CHAP. Middlesex, one in its nature, but filled by two officers of equal authority. It is said, that "the aspirant dealt with all imaA.D. 1682. ginable kindness and candour to the declinant, and that never were predecessor and successor such cordial friends to each other, and in every respect mutually assistant, as those two were. The King intimates to North that he is to have the Such hopes on an expected vacancy of the Great Seal are sometimes disappointed, but here there were very solid reasons for entertaining them. While the Lord Chancellor was Great Seal. languishing, the Chief Justice being at Windsor, the King plainly intimated to him, that when the fatal event, which must be shortly looked for, had taken place, the Great Seal would be put into his hands. He modestly represented himself to his Majesty as unfit for the place, and affected by all his art and skill to decline it. In truth, he really wished to convey to the King's mind the impression that he did not desire it, although he had been working so foully for it, — as he knew it would be pressed upon him, there being no competitor so knowing and so pliant, and he had an important stipulation to make for a pension before he would accept it. When he came back to London, and confidentially mentioned what had passed between him and the King, he pretended to be annoyed, and said, "that if the Seal were offered to him he was determined to refuse it;" but it is quite clear that he was highly gratified to see himself so near the great object of his ambition, and that his only anxiety now was, that he might drive a good bargain when he should consent to give up "the cushion of the Common Pleas." North's wish to bargain for a pension. North summoned to accept the Great Seal. Lord Nottingham having died about four o'clock in the afternoon of Monday, the 18th of December, 1682 †, the Great Seal was carried next morning, from his house in Great Queen Street, to the King at Windsor. The following day his Majesty brought it with him to Whitehall, and in the evening sent for the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, to offer it to him. When North arrived he found Lord Rochester, the Treasurer, and several other ministers, closeted with Charles. At that time, there being no civil Life, ii. 64, 65. 1 Vernon, 115. CHAP. He declines it without a pension. list, and generally no distinction between the funds to be applied to the King's private expences and to the public service; and the Exchequer being now very empty, and the resolution being taken never more to summon a parliament for supplies, it was considered an object that the Keeper of the Great Seal should be contented with the fees of his office, without any allowance or pension from the Crown. Charles himself was careless about such matters, but the Treasurer had inculcated upon him the importance of this piece of economy. As soon as North entered, his Majesty offered him the Seal, and the ministers began to congratulate the new Lord Keeper; but, with many acknowledgments for his Majesty's gracious intentions, he begged leave to suggest the necessity, for his Majesty's honour, that a pension should be assigned to him, as it had been to his predecessor, for otherwise the dignity of this high office could not be supported. Rochester interposed, pointing out the necessity, in times like these, for all his Majesty's servants to be ready to make some sacrifices; that the emoluments of the Great Seal were considerable; and that it would be more becoming to trust to his Majesty's bounty than to seek to drive a hard bargain with him. But Sir George Jeffreys being yet only a bustling city officer, who could not with any decency have been put at the head of the law; the Attorney and Solicitor General not being considered men of mark or likelihood; Sir Harbottle Grimston, the Master of the Rolls, being at death's door, and no other common-law Judge besides himself being produceable, the little gentleman was firm, and positively declared that he would not touch the Great Seal without a pension. After much haggling, a compromise took place, by Pension which he was to have 2000l. a-year instead of the 40007. a-year assigned to his predecessor. The King then lifted up the purse containing the Seal, and, putting it into his hand, said, "Here, my Lord, take it; you will find it heavy." ominous "Thus," says Roger North, "his Majesty acted the prophet putting the as well as the King; for, shortly before his Lordship's death, he declared that, since he had the Seal, he had not enjoyed one easy and contented minute. Life, ii. 68, 69. Crown Off. Min. fol. 108. settled. Dec. 20. 1682. King's speech in Great Seal hands. into his CHAPTER XCVI. CONTINUATION OF THE LIFE OF LORD GUILFORD TILL THE DEATH CHAP. Dec. 20. 1683. Dissatis the Lord Keeper. WHEN the new Lord Keeper came home, at night, from Whitehall to his house in Chancery Lane, bringing the Great Seal with him, and attended by the officers of the Court of Chancery, instead of appearing much gratified, as was exfaction of pected by his brother and his friends, who were waiting to welcome him, he was in a great rage, - disappointed that he had not been able to make a better bargain, and, perhaps, a little mortified that he had only the title of "Lord Keeper' instead of the more sounding one of "Lord Chancellor." Recriminating on those with whom he had been so keenly acting the chapman, he exclaimed, "To be haggled with about a pension*, as at the purchase of a horse or an ox! After I had declared that I would not accept without a pension, to think I was so frivolous as to insist and desist all in a moment! As if I were to be wheedled and charmed by their insignificant tropes! To think me worthy of so great a trust, and withal so little and mean as to endure such usage! It is disobliging, inconsistent, and unsufferable. What have I done that may give them cause to think me of so poor a spirit as to be thus trifled with ?" It might have been † answered, that, though the King and the courtiers made use of him for their own ends, they had seen his actions, understood his character, and had no great respect for him. Till Jeffreys was a little further advanced, they could not run the risk of breaking with him ;-but then he was subjected to all sorts of mortifications and insults. Dec. 21. 1682. Jan. 23. A. D. 1683. The day after his appointment "he kept a private seal for writs at his house in Chancery Lanet," and on the first day By this word "pension," I conceive we are to understand salary while the Lord Keeper was in office, and not, as might be supposed, an allowance on his retirement. † Life, i. 415. 1 Vernon, 115. CHAP. XCVI. of the following Hilary term he took his place in the Court of Chancery. By this time he was in possession of his predecessor's house in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, His instal and he had a grand procession from thence to West- lation. minster Hall, attended by the Duke of Ormond, the Earls of Craven and Rochester, the great officers of State, and the Judges. He took the oaths, the Master of the Rolls holding the book. He does not appear to have delivered any inaugural address. The attendant Lords stayed and heard a motion or two, and then departed, leaving the Lord Keeper in Court. * Chief Jus They might have been well amused if they had remained. Ceremony of turning For the crooked purposes of the government, with a view out and to the disfranchising of the City of London by the quo admitting warranto depending against it, Pemberton was this day to tices. be removed from being Chief Justice of the King's Bench to be Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Edmund Saunders was to be at once raised from wearing a stuff gown at the bar to be Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This keen, but unscrupulous lawyer, was previously to be made a Serjeant that he might be qualified to be a Judge, and, coming into the Court of Chancery, he presented the Lord Keeper with a ring for himself, and another for the King, inscribed with the courtly motto, "Principi sic placuit." The Lord Keeper then accompanied him into the Court where he was to preside, called him to the bench, and made him a speech on the duties of his office. The ceremonies of the day were concluded by his Lordship afterwards going to his old Court, the Common Pleas, and there swearing in Pemberton as his successor, whom he congratulated upon "the ease with dignity" which he was now to enjoy. Lord Parasites and preferment-hunters crowded the levee of the Homage new Lord Keeper. He was immediately waited upon by the paid to the courtly Evelyn, who discovered in him a thousand good Keeper. qualities. † t Cr. Off. Min. fol. 105. "Sir F. North being made Lord Keeper on the death of the Earl of Nottingham, the Lord Chancellor, I went to congratulate him. He is a most knowing, learned, and ingenious person; and, besides having an excellent person, of CHAP. His con duct as a Judge. His de mises to reform abuses in of Chancery. for the vested In the midst of these blandishments he applied himself with laudable diligence to the discharge of his judicial duties. He declared that he was shocked by many abuses in the Court of Chancery, and he found fault with the manner in which his two predecessors, Bridgeman and Nottingham, had allowed the practice of the Court to lead to delay and expence. It was properly understood at the bar and on the bench, that nothing done in Lord Shaftesbury's time should ever be referred to as a precedent, on account of his rashness and ignorance. But it was even the fashion to talk of Bridgeman as "a splitter of hairs," and Nottingham as "a formalist"," and to lament how justice was obstructed by the slow process, the motions, the exceptions, the injunctions, and the re-hearings which they had encouraged. North's conduct as a law reformer was extremely characceitful pro- teristic. He talked much of issuing a new set of "Rules and Orders" to remedy all abuses, but he was afraid "that it would the Court give so great alarm to the bar and officers, with the solicitors, as would make them confederate and demur, and, by making a tumult and disturbance, endeavour to hinder the doing any thing of that kind which they would apprehend to be very His respect prejudicial to their interests."+ Then, when he wished to simplify the practice and to speed causes to a hearing and final decree, he considered that he was not only to regard the the King, suitors, but that "there was a justice due as well to the Crown, which had advantage growing by the disposition of the abuses places, profits, by process of all sorts, as also the Judges and their servants, and counsel at the bar, and solicitors, who were all in possession of their advantages, and by public encouragement to spend their youth to make them fit for them, and had no other means generally to provide for themselves and their families, and had a right to their reasonable profits, if not strictly by law, yet through long connivance."‡ rights of the bar, and the so licitors, in of the Court. He resolves on delibera He pretended to have an intention to abolish the usage of selling the places of the Masters in Chancery, which an ingenuous and sweet disposition, very skilful in music, painting, the new philosophy, and political studies." — Mem. i. 513. This is like the slighting manner in which Lord Mansfield was spoken of in the time of Lord Kenyon. Ibid. ii. 83. † Life, ii. 76. |