and profligacy, and never had any practice or knowledge of the law. Being returned a member of the Long Parliament, he was distinguished by his violence against the King. When the war broke out he left his profession and took to arms; but not showing military genius like Ireton and Jones, he never rose above the rank of Major. He is generally represented as having been one of the King's Judges, but he was only assessor, or legal adviser to the High Court of Justice.* He was bold, bustling, confident, and unscrupulous. After a short and no eager excuse by him on the score of his incompetence, and his "ready owning the authority of the House to act without King or Lords," his appointment as Commissioner of the Great Seal was carried by accla mation.

A drowsy Serjeant of the name of Keble, known only for some bad Law Reports, was added to the number, and joyfully accepted his appointment.

The ordinance was forthwith passed, constituting these three persons Keepers of the Great Seal quamdiu se bene gesserint. The former salary of 10007. a-year was voted to them. A sharp discussion arose whether they should be called "Lords" Commissioners, the word "Lord" having become distasteful to some; but the opinion of the great majority was, that to drop it would be derogatory to the authority of the parliament.

An order was generously made at the same time, that the arrears due to the Earl of Kent and Lord Grey de Werke, for their salary as Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, should be immediately paid to them.

The following day the three new Lords Commissioners were sworn in before the House of Commons by the Speaker in these words:" Whereas, by an act of this present parliament, [FEB. 8.] and by authority thereof, you are made Lords Commissioners of the

*For this he was excepted from the general pardon at the restoration; and though he made his escape, he was assassinated by the royalists at Lausanne.--- Whit.

I copy the ordinance as a specimen of the manner of legislating which then prevailed: "Be it enacted by the present parliament and the authority of the same, that the Great Seal of England shall be committed to the keeping of Bulstrode Whitelock, Serjeant-at-law, Richard Keble, Serjeant-at-law, and John Lisle, Esq., who are hereby appointed Lords Commissioners for that purpose, quamdiu se bene gesserint, which said persons are hereby constituted and appointed to be Lords Commissioners for the custody of the Great Seal of England during the time aforesaid, and they or any two of them shall have and are hereby authorized to have the custody, keeping, ordering, and disposing thereof, as also all such and the like powers and authorities as any Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper, or Commissioners of the Great Seal of England for the time being, have lawfully had and used, or ought to have had or used."

The preservation of titles is one of the many circumstances which distinguish this revolution and that of France in 1789; but the English Commons had been little aggrieved by aristocracy, and had little objection to it,-whereas the injuries and insults heaped upon the roturiers by the French noblesse created an utter abhorrence and abomination of that order,-which still continue and account for the devoted attachment of the French nation to the law of equal partibility, considered by them the only safeguard against the return of such evils.

Great Seal of England, you shall swear that well and truly, according to your skill and knowledge, you will perform your duty in the execution of the said office, according to law, equity, and justice." There was no longer any oath of allegiance or supremacy, and the triennial act was considered obsolete. So the Lords Commissioners being ordered to provide a purse for the new Great Seal, with suitable emblems and ornaments, they were dismissed and proceeded to the Court of Chancery, where Lord Commissioner Whitelock made a short oration, and intimated that, "on the morrow, they should begin to despatch the business of the suitors, as it was the determination of the parliament, in whom God had placed the supreme power, that right should be done to all, and that justice, like the copious river of Egypt, should overflow and bless the country."*

The day following was the day to which the term had been postponed, [FEB. 9.] and there was great confusion in Westminster Hall. Six only of the Judges would agree to serve under the parliament, and they considered their authority gone by the King's death. Early in the morning an ordinance was run through the House of Commons to abrogate the oaths of allegiance and supremacy;-the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal passed new patents to the Judges;-Lord Commissioner Whitelock made a long speech, explaining and justifying all that had been done;-and then the Judges took their seats in their respective Courts, and the business proceeded as if nothing remarkable had happened.

Cromwell was so well pleased, that he and Ireton, his son-in-law, went home with the Lord Commissioner to supper, "where," says Whitelock, "they were very cheerful, and seemed extremely well pleased. We discoursed together till twelve at night, and they told me wonderful observations of God's providence in the affairs of the war, and in the business of the army's coming to London and seizing the members of the House, in all which were miraculous passages. As they went home from my house their coach was stopped, and they examined by the guards, to whom they told their names; but the captain of the guards would not believe them, and threatened to carry these two great officers to the court of guard. Ireton grew a little angry, but Cromwell was cheerful with the soldiers, gave them twenty shillings, and commended them and their captain for doing their duty."+

* Whitelock, conscious of his equivocal conduct at this time, says, "I resolved to hazard or lay down all, how beneficial soever or advantageous to me, rather than to do any thing contrary to my judgment and conscience. I paid a visit to the Lord Chief Justice Rolles, a wise and learned man; he seemed much to scruple the casting off of the Lords, and was troubled at it. Yet he greatly encouraged me to attend the House of Commons, notwithstanding the present force upon them, which could not dispense with their attendance and performance of their duty who had no force upon them."—Whit. 367, 368.

† Whit. Mem. 384.

CHAPTER LXX.

LORDS KEEPERS FROM THE ADOPTION OF THE REPUBLICAN GREAT 66 SEAL TILL CROMWELL BECAME PROTECTOR."

THERE were nominally three Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, but Whitelock was chiefly looked to; and it is allowed that, though sometimes much harassed by his colleagues, he presided in the Court of Chancery with great impartiality and ability. He was powerfully assisted by Lenthal, who continued Master of the Rolls as well as Speaker, and though occupied at Westminster in the morning, held sittings in the evening at his official house in Chancery Lane.

That the example which the parliament had set might not be imitated, an act was passed to make it high treason to counterfeit the new Great Seal.*

The Lords Commissioners were ordered "to take care that all indictments, outlawries, and other acts against any person for adhering to the parliament remaining upon record be searched out, taken off the file, cancelled, and burnt, as things scandalous and void."t

While Cromwell was engaged in his Scotch and Irish campaigns, the march of government was smooth and regular in London, and the holders of the Great Seal were engaged in few transactions which require our notice.

On the 5th of April, 1649, they were ordered to assist at the solemnity of the Lord Mayor-elect being presented to the House of Commons for approbation, when Lord Commissioner Whitelock, taking the purse containing the Great Seal by one corner, and Lord Commissioner Lisle by the other, they carried it up, making obeisances to the Speaker, and laid it on the table, both being in their black velvet gowns; but they were not allowed, as in times of royalty, to express approbation of the choice of the citizens, this task being now performed by the Speaker, as organ of the supreme authority in the state.

Whitelock, in his "Memorials," presents to us a very amusing account of a grand banquet given soon after at Guildhall by the City to the Parliament. The Lord Mayor, when at Temple Bar he met the members of the Commons' House coming in procession, delivered the Sword of State carried before him into the hands of the Speaker, who graciously restored it to him, after the fashion of the Kings of England. The highest place at the table was assigned to the Speaker, and the next to the Lord General. The Earl of Pembroke then called upon Whitelock, as first Commissioner, to be seated; and on his wishing the

* Scobell's Acts, A. D. 1649, c. 44.

† Whit. 449.

old courtier to sit above him, said, in a loud voice to be heard over the whole hall, "What! do you think that I will sit down before you? I have given place heretofore to Bishop Williams, to my Lord Coventry, and to my Lord Littleton: you have the same place that they had, and as much honour belongs to the place under a Commonwealth as under a King, and you are a gentleman as well born and bred as any of them: therefore I will not sit down before you." Whitelock yielded, and had the Earl of Pembroke next him, the President of the Council and the other Commissioners of the Great Seal sitting lower down.* There seems to have been full as much importance attached to such trifles in these republican times as at the Court of Charles I.

A house and grounds at Chelsea, belonging to the Duke of Buckingham, now in exile, were assigned to the Lords Commissioners as a private residence. Their general seal days after term they held in the hall of the Middle Temple, of which Lord Commissioner Whitelock continued a bencher.

Six of the common law Judges having refused to act under the parliament, others of learning and character were appointed in their stead, and Lord Commissioner Whitelock, in swearing them in, congratulated them on being the first Commonwealth Judges, and delivered to them a lecture of enormous length, on the duties of their office, which he deduced from the Druids, who were the Judges of the Britons, and the ancient Germans, "Graff' among whom signified both a Judge and a noble, showing the nobility of Judges."

Among Whitelock's faults and follies, it should be recorded to his honour, that he was most zealous and useful in preserving the medals, books, and monuments of learning, which having belonged to the King personally, had become the property of the state, and which certain Vandals were now eager to sell or to destroy.

I must likewise gratefully mention a noble defence which he made in [A. D. the autumn of this year in defence of the profession of the 1649.] law. One of Cromwell's officers, an ignorant fanatical fellow, had made a motion "that all lawyers should be excluded from parliament, or, at any rate, while they sit in parliament they should discontinue their practice,"-introducing his motion with a violent invective against the conduct of lawyers both in and out of the House, and being particularly severe upon their loquacity in small causes, and their silence when the lives of their clients were at stake. Whitelock showed that the multiplicity of suits in England did not arise from the evil arts of lawyers, but from the greatness of our trade, the amount of our wealth, the number of our contracts,-the power given to every man to dispose of his property as he pleases by will,-and the equal freedom among us, by which all are entitled to vindicate their rights by an appeal to a Court of Justice. He showed that the silence of counsellors on capital cases was the fault of the law, which kept them silent; and "he ingeniously confessed that he could not answer that objection, that a

* Whit. Mem. Life of Whit. 99. 3 Parl. Hist. 1315.

man for a trespass to the value of sixpence, may have a counsellor to plead for him; but that, where life and posterity were concerned, he was debarred of that privilege. What was said in vindication or excuse of that custom,-that the Judges were counsel for the prisoner, had no weight in it; for were they not to take the same care of all causes that should be tried before them? A reform of that defect he allowed would be just."* He then showed the great services of lawyers in parliament, instancing Sir Edward Coke, with whom he himself had had the honour to co-operate in the beginning of the late reign, and who had carried "the Petition of Right," and the exertions of St. John, Wilde, and others in the recent struggles. He likewise pointed out the oppressive laws passed at the Parliamentum Indoctum, from which lawyers were excluded. "As to the sarcasms on the lawyers for not fighting, he deemed that the gown did neither abate a man's courage or his wisdom, nor render him less capable of using a sword when the laws were silent. Witness the great services performed by Lieutenant-General Jones, and Commissary Ireton, and many other lawyers, who putting off their gowns when the parliament required it, had served stoutly and successfully as soldiers, and had undergone almost as many and as great hardships and dangers as the honourable gentleman who so much undervalued them. With respect to the proposal for compelling lawyers to suspend their practice while they sat in parliament, he only insisted that, in the act for that purpose, it be provided that merchants should forbear their trading, physicians from visiting their patients, and country gentlemen from selling their corn or wool while they were members of that House." He was loudly applauded, and the motion was withdrawn.§

Whitelock was a most zealous man and enlightened law reformer.

* But it was nearly 200 years before that reform came, and I am ashamed to say it was to the last opposed by almost all the Judges.

+ Whitelock himself served with great distinction.

Life of Whitelock, 109-120.

Although on the rare occasions when it was my duty to speak while a member of the House of Commons, I had the good fortune to experience a favourable hearing, I must observe that there has subsisted in this assembly, down to our own times, an envious antipathy to lawyers, with a determined resolution to believe that no one can be eminent there who has succeeded at the bar. The prejudice on the subject is well illustrated by a case within my own knowledge. A barrister of the Oxford circuit taking a large estate under the will of a distant relation, left the bar, changed his name under a royal license, was returned for a Welsh county, and made his maiden speech in top-boots and leather breeches, holding a hunting-whip in his hand. He was most rapturously applauded, till he unluckily alluded to some cause in which he had been engaged while at the bar, and when it was discovered that he was a lawyer in disguise, he was coughed down in three minutes.-It is certainly true, that success in one of these fields of exertion, by no means proves a qualification to succeed in the other; for while some parliamentary orators, like Sir Robert Peel and Lord Stanley, would have been sure to have risen to the first practice in Westminster Hall, I could name others who have deservedly acquired a high reputation in the House of Commons, who, if they had continued in Westminster Hall, would never have been intrusted with a brief.-In the other House of Parliament there is no such prejudice against the law.