CHAPTER XXII. CHAP. A. D. 1460. Great Seal in custody of Archbishop Bourchier. CHANCELLORS DURING THE REIGN OF HENRY VI. FROM THE AP- WHEN the Great Seal was taken from Waynflete in 1460, from the 7th to the 27th of July it was in the custody of Archbishop Bourchier, but only till it could be intrusted to one in whom the Yorkists could place entire confidence. This prelate had lately much favoured the Yorkists, but still they recollected his former vacillation. On the 25th of July a new Chancellor was installed, about GEORGE NEVILLE, whose fidelity and zeal no doubt could be entertained; Bishop of GEORGE NEVILLE, Bishop of Exeter, the son of the Earl of Exeter, Chancellor, Salisbury, and brother of the Earl of Warwick,* He had July 25. studied at Baliol College, Oxford, and taking orders, had such rapid preferment, that he was consecrated a bishop before he was twenty-five, and he was made Lord Chancellor before he had completed his thirtieth year. 1460. A parlia ment. Duke of York claims crown. The parliament met on the 7th of October. We are told that, in the presence of the King sitting in his chair of state in the Painted Chamber at Westminster, and of the Lords and Commons, George Bishop of Exeter, then Chancellor of England, made a notable declaration, taking for his theme, "Congregate populum et sanctificate ecclesiam." But we are not informed how he prepared the two Houses for the solemn claim to the crown now to be made by his leader, to which he was undoubtedly privy.† The Duke of York, on his return from Ireland, having entered the House of Lords, he advanced towards the throne, and being asked by Archbishop Bourchier whether he had yet paid his respects to the King, he replied "he knew none to *Rot. Cl. 38 Hen. 6. m. 7. † 1 Parl. Hist. 404. CHAP. whom he owed that title;" and addressing the Peers from the step under the throne, he asserted his right to sit there, giving a long deduction of his pedigree, and exhorting them to return into the right path by doing justice to the lineal successor. It might have been expected that he would have concluded the ceremony by taking his seat on the throne, which stood empty behind him; but he immediately left the House, and the Peers took the matter into consideration with as much tranquillity as if it had been a claim to a dormant barony. They resolved that the Duke's title to the crown should be Right to argued by counsel at the bar, and they ordered that notice crown should be given to the King that he likewise might be heard. bar of The King recommended that the Judges, the King's Serjeants, Lords. and the Attorney General, should be called in and consulted. They were summoned, and attended accordingly; but the question being propounded to them, they well considering the danger in meddling with this high affair, utterly refused to be concerned in it. Nevertheless counsel were heard at the bar for the Duke; the matter was debated several successive days, and an order was made that every Peer might freely and indifferently speak his mind without dread of impeachment. Objections to the claim were started by several Lords, founded on former entails of the crown by parliament, and on the oaths of fealty sworn to the House of Lancaster; while answers were given derived from the indefeasibility of hereditary right, and the violence by which the House of Lancaster had obtained and kept possession of the crown. * argued at Judgment of York for Duke after death of King The Chancellor, by order of the House, pronounced judgment, “that Richard Plantagenet had made out his claim, and that his title was certain and indefeasible; but that in consideration that Henry had enjoyed the crown without dispute Henry. or controversy during the course of thirty-eight years, he should continue to possess the title and dignity during the remainder of his life; that the administration of the government, meanwhile, should remain with Richard, and that he should be acknowledged the true and lawful heir of the * 1 Parl. Hist. 405. XXII. CHAP. monarchy." This sentence was, by order of the House, communicated to the King by the Chancellor, who explained to him the Duke's pedigree and title; and thereupon the King acquiesced in the sentence. All this was confirmed by the full consent of parliament, and an act was published declaring the Duke of York to be right heir on a demise of the Battle of net, Duke crown. But Margaret refused to be a party to this treaty, and was again at the head of a formidable army. The battle of Wakefield was fought, in which Richard Plantagenet fell, without ever having been seated on that throne to which he was entitled by his birth, and which had repeatedly seemed within his reach. Here bravely fighting by the side of his leader was taken prisoner, overpowered by numbers, the Execution Ex-chancellor, the Earl of Salisbury. He was immediately tried by martial law and beheaded. His head remained the Earl of stuck over one of the gates of York till it was replaced by Salisbury, that of a Lancastrian leader after the battle of Mortimer's of Exchancellor Feb. 2. 1461. Cross. For the dignity of the Great Seal I ought to give * The entry of this proceeding on the Parliament Roll is very curious. "Memorand' that on the xvi day of Octobr', the ixth daye of this present parlement, the counseill of the right high and mighty Prynce Richard Duc of York brought into the parlement chambre a wryting conteignyng the clayme and title of the right that the said Duc pretended unto the corones of Englond and of Fraunce, and lordship of Irelond, and the same wryting delyvered to the Right Reverent Fader in God, George Bishop of Excestre, Chanceller of Englond, desiryng hym that the same wryting might be opened to the Lordes spiritualx and temporalx assembled in this present parlement, and that the seid Duc myght have brief and expedient answere therof: Whereupon the seid Chaunceller opened and shewed the seid desire to the Lordes spiritualx and temporalx, askyng the question of theym, whither they wold the seid writyng shuld be openly radde before theym or noo. To the which question it was answered and agreed by all the seid Lordes: Inasmuch as every persone high and lowe suying to this high court of parlement, of right must be herd, and his desire and petition understaude, that the seid writyng shuld be radde and herd, not to be answered without the Kyng's commaundment, for so moche as the matter is so high and of soo grete wyght and poyse. Which writyng there than was radde the tenour whereof foloweth in these wordes," &c. Then follow all the proceedings down to the King's confirmation of the Concord. XXII. the Earl of Arundel; Cicily, to Henry Beauchamp Earl of CHAP. Warwick; Alice, to Henry Lord Fitzhugh of Ravenfroth; Eleanor, to Thomas Stanley, the first Earl of Derby of that Children of name; and Katherine, to John de Vere Earl of Oxford, Ex-chanand afterwards to Lord Hastings, chamberlain to King of Arundel. Edward IV. There is no entry in the Records respecting the Great Seal from the 25th of July 1460, when George Neville was created Chancellor nominally to Henry VI., but really under the house of York, till the 10th of March, 1461, when he took the oaths to the new King, and, according to Dugdale, he continued Chancellor all the while; but it is impossible that he should have been allowed to exercise the duties of the office during the whole of this stormy interval, as for a portion of it Margaret and the Lancastrians were in possession of the metropolis, and had a complete ascendency over the kingdom, although it does not appear by the Rolls or any contemporary writer that any other Chancellor was appointed. cellor Earl 1461. Quære, If the celebrated Sir John Fortescue, author of the admi- Feb. 17. rable treatise "De Laudibus Legum Angliæ," ever was de facto Chancellor of England, and in the exercise of the Whether duties of the office, it must have been now, after the second battle of St. Alban's, and at the very conclusion of the reign was ever of Henry VI. Sir John Chancellor in Eng Fortescue is generally by his biographers mentioned as land? having been Chancellor to this Sovereign. In the introduction to his great work, after describing the imprisonment of Henry VI., and the exile of Prince Edward his son, he says, "Miles quidam grandævus, PRÆDICTI REGIS Angliæ CANCELLARIUS, qui etiam sub hac clade exulabat, principem sic affatur;" and throughout the dialogue he always denominates himself " Cancellarius." I suspect that he only had the titular office of Chancellor Supposed in partibus-when he accompanied the young Prince his pupil to have been only as an exile to foreign climes, and that he never exercised Chancellor the duties of the office in England*; but under these cir- in partibus. * Spelman, in his list of Chief Justices, under head Jo. Fortescu, writes, CHAP. XXII. His family. His rise at the bar. Chief Justice. cumstances I am called upon to offer a sketch of his history,and it is delightful, amidst intriguing Churchmen and warlike Barons who held the Great Seal in this age, to present to the reader a lawyer not only of deep professional learning, but cultivated by the study of classical antiquity, and not only of brilliant talents, but the ardent and enlightened lover of liberty, to whose explanation and praises of our free constitution, we are in no small degree indebted for the resistance to oppressive rule which has distinguished the people of England. -- Sir JOHN FORTESCUE was of an ancient and distinguished family, being descended in the direct male line from Richard Fortescue, who came over with the Conqueror. The family was seated first at Winston, and then at Wear Giffard in Devonshire, which still belongs to them.* He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, and called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. Unfortunately there is no further memorial of his early career, and we are not informed of the course of study by which he acquired so much professional and general knowledge, and reached such eminence. In 1441 he was called to the degree of the coif, and was made a King's Serjeant, and the year following he was raised to the office of Chief Justice of the King's Bench, the duties of which he discharged with extraordinary ability. In the struggle for the crown he steadily adhered to the House of Lancaster while any hope seemed to remain for that cause, being of opinion that Richard II. was properly dethroned for his misgovernment; - that parliament then having the power to confer the crown upon another branch of the royal family, hereditary right was superseded by the will of the nation, "Notior in ore omnium nomine Cancellarii quam Justiciarii, diu tamen functus est hoc munere; illo vix aliquando. Constitui enim videtur Cancellarius, non nisi a victo et exulante apud Scotos Rege, Hen. 6., nec referri igitur in archiva regia ejus institutio, sed cognosci maxime e libelli sui ipsius inscriptione.". Glossarium Justiciarius. And under Spelman's Series Cancellariorum, he says, "Jo. Fortescue Justiciarius Banci Regii exulante Hen. 6. in Scotia videtur ejus constitui Cancellarius eoque usus titulo; sed nulla de eo mentio in Rott. patentibus. Quidam vero contendunt eum non fuisse Cancellarium Regis sed filii ejus primogeniti; contrarium vero manifestè patet lib. suo de L. L. Ang. in introductione, ubi sic de se ait, Quidem Miles grandævus," &c. I have been favoured with a sight of the pedigree by Earl Fortescue, and it is perfect in all its links. |