surrender of the Seal. Charles, on this occasion, behaved to him with courtesy, and promised to comply with several requests which he made,—amongst others, that he might have leave to retire from Salisbury, where the Court then lay, to a little lodge lent to him by the Lord Sandys, and there my Lord Conway might receive the Seal, when his Majesty commanded it, in his journey towards Windsor. He immediately went to this retreat, finding "those suddenly strangers to him who were lately in his bosom, and that a cashiered courtier isan almanack of the last year, remembered by nothing but the great eclipse."*

At last, on the 25th of October, the following warrant was produced to him:

Trusty and well-beloved Councillor, we greet you well, You are to deliver, upon the receipt hereof, our Great Seal of England, whereof you are our Keeper, unto our trusty and well-beloved Councillor Sir John Suckling, Controuler of the Household, the bearer hereof; and this shall be a sufficient warrant unto you so to do. Given under our Signet, at our Court at Salisbury, &c."

The Seal was immediately put into a costly cabinet in Sir John Suckling's presence, and the key of the cabinet was inclosed in a letter to the King, sealed with the episcopal seal of Lincoln, and containing the last words of St. Ambrose and St. Chrysostom, thus translated, Non ita vixi ut me vivere pudeat: nec mori timeo, quia bonum habemus Dominum; that as I have not lived in my place so altogether unworthily as to be ashamed to continue in the same, so am I not now perturbed in the quitting of the same, because I know I have a good God and a gracious Sovereign. Moriar ego, sed me mortuo, vigeat ecclesia. Let me retire to my little Zoar, but let your gracious Majesty be pleased to recom mend unto my most able and deserving successor an especial care of your church and churchmen. So may God make your Majesty more victorious than David, more wise than Solomon, and every way as great a King as your Majesty's blessed father."†

This is the last time that an ecclesiastic has held the Great Seal of England, and notwithstanding the admiration in some quarters of mediæval usages, I presume the experiment is not likely to be soon repeated. No blame can be imputed to Williams while Keeper, for he seems to have been most anxious to perform the duties of the office to the best of his ability. Clarendon represents him as corrupt but I think without any proof to support the charge. It is quite clear that he was not swayed in

*Hacket, ii. 26.

+ Ibid. 27.

‡ Touching his bribery, the following pleasant anecdote is told. Having retired one summer to Nonsuch House, it chanced as he was taking the air in the Great Park, that seeing a new-built church at a distance, and learning the name of the chief benefactor, he said, "Has he not a suit depending in Chancery ?" and the answer from George Minors who attended him being in the affirmative, he added, "and he shall not fare the worse for building of churches." The gentleman being

his decrees by the solicitations of Buckingham, which was probably one cause of his dismissal. James said that, in sometimes withstanding Buckingham, "he was a stout man that durst do more than himself."

He is blamed for having made a vast many orders privately on petitions, for the sake of the fees, amounting to 3000l. a year; but his friends asserted with much probability, that this complaint arose from the barristers who lost the glut of motions they were accustomed to have in Court*.

It is admitted that, at first, he showed his Cambrian origin by his irasibility; "yet when he had overgone three years in the Court of Chancery, he watched his passions so well that the heat of his old British complexion was much abated, and he carried all things with far more Ïenity than choler.† He would chide little and bear much. His anger on the bench, if sharp, was short-lived, and the sun never set before he was returned to patience and loving-kindness."‡

Although he was very charitable and munificent, he did not like some of his predecessors and successors, court popularity by dinner-giving. "He never feasted the King, and very rarely gave any lavish entertainments to others."§

If (as it was alleged) a good many of his decrees were reversed by his successor, he was little answerable for them, as he still continued to have the Master of the Rolls or common-law Judges for his assessors,-and these reversals are said to have been chiefly on rehearings, with new evidence.

I have now done with Williams in his judicial capacity, and in my strictures upon him I hope I have not forgotten the good-natured admonition of Bishop Hacket: I do not blame lawyers if they would have us believe that none is fit for the office of Chancellor but one of their own profession. But let them plead their own learning and able parts, without traducing the gifts of them that are excellently seen in theological cases of conscience, and singularly rare in natural solertiousness."

When Williams was deprived of the Great Seal he was only in

told this saying of the Lord Keeper, sent next morning a taste of the fruit of his orchard and the poultry in his yard to Nonsuch House. "Nay, carry them back, George," said the Keeper, "and tell your friend he shall not fare the better for sending of presents."-Phillips.

*One of these petitions, with the Lord Keeper's answer, is still extant in the Report Office: "Fitchell con. Hickman. The petition of two orphan children prayed that their uncle and brother might be appointed to put certain bonds in suit for their benefit. Answer. I must be certified from the two justices next adjoyning of a sufficient man who I may trust for the use of the children, least they fall from the frieing pan to the fire.'-Jo. LINC. L. K."

It is said that the great Welsh case of Choleric v. Choleric, which was pending so long in the Court of Chancery, began in his time, and caused some mirth when called on by the Registrar.

Hacket.

§ Hacket, 79.

[A. D. 1625.]

his forty-third year,-an age at which, if bred to the bar in our times, he might be aspiring to a silk gown. He lived twenty-five years afterwards, constantly involved in turmoil and trouble; but as he was no longer connected with the administration of justice, as he was only a second-rate statesman, as he had not a high name in oratory or literature, and as the events of his time which it is my duty to record will be illustrated in the lives of his successors, I shall be brief in my sketch of his subsequent career.

From Foxley, in Wiltshire, where he surrendered the Great Seal, he went at once to his episcopal palace at Buckden, which he found in a very dilapidated condition. He magnificently restored it, and there he lived in splendour, having public days for entertaining all the surrounding clergy and gentry at his table.* Forgetting how he himself employed spies, he talked very freely of the government,-not always sparing the failings of the King and the favourite. Some of his indiscreet expressions being re

*The same kinsman to whom I before referred has favoured me with a copy of the following original, still extant, written by the ex-Lord Keeper soon after his return to Buckden:

"With the remembrance of my love and best affection unto you, being very sensible of that great goodwill you have ever borne me, I thought it not unnecessarie to take this course with you, which I have done with noc one other freynde in the worlde, as to desire you to be noe more troubled with this late accident befallen unto me, than you shall understand I am myselfe.

"There is nothinge happened which I did not foresce, and (sithence the death of my deare master) assuredlye expect; nor laye it in my power to prevent, otherwise than by the sacrificinge of my poor estate, and that which I esteem farre above the same-my reputation.

"I know you love me too well to wish that I should be lavishe of either of these, to continue longer (yeat no longer than one man pleased) in this glorious miseryo and splendid slaverye, wherein I have lived (if a man maye callsuch a toilinge a living) for these five yeares almost.

"By losinge the Seale, I have lost nothinge, nor my servants, by any faulte of myne, there beinge nothinge either layde, or so much as whispered to my charge.

"If we have not the opportunitye we hadd before to serve the Kinge, we have much more conveniencye to serve God, which I doe embrace as the onlye end of God's love and providence towards me in this sudden alteration,

"For your sonne Owen Wynn (who together with my debte is the object of my worldye thoughts and cares), I will perform towards him all that he can have expected from me, if I live; and if I die, I have performed it alreadye.

"You neede not feare any misse of me, being for such æra reserved in all your desires and requests; having alsoe your eldest son neare the Kinge, and of good reputation in the Court, who can give you a good accompt of any thinge you shall recommende him unto you.

"Hopinge therefore that I shall ever holde the same place I did in your love, which was fixed on my person, not my late Glare, and which I will deserve by alí the freyndlye and lovinge offices which shall lie in my power, I end with my prayer unto God for the continuance of your health, and doe rest your very assured lovinge freynd and cozen,

Bugden, 1 Decr 1625. "To my very much honoured "worthy Freynd and Cozen

"S John Wynn, Knt and Baronet."

"Jo. LINCOLN,

ported at Court, Buckingham vowed, "that of all he had given him he would leave him nothing." In the hope of discovering something against him that might be made the subject of prosecution in the King's Bench, in the Star Chamber, or in Parliament, a commission of thirteen was appointed to inquire into all his proceedings while he had the Great Seal;-but the attempt proved abortive.

At the approach of the coronation, for which he [A. D. 1626.] had been ordered to prepare a sermon, he came to London and dutifully tendered his service. As Dean of Westminster, according to the usage of centuries, he was entitled to a particular place at this solemnity. But he had orders to absent himself, and to depute one of the prebendaries in his stead. He sent in a list of all the prebendaries,-and to mortify him the more Laud, his special enemy, was selected.

Not receiving a writ of summons to Charles's second parliament, which met soon after, and feeling that this [JUNE, 1626.] was an infringement of the rights of the peerage, he wrote to him, remonstrating against the insult, and saying, "I beg, for God's sake, that your majesty would be pleased to mitigate the causeless displeasure of my Lord Duke against me, and I beseech your Majesty, for Jesus Christ his sake, not to believe news or accusations against me while I stand thus enjoyned from your royal presence, before you shall have heard my answer to the particulars." The writ was sent to him, and he gave his proxy to Bishop Andrews, forbearing to sit in the House during this short parliament, in the hope of assuaging Buckingham's resentment, to whom he privately sent some wholesome advice for the management of public affairs.

On the summoning of the famous parliament which passed "the Petition of Right" he received his writ, with [FEB. 1628.] an injunction not to attend; but he wrote back to Lord Keeper Coventry, “I must crave some time to resolve, by the best counsels God shall give me, whether I shall obey your Lordship's letter, (though mentioning his Majesty's pleasure) before my own right, which, by the law of God and man, I may, in all humility, maintain." When parliament met, he took his seat in person, and was constant in his attendance during the session.

The Lords entering into an inquiry respecting illegal commitments for refusal to pay the forced loan, he very actively assisted, and, as ex-Lord Keeper, spoke with the authority of a law lord. The Judges of the King's Bench, who had refused to liberate these prisoners on a habeas corpus, were ordered to attend, but scrupled to answer the questions put to them, and "desired to be advised whether they being sworn, upon penalty of forfeiting body, lands, and goods into the King's hands, to give an account to him, may do this without warrant from his Majesty." The Bishop of Lincoln said, "this motion proceeded from him; and

he took it for clear that there is an appeal even from the Chancery, which is a higher Court than the King's Bench; and that Court hath ever given an account of their doings."*

He was one of the managers for the Lords of the open conferences between the two Houses on this subject, and gave a very elaborate report of the speeches of the managers for the Commons, particularly those of Sir E. Coke and Mr. Noy,—afterwards the inventor of the writ for ship-money,-then a flaming patriot.†

When the Petition of Right came up from the Commons, Williams warmly supported it; but, to show his moderation, he proposed to add a clause, That, as they desired to preserve their own liberties, so they had regard to leave entire that power wherewith his Majesty was intrusted for the protection of his people." The Lords agreed to the amendment; but it was rejected by the Commons, under a suspicion that the Bishop had been "sprinkled with some Court holy water."

He afterwards gained unqualified applause for his assistance in carrying through the measure. The royal assent being for some time refused, he made a very excellent speech, showing that, as it stood, it was agreeable to our laws and constitution; and that it was no less honourable for the King, as it made him a King of freemen, not of slaves.

At last the words were pronounced, "Le droit soit fait come il est désiré," and the Petition of Right was law.

In the general joy which followed, the King, for a short time, sought to add to his popularity by appearing to take Williams again into his confidence. A conference then took place between them, which was made the foundation of all the Bishop's subsequent persecutions and misfortunes. To a question, "how the King might ingratiate himself with the people?" he answered, "That the Puritans were many, and strong sticklers; and if his Majesty would give but private orders to his ministers to connive a little at their party, and show them some indulgence, it might, perhaps, mollify them a little, and make them more pliant, though he did not promise that that they would be trusty long to any government." The King said he took the advice in good part, and promised to follow it;-and happy would it have been for him if he had so acted,-instead of throwing himself into the arms of Laud, and for eleven years (during which parliaments were intermitted) doing every thing to irritate and insult that party which, growing strong by persecution, deprived him of his crown and of his life.

It was thought that when Buckingham had been taken off, by the fanaticism of Felton, Williams might have re

covered his ascendancy; but that event only added [JUNE, 1628.] to the power of Laud, who was successively made Bishop of

*2 Parl. Hist. 288.

† Ibid. 323.