CHAPTER XXV. CHANCELLORS AND LORD KEEPERS FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VII. TILL THE APPOINTMENT OF ARCHBISHOP WARHAM AS LORD KEEPER. CHAP. ALCOCK, first Chan cellor to Hen. VII. KING Henry VII., returning from Bosworth Field, appointed for his first Chancellor John Alcock, now Bishop of WorA.D. 1485. cester*, who for a few months, while Bishop of Rochester, had filled the office under Edward IV., and an account of whom I have reserved for this place. He was born at Beverley, in the county of York, of no distinguished family, and raised himself entirely by his own merits. He studied at Cambridge, where he obtained great distinction, particularly for his knowledge of the civil and canon law. He was patronised by Lord Chancellor Stillington, was extremely useful to him, -and, as his deputy, performed most of the duties belonging to the Great Seal. In 1471, as a reward for his services, he was made Bishop of Rochester and Master of the Rolls. He contrived to ingratiate himself equally with Lord Chancellor Rotheram, through whose interest he was translated to Worcester, and intrusted, for a short time, with the Great Seal, under the title of Chancellor. Now was the triumph of his powers of insinuation and versatility; having been brought forward and employed by the House of York, and never having had any open rupture with Richard, he at once gained the confidence of Henry, who hardly ever favoured any one who had not fought with the Lancastrians in the field, or had been engaged in plots to promote their ascendancy. There is no record of the day of the delivery of the Seal to him; but in the Parliament Roll of the 1st of Henry VII. it *Rot. Parl. 1 Hen. 7. p. 1. is stated, that "on the 7th of November, in the first year of the King's reign, the Reverend Lord and Father in God John Alcock, Bishop of Worcester, CANCELLARIUS MAGNUS ANGLIÆ, declared the cause of summoning parliament." СНАР. XXV. A. D. 1485. settled. Great reliance must have been placed on his learning and Difficult experience for settling the delicate points which were to be constitutional ques brought forward. One of these was the effect of the at- tions tainder, by a parliament of Richard, of a great number of the temporal Peers now summoned. Could they, at the commencement of the session, take their seats in the House of Lords? The Chancellor asked the opinion of the Judges, who held that they ought not to sit till their attainder had been reversed, thereby recognising the principle that "any statute passed by a parliament under a King de facto is ever after to be taken for law till repealed." But a more puzzling question arose as to the effect of the attainder of Henry himself, as Earl of Richmond; for how could this be reversed without an exercise of the prerogative in giving the royal assent? and could the royal assent be given till the outlawry was reversed? The Chancellor again consulted the Judges, and they cut the knot by unanimously resolving, "that the descent of the Crown of itself takes away all defects, and stops in blood by reason of attainder,"* which has ever since been received as a maxim of constitutional law; and no doubt was relied upon by the Jacobites, who attempted to restore the Princes of the House of Stuart, attainted under King William, Queen Anne, and George I. The Chancellor gave great satisfaction to his wary master by the dexterity with which he met such difficulties, and he was translated to the rich see of Ely as a reward for his services; but there does not seem to have been any intention to employ him after the new government was fairly started; and the King reserved his real confidence for JOHN MORTON, who had been in exile with him, who had been attainted for adhering to him, who had mainly contributed to his elevation, and whom he resolved to make his chief adviser for the rest Alcock of his reign. The exact date of the transfer of the Great removed *Parl. Roll. 1 Hen. 7. 1 Parl. Hist. 450. Nov. 1485. Bishop of Ely. from office of Chancellor. СНАР. Death of Ex-chancellor Alcock. Cardinal His birth and education. Seal to him is unknown, as it is not recorded in the Close Roll; but it is supposed to have happened in August, 1487, and was certainly before November in that year, when there were bills addressed to him as Chancellor, which are still extant.* Bishop Alcock, the Ex-chancellor, lived in the enjoyment of his new diocese till the 1st of October, 1500; when, according to a quaint authority I have consulted, "he was translated from this to another life." He had in his latter days a great character for piety, abstinence, and other religious mortifications. He built a chapel at Beverley, founded a chantry to pray for the souls of his parents, and turned St. Rudegunda's old nunnery at Cambridge, founded by Malcolm, King of Scots, into the flourishing foundation of Jesus' College. In the two first reigns of the House of Tudor, the Great Seal may be considered in its greatest splendour; for the Chancellor was generally the first minister of the Crown, and by his advice the Lord Treasurer, and the other high officers of state, were appointed. Henry, whose darling object was to depress the powerful barons hitherto so formidable to his predecessors, was determined to rule by men more dependent on him than the nobility, who enjoyed, by hereditary right, possessions and jurisdictions dangerous to royal authority. The new Chancellor was, in all respects, such a man as the King wished for his minister. JOHN MORTON was born in the year 1410, at Bere, in Dorsetshire, of a private gentleman's family. He received his earliest education at the Abbey of Cerne, from whence he was removed to Baliol College, Oxford, where he devoted himself to the study of the civil and canon law, and took with great distinction the degree of LL.D. He then went to London, at all times the best field for talents and energy, and practised as an advocate in Doctors' Commons. In the Court of Arches, and the other ecclesiastical Courts, there was then much business, producing both fame and profit; and success at the civil law bar frequently led to promotion both in church and state. Morton was soon the decided leader; and he rose to such distinction by his learning and eloquence, that he gained the good opinion of Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, who recommended him to Henry VI. He was sworn of the Privy Council by that Sovereign, was made Prebendary of Salisbury, and had the valuable living of Blakesworth bestowed upon him. He СНАР. XXV. reconciled IV. In the struggles which ensued between the rival families, A Lancashe adhered with the most unshaken fidelity and unbounded trian, but zeal to the Lancastrian cause, till Edward IV. was firmly to Edward seated on the throne, when he thought it not inconsistent with the duties of a good citizen to submit to the ruling powers, without renouncing his former attachments. petitioned for pardon at the same time as Fortescue. Edward was so much struck with his honourable conduct, that without requiring from him any unbecoming concessions, he continued him a Privy Councillor, appointed him Master of the Rolls, conferred upon him great ecclesiastical preferment crowned with the Bishopric of Ely, and, by his last will, made him one of his executors. Some of the biographers of Morton state, that he was likewise Lord Chancellor to Edward IV., but this is a mistake. In the year 1473, during the illness of Lord Chancellor Stillington, he for a short time was intrusted with the custody of the Great Seal, and no doubt did the duties of the office, but he then only acted as deputy to the Chancellor. duct under Richard Being executor of Edward IV., and enjoying the entire His conconfidence of the Queen, he had a sort of guardianship of the royal children, and Richard thought it would be a great III. point gained to corrupt him as he had corrupted Buckingham and others; but Morton rejected all his overtures with scorn and indignation, and thereby incurred the special hatred of the usurper. On the very day when Rivers, Gray, and Vaughan, the Queen's relations, were executed by the orders of Richard, at Pomfret, there was acted in the Tower of London the scene which is so admirably and truly described by our immortal dramatist. Morton, along with Hastings and the other Strawberry Tower of London. scene at the СНАР. XXV. councillors, took his place at the council-table, according to the summons sent to them,-when Richard, who was capable A.D. 1483. of committing the most bloody and treacherous murders with the utmost coolness and indifference, appearing among them in an easy and jovial humour, entered into familiar conversation with them before proceeding to business, and complimenting the Bishop on the good and early strawberries which he raised in his garden at Holborn, he begged the favour of Imprisoned having a dish of them.* A messenger was immediately deby Richard III. spatched for the fruit, but before he returned, Hastings was beheaded, and Morton was a close prisoner in the Tower. Escapes to The University of Oxford petitioned King Richard for Morton's liberation, saying, "the bowels of our mother, the University, like Rachel weeping for her children, are moved with pity over the lamentable distress of this her dearest son. For if a pious affection be praiseworthy, even in an enemy, much more is it in our University, professing the study of all virtues. Upon the re-admittance of so great a prelate into your favour, who is there that will not extol your divine clemency? Thus gloried the Romans to have it marshalled among their praises, that submissive wights they spared, but crusht the proud."† Richard would have cared little for these remonstrances; but lest the confinement of a popular prelate in the Tower might stir up a mutiny among the Londoners, he was given in ward to the Duke of Buckingham, and was shut up by him in the castle of Brecknock. From thence, however, he escaped, and after lying disguised for some time in the Isle "Glo. My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn I saw good strawberries in your garden there, I do beseech you, send for some of them. "Hast. His Grace looks cheerfully and smooth this morning: There's some conceit or other likes him well When he doth bid good-morrow with such spirit." King Richard III. act iii. scene 4. Ath. Ox. i. 640. "Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos." In Sir Thomas More's Life of Richard III. there is a very long and rather amusing, but evidently a fictitious dialogue, between Morton and the Duke of Buckingham, upon the character and conduct of the usurper. |