CHAP. A.D. 1330. govern ment. made a victim of the Earl of Kent, the King's uncle. For a short time Mortimer enjoyed a sort of dictatorship. He threw the Earl of Lancaster into prison, and prosecuted many of the prelates and nobility. The immense fortunes of the Spensers and their adherents were mostly converted to his own use. He affected a state and dignity not inferior to the royal. His power became formidable to every one, and all parties, forgetting past animosities, conspired in a wish for his overthrow. Edward, now in his 18th year, feeling himself capable of III. seizes governing, repined at his insignificance, and resolved to free the reins of himself from the fetters of this insolent minister. By an extraordinary combination of courage and dexterity on the part of Mortimer's enemies, the minion was seized in the castle of Nottingham, in an apartment adjoining the Queen-dowager's, at a moment when he thought himself absolute and permanent master of the kingdom. Nov. 1330. A parliament. King's speech. Burghersh dismissed. Nov. 28. 1330. A parliament was immediately summoned, before which he was accused of having procured the death of the late King, and of various other crimes, and upon the supposed notoriety of the facts, without hearing his answer, or examining a witness, he was convicted and executed. Instead of the Chancellor, the young King himself is said to have made a speech at the opening of this parliament, complaining much of the conduct of the Queen and Mortimer, and intimating that with the consent of his subjects, he designed to take the reins of government into his own hands.* Burghersh being an ecclesiastic, was safe from corporal punishment, but he was deprived of the Great Seal+, and on the day before Mortimer's execution it was intrusted to JOHN DE STRATFORD‡, Bishop of Winchester, by whose advice the * 1 Parl. Hist. 83. † One of the charges against him was the abuse of his ecclesiastical patronage. It seems the livings in the Chancellor's gift were intended as a provision for the clerks of the different courts of justice who were then all in orders, and that Burghersh had been in the habit of selling them or giving them to favourites; whereupon an order was made by parliament, that "the Chancellor should give the livings in his gift, rated at twenty marks and under, to the King's clerks in Chancery, the Exchequer and the two Benches, according to usage, and to none others."-Rolls, 4 Ed. 3. vol. ii. 136. Rot. Cl. 4 Ed. 3. m. 20. CHAP. XIII. young King had acted in bringing about this revolution. The Ex-chancellor died in exile at Ghent about ten years after. It is said that "he was a covetous man, and easily His exile abused his power to the oppressing of his neighbours." and death. John de STRATFORD, Chancellor. and educa tion. The new Chancellor was a native of Stratford in Essex, from which place he took his name according to the custom of the age. He and his brother Robert, of whom we shall have to speak very soon, were instances then not uncommon of persons of talents, enterprise, and perseverance, raising themselves from obscurity to the highest offices in the state. He studied at Oxford, and there acquired great reputation His origin for his proficiency in the civil and canon law. It is curious to observe that the law in those times, not less than in the present, was the great avenue for new men to political advancement. In the struggle for power which was ever going on, those who were distinguished for their learning and their subtlety were found useful to the Crown, to the barons, and to the great ecclesiastics-were confidentially employed by them on occasions of difficulty, and were rewarded with ecclesiastical and temporal offices in which they had often more influence than the great hereditary nobles.† John de Stratford was early promoted to the deanery of Lincoln, and giving earnest of the talents which he afterwards displayed, he was promoted to the judicial office of Dean of the Arches, which has continued down to our own times to be filled by men of the greatest learning and ability. Here he showed such knowledge of the laws, and such judgment and prudence in deciding causes, that he was made a Privy Councillor to Edward II., and was admitted to an important share in the government of the kingdom. In 1323 he was sent ambassador to the Pope, then established at Avignon, to settle various points of controversy of great delicacy, which had arisen between the Crown of England and his Holiness. It happened that at that time the Bishop of Winchester died, and the Pope, at the earnest See L. C. 26. The two Stratfords, who successively held the office of Lord Chancellor in the 14th century, may aptly be compared to the two Scotts, Lord Eldon and Lord Stowell, in the 19th. Ambas sador to Pope. XIII. CHAP. request of the Archbishop of Canterbury, without the sanction of the King, somewhat irregularly consecrated his Excellency the English minister Bishop of the vacant see. His rise till appointed Chancellor. Punish- Measures to restore internal tranquillity. Court of Chancery becomes Baldock, then Lord Chancellor, having intended this preferment for himself, was mortally offended, and took violent steps to prevent the new Bishop from deriving any benefit from the elevation. A very severe proclamation was issued against Stratford in the name of the King, "so that none should harbour or relieve him," and the fruits of the bishopric were confiscated to the Crown. The Pope and the Archbishop, however, still befriended him, and Baldock's influence declining, he was again taken into favour and employed in several important embassies. In the last year of Edward II. he was made Lord Treasurer, and he adhered with great constancy and zeal to his unhappy master. Probably this was the reason why, when the regicides were punished and the youthful Sovereign took upon himself the government of the realm, Stratford was appointed to the office of Chancellor. Under his advice the Queen-mother was confined to her own house at Castle-Rising; and to prevent her from again forming a party which might be formidable to the Sovereign, her revenue was reduced to 4000l. a-year, so that she was never able to reinstate herself in any credit or authority. Effective measures were taken to restore order and tranquillity throughout the realm. Writs under the Great Seal were directed to the Judges, enjoining them to administer justice without paying any regard to the arbitrary orders they might receive from any great men or officers of state. As robbers, thieves, murderers, and criminals of all kinds, had during the late convulsions multiplied to an enormous degree, and they sometimes enjoyed high protection, a promise was exacted from the Peers in parliament that they would break off all connection with such malefactors; and the ministers of justice were urged to employ the utmost diligence in discovering, pursuing, and punishing them. There was likewise introduced about this time a great improvement in the administration of justice, by rendering the stationary. Court of Chancery stationary at Westminster. The ancient XIII. kings of England were constantly migrating, - one principal CHAP. reason for which was, that the same part of the country, even with the aid of purveyance and pre-emption, could not long support the Court and all the royal retainers, and the render in kind due to the King could be best consumed on the spot. Therefore, if he kept Christmas at Westminster, he would keep Easter at Winchester, and Pentecost at Gloucester, visiting his many palaces and manors in rotation. The Aula Regis, and afterwards the courts into which it was partitioned, were ambulatory along with him to the great vexation of the suitors. This grievance was partly corrected by MAGNA CHARTA, which enacted that the Court of Common Pleas should be held "in a certain place," a corner of Westminster Hall being fixed upon for that purpose. In point of law, the Court of King's Bench and the Court of Chancery may still be held in any county of England, "wheresoever in England the King or the Chancellor may be." Down to the commencement of the reign of Edward III., the King's Bench and the Chancery actually had continued to follow the King's person, the Chancellor and his officers being entitled to part of the purveyance made for the royal household. By 28 Edw. 1. c. 5., the Lord Chancellor and the Justices of the King's Bench were ordered to follow the King, so that he might have at all times near him sages of the law able to advise him. But the two Courts were now by the King's command fixed in the places where, unless on a few extraordinary occasions, they continued to be held down. to our own times, at the upper end of Westminster Hall, the King's Bench on the left hand, and the Chancery on the right, both remaining open to the Hall, and a bar being erected to keep off the multitude from pressing on the Judges. The Chancellor, on account of his superior dignity, had placed for him a great marble table, to which there was an ascent by five or six steps, with a marble chair by the side of it. On this table writs and letters patent were sealed in the presence of the Chancellor sitting in the marble chair. Here he received and examined the petitions addressed to him. Marble chair and table in Court of Chancery. CHAP. A. D. 1331. A parlia ment. Questions put to parliament by the Chancellor. Chancellor returns from em- On the appointment of a new Chancellor, he was inaugurated by being placed in this chair.* John de Stratford continued Chancellor under his first appointment nearly four years, during which time he appears to have been almost constantly absorbed in political business, and to have hardly ever attended personally to the judicial duties of his office. From the 4th to the 20th of April, 1331, he was in Normandy with the King. In the year 1331, a parliament met at Westminster, the day after Michaelmas-day. The Chancellor declared the cause of the summons, and applied himself to the prelates, earls, and barons for their advice, whether they thought it best for the King to proceed by war or by an amicable treaty with the King of France for the restitution of Aquitaine ?† The parliament agreed to the latter as the least dangerous process, and the Chancellor, accompanied by the Bishops of Worcester and Norwich, and others, went on an embassy to the court of France for this purpose. They set sail on the 21st of November, and succeeded in preserving for a time the relations of amity between the two nations. The Chancellor's return is not recorded, but it must have been before the 12th of March in the following year, for on that day a new parliament was opened at Westminster by a speech from him, in which he intimated that the King wished for the advice of the parliament "whether he should comply with a request from the King of France and many other kings and princes, to accompany them to the Holy Land against the common enemy of Christendom?"† A subject of greater urgency on which the advice of parliament was asked was, "whether the King might go over to the French court to settle in person the differences between the two crowns ?" * The marble table and chair are said to have been displaced when the Court was covered in from the Hall. But till the Courts were finally removed out of Westminster Hall, there were easy means of communication between the Chancery and King's Bench, which enabled Sir Thomas More to ask his father's blessing in the one Court before he took his seat in the other; and I myself remember, when a student of law, that if the Chancellor rose while the King's Bench was sitting, a curtain was drawn and the Judges saluted him — Orig. Jurid. tit. " Chancery." In the " Lives of Lord Clarendon, &c.," published in 1712, it is said, "This marble table is now covered with the Courts there erected, to which there are four or five steps to go up." Ibid. 89. † 1 Parl. Hist. 88. |