is at this time a grievance not to be redressed in many ages." It was presently intimated to him that he was to be Lord Keeper, and the morning of Sunday, the 9th of November, was appointed for his investiture. We have already related the terrible fright he was then thrown into by Shaftesbury's waggery, and how, in the evening of the same day, he was made happy by the Great Seal being actually put into his hand, and his carrying it home with him as the true Lord Keeper. † This is the official record of the event:-"Sr. Heneage Finch, K. & Bart., the King's Matys Atturny Generall, received the Great Seale of England as Lord Keep" from His Mat, at Whitehall, on Sunday, in the evening, being the 9th of Nov., 1673, in the 25th year of his said Matys raigne. The King sent for it the same day from the Earl of Shaftesbury, Lord Chancellor, by Mr. Secretary Coventry."‡ His first act was to seal a pardon to his predecessor, which had been stipulated for when Shaftesbury took the office, foreseeing that he might probably do many things for which a pardon might be required, and wishing to have the pleasure of sinning with an indulgence in his pocket. He then sealed a commission authorising the Master of the Rolls and others to hear causes in his absence. On the 11th of November the new Lord Keeper had a grand procession from his house, in Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, to Westminster Hall, attended by the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Privy Seal, the Duke of Buckingham, the Duke of Ormond, the Marquis of Worcester, many others of the nobility, the Judges, the King's Counsel, and all the gentlemen of the Society of the Inner Temple. Entering the Court of Chancery he took the oaths of office, the Master of the Rolls holding the book. According to ancient usage he ought then to have de- He takes livered an inaugural address, of which great expectations were * 4 Parl. Hist. 592. † Ante, p. 320. Crown. Off. Min. Book, fol. 73. his seat in CHAP. the Court of Chancery. Autobiography. formed from his rhetorical reputation; but he immediately called upon the Solicitor General to move, and proceeded to business. He probably was deterred from attempting a task which, in ordinary circumstances, he could have performed so easily and so gracefully, by the embarrassment of touching upon his predecessor, whom, according to the precedents, he ought to have praised for his learning and exemplary conduct, and proposed to himself as an example to stimulate his love of law and of virtue. In a note to his MS. cases, he himself favours us with the following autobiographal account of these occurrences. "Sunday, 9th November, 1673. “At six at night I received the Great Seal from his Majesty at Whitehall, and was made C. S.-10th. I recipi'd my Lord Shaftesbury's pattent, which came to me from the Privy Seal. It was reported his Lordship kept the bill signed by him above a year and a half, for it was signed before he was Chancellor, as is said, and never meant to send it to the Seals till there was great necessity, and so hath covered all his misdemeanors as Chancellor. But this was a malicious report to his prejudice and mine, as if he had been false, and I too easy in this matter; for in truth the pardon did extend to the 6th of November, which could not possibly be by virtue of any old warrant; but the Chancellor, foreseeing his fall, obtained a warrant for a new pardon, signed by Mr. Secretary Coventry, and Mr. Solicitor North passed it on Saturday the 8th of November, and his Lordship intended to have sealed it as Chancellor, for the Privy Seal was directed to him by that name; but it was razed in the King's presence, and directed to me by name, with a nuper Cancellarius interlined where it mentioned him. Also I sealed a commission to the Judges and Master of the Rolls to hear causes, for by the change of the C. or C. S. the commission fayles.-11th, I took my seat and was sworne in Chancery; but I made no speech, as some of my predecessors have done, upon the occasion." * Sir Francis North was then Solicitor General, and was made Attorney General the following day. CHAP. He is cre On the 10th of January, 1674, he was created Baron FINCH, of Daventry, in the county of Northampton; on the 19th of December, 1675, Lord Chancellor of England; and on the 12th of May, 1681, Earl of NOTTINGHAM, which has become his historical name, and by which I shall henceforth and afterdesignate him. ated Lord Chancellor, wards Earl of Nottingham. Lord Chancellor. * Of this further elevation we have the following account in his MS. reports:"Sunday morning. The King going to chapell declared me Lord Chancellor, whereupon I kist his hand, and presently had the compliments of all FINCH, the Court, and not long after from all the ambassadors and foreign ministers." "The Right Honble. Heneage Ld. Finch, Baron of Daventre, took the oath of Lord Chancellor of England in the High Court of Chancery, on Monday the 24th of January, in the 27th year of his Matys reign, being the first day of Hilary Terme; the book being held to him by Sr. Harbottle Grimston, Mr. of the Rolls, and the oath read by Mr. Bucher, Clerk of the Crown. "His Majesty having been pleased on the 19th day of December before to take the Seale into his own hands, and to deliver it to him again by the stile of Lord Chancellor. "Md. he took only the oath of ChancTM.". - Crown. Off. Min. 54. CHAPTER XCII. CHAP His high merits as a Judge. His pre paration for the per formance of his judicial duties. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD NOTTINGHAM TILL HIS He held the Great Seal and presided in the Court of Chancery nine years, during the whole of which time he devoted himself with indefatigable labour and with brilliant success, to the discharge of his judicial duties. I have great delight in relating, for the instruction and improvement of those who may aspire to rival his fame, the course he pursued. He did not consider his office as chiefly political, nor, anxious only to retain it, did he entirely occupy himself with court intrigues, or the management of a party in parliament; nor did he become indolent and remiss on reaching the great object of his ambition; nor did he dissipate his attention among a variety of pursuits, from the vulgar ambition of being admired for universality of genius,-which leads generally to universal shallowness of acquirement. Placed at the head of the magistracy of a great country, he deemed it his first duty adequately to administer justice from his own tribunal; and for this purpose he did not think it enough merely to sit in public a certain number of hours, and to bestow decent pains upon each particular case which came before him. Justly regarding jurisprudence as a science which rests on general principles, and is illustrated and defined by the writings and rules of former jurists, he bore in mind that without a familiarity with these it was impossible that his own decisions should be consistent, systematic, and sound. He had peculiar difficulties to struggle with, that Equity, which he was to administer had sprung up originally in England, more from a desire to get at what was thought the justice of a particular case between litigating parties, than to lay down methodical rules, that many of his predecessors had been men not educated in the profession of the law, and incapable of apprehending legal distinctions, that their judgments had been generally allowed to fall into oblivion as more likely to mislead than to guide, and that no attempt had been made to classify or to systematise those which had been preserved. He had the sagacity to discover that Equity might be moulded into a noble code, supplying the deficiences of the old feudal doctrines, and adapted to the altering necessities of a people whose commerce and wealth were so rapidly increasing. CHAP. XCII. treatises. Lord Nottingham had laid the indispensable foundation A great for being a great equity lawyer, by a profound knowledge of common lawyer. the common-law. His notes on Coke upon Littleton, published by Hargrave and Butler, in their edition of that great work, show how deeply he had studied it,—and several of his arguments handed down to us prove that our other institutional writers were equally familiar to him. He resorted Writes law early to a practice, without which, great proficiency cannot be made,—of writing on legal subjects. Besides his digested reports of cases which he had heard argued and determined, he wrote Treatises or Essays "on the King's Prerogative," and on the Power of Parliament." Later in his career, "EQUITY" fixed his attention, and while in full practice at the bar,—either for his own use in Court, or anticipating that he should one day hold the Great Seal, he composed a book, "De Officio Cancellarii."* 66 and “ Prolegomena of Equity." But all this preparation, joined with most extensive prac- His "Equity tical experience at the bar, he now considered quite insuffi- Practice" cient to enable him to preside creditably in the Court of Chancery. As soon as he received the Great Seal, he began, and he worked indefatigably every moment he could spare from other duties till he had completed, two new treatises, one on the practice of the Court, and the other on the principles and doctrines of the Court. The first he entitled "A System or Collection of such Rules and Orders in Chancery as have at any time heretofore been printed or published; together with some explanations and alterations thereof, and • In one of his note books he thus refers to it: "I took this occasion to show that the Court of Chancery hath always had an admiralty jurisdiction, not only per viam appellationis, but per viam evocationis too, and may send for any cause out of the Admiralty to determine it here, of which there are many precedents in Noy's MS. 88. and in my little book in the preface De Officio Cancellarii,' sec. 18. and in my Parliament Book,' sec. 8. title 'Admiralty.'” |