LXXXIV. Oct. 1672. CHAP. lecting something he had heard or read when a student in the Inns of Court about Injunctions, said, "Why do you not apply to the Lord Keeper for an injunction against all such proceedings, to which you must be clearly entitled, as your inability to pay your customers proceeds entirely from an act of the King, resorted to for the safety of the state?" They communicated this advice to their solicitors and counsel, who never had dreamed of such an expedient. But bills were immediately filed and injunctions were moved for. The Lord Keeper was prepared for these motions by an intimation from Shaftesbury and his other colleagues, that it was indispensably vail on the necessary that all actions and proceedings against the bankers in consequence of the shutting of the Exchequer, should be stopped. Nay, a message was brought to the perplexed Bridgeman from the King himself, that "he deemed himself bound in honour to shelter the bankers whose money he had had locked up in the Exchequer from the pursuit of their creditors." Shaftesbury and try to pre Lord Keeper to grant the injunctions. Lord But when the application was made in open Court, no principle or precedent could be cited to support it, although a feeble attempt was made on the ground that the fulfilment of the contract had been prevented by vis major or casus fortuitus*,-while the opposite counsel argued conclusively that the debt being admitted, and there being no legal defence, the inability of the debtor to pay could constitute no equity in his favour; that the rights of the creditor could not be prejudiced by the fraud or force of a third party; and that the shutting up of the Exchequer, whatever might be its character, was entirely res inter alios acta. The case was so clear to the bar and the by-standers, as Keeper refuses the well as to the Lord Keeper himself, that he durst not grant injunctions, the injunction; but in hopes to find out some by-point upon which he might intimate an opinion for the bankers, and so soften their disappointment, he said he should take the papers home with him, and pronounce judgment another day. and is dismissed from his office. Shaftesbury, who was the real actor, was not a man so to be dealt with. He resolved that he would grasp the Great * See Reports in Chancery, i. 24. CHAP. LXXXIV. Seal, and grant the injunctions himself. He posted off to the King, swore that Bridgeman was an old dotard, quite unequal to his situation; declared that he (Shaftesbury) was himself much fitter for it; pointed out how the recent example proved the little use of black-letter learning in teaching what is just and equitable; and vowed that if he were made Chancellor the appointment would greatly redound to the King's ease and the public welfare. Charles, at first, thought that Shaftesbury was in jest, and received the proposal with a laugh; but Buckingham, Arlington, and Clifford were brought to support it, probably from the hope that a colleague, whom they began to find very troublesome, might ruin his credit by such a freak, and at any rate would find plenty to occupy him without interfering with their departments. The King acquiesced, and Secretary Coventry, without any thing having been done to prepare the Lord Keeper for such a blow, was sent for the Great Seal, and demanded it from him,—while he was thinking of the least unpalatable terms in which he might refuse the injunction, and was hesitating whether he could with any decency refuse to punish the bankers with the costs of the application. Charles kept the Nov. 17. Great Seal in his own custody one night, and next morning 1672. it was delivered to Shaftesbury with the title of Lord Chancellor. Burnet, in relating this event, says that Lord Keeper Bridgeman "had lost all credit at Court, with the reputation he had formerly acquired, and that they had some time been seeking an occasion to get rid of him."* Supposed ground for additional man's dis missal. In addition to the refusal of the injunctions, Roger North assigns another direct cause of his removal, of which I no where else find any trace,- his refusal to seal "a commission Bridgefor martial law," observing, "he was pressed, but proved restive on both points. For the sake of his family, that gathered like a snow-ball while he had the Seal, he would not have formalised with any tolerable compliances; but these impositions were too rank for him to comport with."† * Own Times, i. 198. 535. † Examen, 38. CHAP. LXXXIV. His death. racter. His de After his fall he lived in entire seclusion at his villa at Teddington, and died there in 1674. Lord Chancellor Nottingham, referring to one of his decisions, said, "It is due to the memory of so great a man, whenever we speak of him, to mention him with reverence and with veneration for his learning and integrity;" and Lord Ellenborough pronounces him "a most eminent Judge, distinguished by the profundity of his learning and the extent of his industry." But greatness will only be attributed to him by lawyers: he knew nothing beyond his own art; in only one department of that was he distinguished, and such distinction, with opportunity, may be attained by any man of ordinary intellect and extraordinary industry. He is very much to be honoured for his steady and consistent adherence to his royalist principles, but he has received unmerited praise for having denied the dispensing power, and for having favoured toleration,-seeing that rather than give up his office he put the Great Seal to the Declaration suspending the penal laws when he had got the Catholics excluded from it, and that he fully partook of the horror felt by Clarendon his patron, against all who were not high Protestant Episcopalians. He was twice married,-first, to Judith, daughter and scendants. heiress of John Kynaston, Esq. of Morton, in the county of Salop; and, secondly, to Dorothy, daughter of Dr. Saunders, Provost of Oriel College, Oxford, by both of whom he left issue. Sir Henry Bridgeman, the fifth Baronet, (whose mother was the daughter and heiress of Thomas the last Earl of Bradford, of the family of Newport,) was created Baron Bradford by George III. in the year 1794; and in 1815 his son was raised to the Earldom of Bradford, now enjoyed by the lineal representative in the male line of the Lord Keeper. * * Grandeur of the Law, 97. CHAPTER LXXXV. LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR SHAFTESBURY FROM HIS BIRTH TILL CHAP. LXXXV. WE pass at once from a mere lawyer,-"leguleius quidam cautus et acutus, præco actionum, cantor formularum, auceps syllabarum,"—to a Chancellor who did not affect to have even Sudden a smattering of law, but who possessed brilliant accomplish- transition ments as well as talents, and who, as a statesman, is one of Bridgeman the most extraordinary characters in English history: "For close designs and crooked counsels fit, In power unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace: A daring pilot in extremity, Pleas'd with the danger when the waves ran high, He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit, Would steer too near the sands to boast his wit. In friendship false, implacable in hate, Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state. Then seiz'd with fear, yet still affecting fame, from to SHAFTES BURY. bable From the birth and boyish position of ANTHONY ASHLEY ShaftesCOOPER, so enterprising, so energetic, so aspiring, so reckless, bury's proit might have been expected that he would have quietly career. devoted himself to dogs and horses, and that if his breast was ever fired by ambition, it would only have been to be High Sheriff of the county or Chairman of Quarter Sessions. While a schoolboy he was a Baronet in possession of large landed estates, yielding him a revenue of 80007. a year. The subject of this memoir was the son of Sir John Cooper His birth. of Rockborne, in Hampshire, who was created a baronet by James I., and Anne Ashley, only daughter and heiress of Sir Anthony Ashley, of Wimborne, St. Giles's, in the county of Dorset, who had been Secretary at war to Queen Elizabeth. He was born at Wimborne, St. Giles's, July 22. CHAP. LXXXV. His education. At Oxford. At Lincoln's Inn. His marriage. 1621. His grandfather died in 1627, and his father in 1631, when the title, with the fortunes of both families, descended upon him. His early education was intrusted to Mr. Guerdean, a fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, selected by Sir Anthony for strictness of principle and severity of temper, — the old gentleman often saying, "that youth could not have too deep a dye of religion, for business and conversation in the world would wear it to a just moderation.” * It cannot be objected that the pupil showed himself over strait-laced and stiff from this early discipline. It is related that the youth, while only thirteen years of age, showed the energy of his character by defeating a scheme of his trustees to deprive him of a large part of his property. Being a ward of the Crown, he went alone to Noy, the Attorney-General, and acquainted him with the proceedings, observing that he had no one to depend upon but him, who had been the friend of his grandfather. Noy, pleased with his spirit, zealously undertook his cause in the Court of Wards, and succeeded for him, without taking any fees.† In 1636 he was entered of Exeter College, Oxford, where he early distinguished himself by refusing to submit to some traditionary tricks attempted to be put upon him as a freshman, and by stirring up a rebellion against the seniors. I find nothing more recorded of his academical life, except that his wit, affability, and courage gained him the good-will of the University. He improved himself more by conversation than by study, and, though not grossly deficient in acquirements becoming a gentleman, he might well have been designated "acerrimi ingenii· · paucarum literarum.” Having remained about two years at Oxford, —to finish his education he was transferred to Lincoln's Inn, -where he remained for a short time,-associating with other young men of fortune like himself,—frequenting the theatres and fencing schools,—but without any thought of being called to the bar or studying the law. While only eighteen he married a young lady of great † Life, 38. Life by Martyn, 35. |