wisedome shall be thought necessary, receiving these oure letters for youre sufficient discharge in that behalve. Yeven undre oure signet at oure cite of Lincolne the xii day of Octobre." CHAP. XXIV. The letter, so far, is in the handwriting of a secretary. Postscript. Then follows this most curious postscript in the handwriting of Richard himself:-"We wolde most gladly ye came your selff, yf that you may, and yf ye may not, we pray you not to fayle, but to acomplyshe in al dillygence our sayde commaundemente, to send oure Seale incontinent upon the syght hereof as we truste you with such as ye truste and the officers parteyning to attende with hyt; praying you to ascerteyn us of your News ther. Here, loved be God, is al wel and trewly determyned, and for to resiste the malyse of him that had best cause to be trew, the Duc of Bokyngam, the most untrew creature lyvynge. Whom, with God's grace, we shall not be long til that we wyll be in that parties and subdew his malys. Wee assure you there was never falsre traitor purvayde for, as this Berrerr Gloucestre shall shew you."* The Great Seal was accordingly sent to the King, who retained it in his own custody till the 26th of November, when having returned in triumph to London, he restored it to Lord Chancellor Russell.† There had as yet been no parliament since the death of A parliaEdward IV., but one was now summoned by writs under the ment. Great Seal. The two Houses met in January, 1484, and the King being seated on the throne, the Lord Chancellor addressed them, and as soon as a Speaker was chosen, proposed a bill, whereby it was "declared, pronounced, decreed, confirmed, and established, that our Lord Richard III. is the true and undoubted King of this realm, as well by right of consanguinity and heritage, as by lawful election and coronation." The issue of Edward IV. being bastardised, and the Earl of Richmond and all the Lancastrian leaders attainted, the parliament, at the suggestion of the government, set to work • See Kennet, i. 532. n. † Rot. Cl. 1 Ric. 3. n. 101. XXIV. CHAP in good earnest to reform the law and to improve the institutions of the country. This policy, prompted by the King's consciousness of his bad title to the crown and his desire to obtain popularity, was warmly promoted by the Chancellor. Excellent laws now enacted. Act against "Benevo lences." Chancellor regulates treaty with From the destruction and obliteration of records which followed upon the change of dynasty, we have very imperfect details of the proceedings of this parliament; but looking to the result of its deliberations as exhibited in the Statute Book, we have no difficulty in pronouncing it the most meritorious national council for protecting the liberty of the subject and putting down abuses in the administration of justice, which had sat since the time of Edward I. I will fondly believe, though I can produce no direct evidence to prove the fact, that to "JOHN RUSSELL” the nation was indebted for the Act entitled-"The Subjects of this Realm not to be charged with Benevolence," the object of which was to put down the practice introduced in some late reigns of levying taxes under the name of " benevolence," without the authority of parliament. The language employed would not be unworthy of that great statesman bearing the same name, who in our own time framed and introduced Bills "to abolish the Test Act," and "to reform the representation of the people in parliament: "Remembering how the Commons, by new and unlawful innovations against the laws of this realm, have been put to great thraldom and exactions, and in especial by a new imposition called Benevolence, be it ordained that the Commonalty of this realm from henceforth in no wise be charged therewith, and that such exactions aforetime taken shall be for no example to make the like hereafter, but shall be damned and annulled for ever."* When the session of parliament was over, the Chancellor was employed to negotiate a peace with Scotland. At NotScotland, tingham he met commissioners from the Scottish King, and Sept. 1484. it was agreed that, to consolidate the amity between the two countries, Anne de la Pole, the niece of King Richard and sister of the Earl of Lincoln, declared to be heir presumptive Stat. 1 Ric. 3. c. 2. to the crown, should be married to the eldest son of James III. The parties were then infants, and this marriage did not take place; but afterwards another English Princess, eldest daughter of Henry VII., did become the bride of James IV., and was the means of uniting the whole island under one sovereign.* John Russell continued Chancellor till the 29th of July, 1485, having the Great Seal always in his own custody, except from the 19th of October to the 26th of November, 1483, on the occasion I have referred to. CHAP. XXIV. from his office. We have no information as to the cause of his dismissal Removed from the office of Chancellor. There was no party crisis or change of measures at the time, and there was no rival for the office who was to be preferred to him. It is possible that Richard, marching to meet the Earl of Richmond, acted as he had done in his expedition against Buckingham, and desired to take the Great Seal into the field with him, intending to restore it to Russell when he returned victorious; but, on the other hand, it has been supposed that Richard suspected his Chancellor of being in correspondence with the Earl of Richmond, and that he meditated a dreadful revenge upon him when he had vanquished his enemy. tory. Ex-chancellor Russell retired to his palace at Buckden, His subsewhere he heard of the battle of Bosworth and the accession quent hisof Henry VII. He mixed no more in politics, and spent the remainder of his days in the care of his diocese and superintending the discipline of the University of Oxford. He is celebrated as the first perpetual Chancellor of that learned body. Hitherto the office had been held only for a year, and frequently by some resident member of no very high rank. In 1483 when Russell was appointed Chancellor of England, -on account of the inconvenience arising from annual elections, and the great confidence reposed in him, he was elected Chancellor of the University for life. Tired of the dignity, he resigned it in 1487; but great con * Hall gives a detailed account of this negotiation: "At which tyme came thether for the Kynge of England, John, Byshop of Lincoln, Chauncellor of England," &c.—Chro. p. 398. First perpetual Chancellor of Oxford. XXIV. CHAP. fusion being likely to arise from this step, "the Academicians earnestly desired him to take upon him the office again, which he promising they proceeded to election." A keen contest took place, Peter Courtenay, Bishop of Winchester, being put up against him; but he was re-elected, and held the office till his death, when he was succeeded by Lord Chancellor Cardinal MORTON. In 1488 he published certain "aulary statutes for the government of the University," which were supposed to have made it a model for all universities. His death. He died January 30. 1494, and was buried in his cathedral, at the upper end on the south side, in a chapel where he had founded a chantry, under an altar tomb, with this inscription: His epitaph. "Qui sum quæ mihi Sors fuerat narrabo, Johannes Roffa Sacrum primo, Lincolnia condit in unum But the most valuable memorial to his fame is the character given of him by Sir Thomas More,-"A wyse mane & a good, & of much experyence, & one of the best learned menne undoubtedly that Englande hadde in hys time."+ He left behind him considerable reputation as an author, his two greatest works being "A Commentary on the Canticles," and a treatise "De Potestate summi Pontificis et Imperatoris." Had they been written a few years later we should have been able to pass judgment upon them; but they never were printed and they have not come down to us. He appears to have been a great encourager of reviving * Fast. Ox. 64. + Willis's Cathedrals, Bishops of Lincoln, vol. iii. pp. 7. 59. Life of Ric. 3. p. 529. learning*, but he is more loudly extolled for his "re-edification of the episcopal palace at Buckden."+ CHAP. XXIV. Disposal of at end of reign of III. No other Chancellor was appointed by Richard during the short remainder of his reign. The invasion of the Earl of Richmond was now impending. The discontented were flocking to him, as a deliverer, from all parts of the kingdom; and Richard there was a general feeling among the people, that the man stained with so many crimes ought not longer to be permitted to occupy the throne which he had usurped. The Great Seal was given by Richard into the temporary keeping of Thomas Barrowe, Master of the Rolls, for the despatch of necessary business, and it probably remained with him till the conclusion of the reign, although some accounts represent that Richard carried it with him when he marched against Richmond, and had it in his tent at Bosworth Field, — in which case it must at once have fallen into the hands of the victor, and, next to the crown worn by Richard in the fight, have been his earliest emblem of royalty. § Legal proceedings during reigns of Edward V. We do not find any equity decisions in these two short reigns, although, amidst arms, the laws seem to have been regularly administered; and there have been handed down to us Reports in the Year Books, beginning "De Termino and RichTrinitatis Anno primo Edwardi Quinti." Lord Chancellor ard III. Russell appears to have been perplexed by the cases which came before him respecting uses; and, to obviate the necessity for a Bill in Chancery, it was enacted that the person • On a manuscript of Mathew Paris (Royal MSS. 14. C. vii.) now in the British Museum, there is an inscription in Latin, dated June 1. 1488, in the handwriting and with the signature of John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, in which whosoever shall obliterate or destroy the Bishop's memorandum respecting the ownership of the volume is solemnly declared to be accursed. - Warton's Dissertation on Introduction of Learning into England, p. 111. It appears from an inscription in the author's own hand, to have been a presentation copy from himself, probably to some church or monastery.. Sketches of the History of Literature and Learning in England, vol. ii. 168. Knight's Weekly Volume, No. XVIII. † God. de Præs. Linc. Although Lord Chancellor Russell has considerable historical interest, he is not mentioned by modern historians, and many of my well-informed readers may never have heard of his existence. I consider him one of the "Cancellarian mummies" I have dug up and exhibited to the public. Rot. Cl. 3 Ric. 3. n. 1. § See Nicholls' Lit. Anec. vi. 47. Rochester. Harl. MSS. No. 2578. vol. i. Walpole's Hist. Doubts. Antiq. Bish. |