CHAP. His his.. tory. elect of London. What was the reason of this change I have not been able to discover. The Stratfords do not seem then to have lost the favour of the King, and while he was engaged in preparing to prosecute the French war they still assisted him with their counsels, however much they might disapprove of his measures. I find little respecting the history of the new Chancellor, except that he had been a prebendary of St. Paul's. He enjoyed for a very short time his new dignities. Having received the Great Seal and been sworn in as Chancellor at Walton, he immediately returned the Seal to the King, being obliged to go to London to be consecrated. It was then given in charge to St. Paul and Baumburgh, to keep until the Chancellor should be returned to court. The King left England for France on the 11th of July, having sent them a new Great Seal, which he wished to be used in England during his absence, he taking abroad with him the Great Seal before in use. The temporary Seal was delivered to the Chancellor on the 19th of July following*, and continued in A. D. 1339. his possession till the 7th of December in the following year, when he suddenly died. His death. The Seal was delivered the next morning, by two of the officers of the deceased Chancellor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who immediately sent it to the council appointed by the King to administer the government in his absence. They handed it over to three persons to be used for sealing necessary writs, and on the 16th of February following it was placed in the sole custody of the Master of the Rolls, by virtue of a letter of Prince Edward, Guardian of the realm. The King having returned to England in about a fortnight after, he delivered to the Master of the Rolls a new Seal with the fleur-de-lys engraved upon it, which he had brought with him from France, - impressions of which were sent into every county in England for the purpose of making it generally known.† On the 28th of April, 1340, John de Stratford, Arch *Rot. Cl. 12 Ed. 3. m. 22. † Rot. Cl. 14 Ed. 3. m. 42. CHAP. XIII. bishop of Canterbury, was made Lord Chancellor for the third time. The King was again to pass beyond the seas, and he placed this old public servant at the head of the John de council to govern in his absence, in the belief that he was the Stratford, fittest man that could be selected to obtain supplies from the third Parliament, to levy the subsidies that might be voted, and to time. raise men for the war now carrying on to win the crown of France. Chancellor A parlia While Edward lay at the siege of Tournay a parliament A. D. 1340. was held by commission at Westminster, and the Chancellor, ment. on the 7th of July, the first day of the session, declared that it had been summoned "to consult what farther course was best for the King and his allies to take against France.” * Liberal supplies in money and provisions were voted, and notwithstanding the charge of treachery or remissness afterwards brought against the Archbishop, he seems to have exerted himself to the utmost to render them available to the public service. On account of his infirmity of body he again resigned the office of Chancellor, and the King again appointed Robert Stratford, Bishop of Chichester, as his successor.† Resigna tion of Stratford, and re ment of Robert. Adminis The two brothers continued jointly to manage the King's appointaffairs in England without the slightest suspicion of any mont change in his sentiments towards them till his sudden and wrathful return, when they were dismissed from their em- tration of ployments, and, but for their sacred character as ecclesiastics, fords. would have been in great danger of losing their heads. Edward had derived no fruits from the great naval victory he had lately gained on the coast of Flanders, and though he had commanded a more numerous army than ever before or since served under the banner of an English sovereign, he had been able to make no progress in his romantic enterprise. He had incurred immense debts with the Flemings, for the Strat Their fall. Embarras ments of the King. * 1 Parl. Hist. 99. Rot. Cl. 14 Ed. 3. m. 13. Upon this occasion the Great Seal was broken on account of a change in the King's armorial bearings, and another Seal, with an improved emblazonment of the fleur de lys, was delivered by the King, when einbarking for France, to St. Paul, the Master of the Rolls, to be carried to the new Chancellor. XIII. CHAP. which he had even pawned his own person. The remittances from England came in much slower than he expected, and he found it convenient to throw the blame on those he had left in authority at home. His sudden return. ment of the Lord Edward's rage Advantages and disadvantages of appointing ecclesiastics to office of He escaped from his creditors, and after encountering a violent tempest, arrived at the Tower of London in the middle of the night of the 30th of November. He began by committing to prison and treating with unusual rigour the constable and others who had charge of the Tower, on preImprison- tence that it was negligently guarded. His vengeance then fell on the Lord Chancellor, whom next day he deprived of Chancellor. his office, and ventured for some time to detain in prison. Nay more, he inveighed against the whole order of the against the priesthood as unfit for any secular employment, and he aspriesthood. tonished the kingdom by the bold innovation of appointing a layman as Chancellor. Considering how ecclesiastics in those ages had entrenched themselves in privileges and immunities, so that no civil penalty could regularly be inflicted upon them for any public malversation, and that they were so much in the habit, when once elevated to high station by Chancellor. royal favour, of preferring the extension of priestly domination to gratitude or respect for temporal authority, it seems at first sight wonderful that the great offices of state were ever bestowed upon them. On the other hand, there were peculiar causes which favoured their promotion. Being the only educated class, they were best qualified for civil employments requiring knowledge and address; when raised to the prelacy they enjoyed equal dignity with the greatest barons, and gave weight by their personal authority to the official powers intrusted to them, while at the same time they did not excite the envy, jealousy and factious combinations which always arose when laymen of obscure birth were elevated to power. They did not endanger the Crown by accumulating wealth or influence in their families, and they were restrained by the decency of their character from that open rapine and violence so often practised by the nobles.* * 2 Hume's Hist. p. 409. These motives had hitherto induced Edward to follow the example of his predecessors, and to employ ecclesiastics as his ministers, at the risk of their turning against him and setting him at defiance. But, finding that by the Clementine Constitutions he was obliged immediately to release the dismissed Chancellor from prison, and that the Archbishop, whom he likewise wished to call to account, fulminated an excommunication against him, he resolved in future to employ only men whom he could control and punish. CHAP. XIII. CHAP. Dec. 14. SIR ROBERT CHAPTER XIV. CHANCELLORS AND KEEPERS OF THE GREAT SEAL, FROM THE THE first lay Lord Chancellor in England was Sir ROBERT He was the eldest son of Sir John Bourchier, a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas,-the representative of a family long seated at Halstead, in Essex. His education was very slender, being engaged in military adventures from early youth; but he showed great capacity as well as courage in and mili- the field, and was a particular favourite of King Edward III., tary career. whom he accompanied in all his campaigns. In 1337 he Chancellor. His birth Retirement and death of Exchancellor Stratford. was at the battle of Cadsant, and had lately before Tournay witnessed the discomfiture of all Edward's mighty preparations for the conquest of France. He joined in the loud complaints against the ministers who had been appointed to superintend the supplies and levies at home, and in the advice that the Stratfords should be punished for their supposed misconduct. The resolution being taken to put down the ascendency of ecclesiastics, from the shrewdness and energy of this stout knight, he was thought a fit instrument to carry it into effect, and not only was the Great Seal delivered to him, but he was regarded as the King's chief councillor. After Robert de Stratford, the late Chancellor, had been released from prison, he made submission, and it was agreed. to take no farther steps against him. He appears now to Robert de have retired from politics, and we read no more of him except that he acquired great applause for the prudence with which he suppressed a mighty sedition in the University of Oxford, arising from the opposite factions of the northern and southern scholars, the former, by reason of the many grievances they complained of, having retired for a time to Stamford in * Rot. Cl. 14 Ed. 3. m. 10. |