appearance at Court; and now that Sir Thomas was in the dignified position of Lord Keeper, he exercised all his influence and authority to correct the irregularities of his youthful friend, and to rescue him from the consequences of his imprudence.* 66 Queen Elizabeth, in a fit of anger, having given her favourite a box on the ear, accompanied with the words Begone and be hanged," he thought that, though the insult came from a woman, as she was his Sovereign it ought to be resented, and clapping his hand to his sword, he swore "he would not bear such usage were it from Henry VIII. himself.” In a great passion he withdrew from Court. The Lord Keeper immediately gave him salutary advice in a long and most excellent letter, from which I shall make a few extracts. "It is often seen, that he that is a stander by seeth more * "They live and join very honourably together-out of which correspondency and noble conjunction betwixt Mars and Pallas, betwixt justice and valour,— I mean betwixt so admirable a nobleman as the Earl, and so worthy a justice as the Lord Keeper, I doubt not but very famous effects will daily spring to her Majesty's honour, the good of the state, and the comfort of both their Lordships' particular true friends.”— - Birch's Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth. Letter of Anthony Bacon. |