IX. He was of a good family, and of great abilities. Having CHAP. mastered all that was to be learned in England, he completed his education in Italy, where he was ordained priest and made private chaplain to the Pope. On his return to his own country, mixing in secular affairs, he rose to be Lord Treasurer, an office which he lost by a sudden revolution in the state. In 1264 he reached the secure elevation of the prelacy, being made Bishop of Bath and Wells. This dignity he held when he received the Great Seal. In about a year after, the Archbishopric of York falling vacant, he aspired to it, and had the court interest; but William de Langton, Dean of York, was elected by the Chapter. Both parties appealed to the Pope, and, after a keen struggle, Giffard succeeded through his superior interest. As soon as he was installed Archbishop, Resigns, he voluntarily resigned the Great Seal, and devoted himself being made to the government of his new see, which he held above ten bishop of years. He left behind him the reputation of great learning, as well as of integrity and piety. Arch York. GIFFARD, petency. He was succeeded in the office of Chancellor by GODFREY GODFREY GIFFARD, Archdeacon of Wells*, another member of the same family, who, through his mother, was related to the King, and seems to have owed his promotion entirely to court favour. He was removed from the office after he had Removed held it a very short time, without any turn in politics, and for incomwithout any advancement in the church,-whence it is inferred that he was found wholly incompetent for the duties of any secular office. Nevertheless he was afterwards considered sufficiently qualified for high ecclesiastical preferment, and in 1269 he was appointed to the see of Worcester, which he held without reproach for 24 years. While he was Chancellor, in the 52d year of the King's reign, a parliament assembled at Marlbridge, where many useful laws were passed for restraining the abuse of Distresses, regulating the incidents of tenure, and improving civil and criminal procedure. Several of these display great discrimination, and an acquaintance with the general principles of jurisprudence Rot. Pat. 51 Hen. 3. m. 22. 52 Hen. 3. m. 30. Rot. Claus. 52 Hen. 3. IX. CHAP. greatly above the comprehension of the Chancellor; and if he introduced them, they must have been framed by superior men whom he had the wit to employ.* JOHN DE The next Chancellor was a man of much renown in his Chancellor, day, JOHN DE CHISHULL, Dean of St. Paul's. He had risen from an obscure origin by his own powers, and being well skilled in the civil and common law, with a great readiness for business, he had been found very useful to Lord Chancellor de Merton, who made him his Vice-chancellor. † Having always taken the royalist side, he was persecuted by the Barons; but they being now crushed, his fidelity was rewarded with the office of Chancellor, which he filled with great applause till the year 1270, when he exchanged it for that of Treasurer. In 1274 he was made Bishop of London, and he spent the remainder of his days in works of charity, and in seeking to expiate the sins he had committed in his political career. RICHARD de MiddleTON, Chancellor. His successor in the office of Chancellor was RICHARD DE MIDDLETON, of whom so little is known that it has been questioned whether he was a layman or an ecclesiastic; but there can be little doubt that he was one of the active aspiring priests who, in those troublous times, were employed as secretaries to the King, and were intrusted with the Great Seal as a step to high promotion in the church. While he was Chancellor he certainly provided for the expenses of the King's chapel out of the profits of his office, and no doubt officiated in it as chaplain. He died while Chancellor, on *See Stat. Marlb. 52 Hen. 3. There is an entry in the Charter Roll, 49 Hen. 3., which has induced some to suppose that Chishull was Chancellor before Cantilupe, but though he delivered the Great Seal to the king, he had not before held it as Chancellor. In the fifty-fifth year of King Henry III., John le Fauconer, receiver of the fees of the Great Seal, rendered to De Middleton his account, which is still extant, and in which he is allowed certain disbursements for the King's chapel, among other expenses to be defrayed by the Chancellor. "Compotus Johannis le Fauconer Receptoris denariorum proveniencium de exitibus Sigilli Regis, a festo Apostolorum Simonis et Judæ, anno Liiij usq; ad idem festum anno Lvj incipiente, videlicet per duos annos. Summa summarum, DCCCCLxxiij l. xvj s. In thesauro nichil." Among the credits, " Et Johanni Partejoye custodi summarum Regis Cancellarii pro vadiis suis per CCCxxx dies vj l. iij s. ix d. per idem breve [Regis]. Et in percameno ad opus clericorum Cancellariæ predictæ, et aliis minutis expensis ejusdem Cancellariæ et Capellæ Regis xiij 1. ij s. vi d. per idem breve." Mag. Rot. 55 H. 3. Rot. 1. a. in Rot. Compotor. The amount of these fees is considerable, regard being had to the value of money in those times. Sunday before the Feast of St. Lawrence, in the year 1272, before any other provision had been made for him, and the Great Seal was deposited in the King's wardrobe to abide the disposal of the council who now governed the kingdom. CHAP. IX. Edward in the Holy Land. Prince Edward, having crushed De Montfort and the as- Prince sociated Barons,―seduced by his avidity for glory, and by the passion of the age for crusades, had undertaken an expedition, in conjunction with St. Louis, to recover the Holy Sepulchre, and, after the death of that pious and romantic sovereign, was now signalising himself by acts of valour in Palestine, and reviving the splendour of the English name among the nations of the East. King Henry, overcome by the cares of government and the infirmities of age, was visibly declining, and could no longer even appear to take a part in the government. Letters were written in his name. to the Prince, urging his immediate return, and pointing out the dangers to which the state was exposed from the mutinous Barons, who were again commencing their machinations and disorders. In the mean time the Council did not venture to appoint a new Chancellor, but delivered the Great Seal to John de Kirby, with the title of Vice-chancellor, that he might seal writs with it, and do what was requisite for the ordinary routine of government till the Prince's arrival. Kirby was a churchman, eager for promotion ;-as yet only Dean of Winburn and Archdeacon of Coventry, but active, cunning, and unscrupulous. His conduct in this emergency gave such satisfaction that in the ensuing reign he was made Bishop of Ely and Lord Treasurer. But he is accused by contemporary writers of having neglected his spiritual for his temporal duties, and of having taken but little notice of the flocks committed to his charge, except when he was to shear them. John de Kirby, Keeper of He held the Great Seal from the 7th of August, 1272, to John de the 16th of November following, the day that closed the in- Keeper glorious reign of Henry III. The moment that the King had of the *Die Dominica proxima ante festum Sancti Laurentii obiit Ricardus de Middleton quondam Cancellarius Regis et Sigillum Regis liberatum fuit in Garderobam Regis. Chart. 56 H. 3. m. 2. CHAP. Great Seal. Character breathed his last, Kirby surrendered it to Walter Archbishop of York and the rest of the Council assembled to take measures for securing the accession of the new Sovereign. * During this reign there were sixteen Chancellors, and many Keepers† of the Great Seal besides; but none of them of much historical importance. Learning was very low, and was confined entirely to the clergy. Not only were the Chancellors of this order, but many dignitaries of the Church were Justices in the Courts at Westminster and in the Eyre. Nay, the advocates in the secular courts were ecclesiastics, and from them only could any competent Judges be selected. There was a canon published about this time, "Nec advocati sint clerici, vel sacerdotes, in foro seculari, nisi vel proprias causas vel miserabilium prosequantur." The exception excused their appearance in Westminster Hall, and their violation of the rule was, from necessity, connived at. + After the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest had of Chancel- been confirmed, the King's ministers were too much occulors during reign of pied in counteracting the plots and resisting the violence of Hen. III. the mutinous Barons to have much leisure for legal reform, and the only attempts at it by legislation were the statutes of Merton§ and Marleridge. || Several provincial and legatine constitutions were passed by convocations of the clergy, at the instigation or with the concurrence of clerical Chancellors, for exempting ecclesiastics from all secular jurisdiction, and effecting those objects which had been defeated by the constitutions of Clarendon and the vigorous administration of Henry II. Bracton, merits of. It is curious that, in the most disturbed period of this turbulent reign, when ignorance seemed to be thickening and the human intellect to decline, there was written and given Rot. Claus. and Pat. 57 H. 3. m. 1. In the longer reign of George III. there were only eight. But the inns of court for education in the common law were about this time established, and a separate order of laymen learned in the common law sprung up and flourished. § 20 Hen. 3., the chief enactment of which was to encourage the inclosure of waste land. ||52 Hen, 3., for regulating the right of distress. IX. to the world the best treatise upon law of which England CHAP. could boast till the publication of Blackstone's Commentaries, in the middle of the eighteenth century.* It would have been very gratifying to me if this work could have been ascribed, with certainty, to any of the Chancellors whose lives have been noticed. The author, usually styled Henry de Bracton, has gone by the names of Brycton, Britton, Briton, Breton, and Brets; and some have doubted whether all these names are not imaginary. From the elegance of his style and the familiar knowledge he displays of the Roman law, I cannot doubt that he was an ecclesiastic who had addicted himself to the study of jurisprudence; and as he was likely to gain advancement from his extraordinary proficiency, he may have been one of those whom I have commemorated, although I must confess that he rather speaks the language likely to come from a disappointed practitioner than of a Chancellor who had been himself in the habit of making Judges. For comprehensiveness, for lucid arrangement, for logical precision, this author was unrivalled during many ages. Littleton's work on Tenures, which illustrated the reign of Edward IV., approaches Bracton; but how barbarous, in comparison, are the Commentaries of Lord Coke, and the Law treatises of Hale and of Hawkins!‡ Chief Jus Towards the end of this reign the office of Chief Jus- Abolition ticiary, which had often been found so dangerous to the of office of Crown, fell into disuse. Hugh le Despenser, in the 49th of ticiary. Henry III., was the last who bore the title. § The hearing of common actions being fixed at Westminster by Magna The book must have been written between the years 1262 and 1267, for it cites a case decided in the 47th of Hen. 3., and takes no notice whatever of the Statute of Marleridge, which passed in the 52d of Hen. 3. + Describing the judges of his time he calls them, "Insipientes et minus docti, qui cathedram judicandi ascendunt antequam leges dedicerint." It must be admitted that juridical writing is a department of literature in which the English have been very defective, and in which they are greatly excelled by the French, the Germans, and even by the Scotch. The present state of the common law may now probably be best learned from "the notes of Patteson and Williams on Serjeant Williams's notes on Saunders's Reports of Cases decided in the reign of Charles II.," and written in Norman- French. § Dugdale, in his Chronica Series, when he comes to 55 Hen. 3., a. D. 1271, changes the heading of his column of justices from “ Justiciariorum Angliæ” to |