XXIX. auxiliary Courts. --- CHAP. vigorous remedy, without any application to parliament to appoint Vice-chancellors ; — for of his own authority he at Establishes once established four new Courts of Equity by commission in the King's name. One of these was held at Whitehall before his own deputy; another before the King's almoner, Dr. Stoherby, afterwards Bishop of London; a third at the Treasury Chamber before certain members of the Council; and a fourth at the Rolls, before Cuthbert Tunstall, Master of the Rolls, who, in consequence of this appointment, used to hear causes there in the afternoon.* The Master of the Rolls has continued ever since to sit separately for hearing causes in Chancery. The other three Courts fell with their founder. His com the lawyers. Wolsey himself used still to attend pretty regularly in the Court of Chancery during term, and he maintained his equitable jurisdiction with a very high hand, deciding without the assistance of common law judges, and with very little regard to the common law. If he was sneered at for his ignorance of the doctrines and plaints of practice of the Court, he had his revenge by openly complaining that the lawyers who practised before him were grossly ignorant of the civil law and the principles of general jurisprudence; and he has been described as often interrupting their pleadings, and bitterly animadverting on their narrow notions and limited arguments. To remedy an evil which troubled the stream of justice at the fountain-head, he, with his usual magnificence of conception, projected an institution, to be founded in London, for the systematic study of all branches of the law. He even furnished an architectural model for the building, which was considered a masterpiece, and remained long after his death as a curiosity in the palace at Greenwich. Such an institution is still a desideratum in England; for, with splendid exceptions, it * In Reeve's History of the Law, it is said that this is the first instance of the Master of the Rolls ever hearing causes by himself, he having been before only the principal of the council of Masters assigned for the Chancellor's assistance; but there have lately been found in the Tower of London, bills addressed to the Master of the Rolls as early as the reign of Edward IV.-See 4 Reeves, 369. XXIX. must be admitted that English barristers, though very clever CHAP. practitioners, are not such able jurists as are to be found in other countries where law is systematically studied as a science. On Wolsey's fall his administration of justice was strictly Wolsey free overhauled; but no complaint was made against him of from bribery and bribery or corruption, and the charges were merely that corruption. he had examined many matters in Chancery after judgment given at common law;-that he had unduly granted injunctions ; — and that when his injunctions were disregarded by the Judges, he had sent for those venerable magistrates and sharply reprimanded them for their obstinacy. He is celebrated for the vigour with which he repressed perjury and chicanery in his Court, and he certainly enjoyed the reputation of having conducted himself as Chancellor with fidelity and ability, although it was not till a later that age the foundation was laid of that well-defined system of equity now established, which is so well adapted to all the wants of a wealthy and refined society, and, leaving little discretion to the Judge, disposes satisfactorily of all the varying cases within the wide scope of its jurisdiction. children. I am afraid I cannot properly conclude this sketch of His natural the Life of Wolsey without mentioning that " of his own body he was ill, and gave the clergy ill example." He had a natural son, named Winter, who was promoted to be Dean of Wells, and for whom he procured a grant of “arms” from the Herald's College. The 38th article of his impeachment shows that he had for his mistress a lady of the name of Lark, by whom he had two other children; there were various amours in which he was suspected of having indulged, and his health had suffered from his dissolute life. But we must not suppose that the scandal arising from such irregularities was such as would be occasioned by them at the present day. A very different standard of morality then prevailed: churchmen, debarred from marriage, were often licensed to keep concubines, and as the Popes themselves were in this respect by no means infallible, the frailties of a CHAP His repentance. Cardinal were not considered any insuperable bar either to secular or spiritual preferment.* In judging him we must remember his deep contrition for his backslidings; and the memorable lesson which he taught with his dying breath, that, to ensure true comfort and happiness, a man must addict himself to the service of God, instead of being misled by the lures of pleasure and ambition. The subsequent part of Henry's reign is the best panegyric on Wolsey; for, during twenty-nine years, he had kept free from the stain of blood or violence the Sovereign, who now, following the natural bent of his character, cut off the heads of his wives and his most virtuous ministers, and proved himself the most arbitrary tyrant that ever disgraced the throne of England.+ * Many gibes, however, seem to have been current against the licentious conduct of the Cardinal, as we may judge from Lord Surrey's speech to him:"I'll startle you Worse than the sacring bell, when the brown wench Lay kissing in your arms, Lord Cardinal." Skelton likewise was probably only embodying in rhyme the common talk of the town when he wrote, † See Fiddes's Life of Wolsey, folio, 1724. Gall's Life of Wolsey, 4to. 1812. CHAPTER XXX. LIFE OF SIR THOMAS MORE, LORD CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND, FROM CHAP. Sept. 19. THE Great Seal having been surrendered, as we have seen, of appointing a successor to Wolsey. Considerable difficulty arose about the appointment of a Difficulty new Chancellor. Some were for restoring the Great Seal to Ex-chancellor Archbishop Warham; and Erasmus states that he refused itt: but there is reason to think that a positive resolution had been before taken by Henry, and his present advisers, that it should not be again intrusted to any churchman. + There was an individual designated to the office by the public voice. To give credit to the new administration, there was a strong desire to appoint him, for he was celebrated as a scholar in every part of Europe; he had long practised with applause as a lawyer; being called to Court, he had gained the highest credit there for his abilities and his manners; and he had been employed in several embassies abroad, which he had conducted with dexterity and success. The difficulty was that he had only the rank of a simple knight; and there had been no instance hitherto of conferring the Great Seal on a layman who was not of noble birth, or had not previously gained reputation by high judicial office. In consequence, † Ep. p. 1847. * Rot. Cl. 21 Hen. 8. m. 19. On the 22d October the Bishop of Bayonne writes to his court, “On ne sçait encore qui aura le sceau. Je croy bien que les prestres n'y toucheront plus, et que en ce parliament ils auront de terribles alarmes." CHAP. there was a struggle in favour of the selection of one of the chiefs of the Common Law Courts at Westminster. But the Sir THOMAS hope that the person first proposed was the best fitted to MORE appointed. His birth. manage the still pending negotiation for the divorce, came powerfully in aid of his claims on the score of genius, learning, and virtue; and, on the 25th of October, in a Council held at Greenwich, the King delivered the Great Seal to Sir THOMAS MORE, and constituted him Lord Chancellor of England.* This extraordinary man, so interesting in his life and in his death, was born in the year 1480, near the end of the reign of Edward IV. He was the son of Sir John More, a Judge of the Court of King's Bench, who lived to see him Lord Chancellor. The father's descent is not known, but he was of an honourable though not distinguished family," and he was entitled to bear arms, a privilege which showed him to be of gentle blood, and of the class which in every other country except ours is considered noble. The old Judge was famous for a facetious turn, which he transmitted to his son. There is only one of his sayings handed down to us, and this, we must hope, was meant rather as a compliment to the good qualities of his own partner for life than as a satire on the fair sex. "He would compare the multitude of women which are to be chosen for wives unto a bag full of snakes, having among them a single eel now, if a man should put his hand into this bag, he may chance to light on the eel; but it is a hundred to one he shall be stung by a snake."† The future Chancellor sprung from that rank of life which is most favourable to mental cultivation, and which has produced the greatest number of eminent men in England; for, while we have instances of gifted individuals overcoming the disadvantages of high birth and affluence as well as of obscurity and poverty, our Cecils and Walpoles, our Bacons and Mores, have mostly had good education and breeding under a father's care, with habits of frugality, and the necessity for *Rot. Cl. 21 Hen. 8. m. 19. † Camden's Remains, p. 251. |