LXVIII. The Lords consent to use of new Great Seal. and his Majesty's authority in parliament, and the being CHAP. thereof, and the due administration of justice, and perceiving, by the mischiefs already experienced, how absolutely indispensable it is to have the Great Seal attending the parliament,― after a mature debate this question was put, Whether a Great Seal of England shall be forthwith made to attend the parliament for despatch of the affairs of the parliament and of the kingdom?- and it passed affirmatively." 1643. A message to this effect coming down to the Commons, Oct. 17. they resolved, on the motion of Serjeant Wilde, that an ordinance should forthwith be framed for more effectually invalidating all proceedings under the Great Seal at Oxford, and for vesting the Seal of the parliament in Commissioners, with the powers of Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, to be exercised under the directions of both Houses."† An ordinance to this effect speedily passed through the Ordinance. House of Commons; but it seems to have met with some obstruction in the Lords, and not fewer than six messages were sent up from the Commons praying their Lordships to concur with them in putting the new Great Seal in execution, and to expedite their answer concerning the Great Seal, the messengers from the Commons always being informed that "their Lordships would send an answer by messengers of their own." At last Serjeant Wilde came to the bar of the Lords, and, with his characteristic energy, read them a lecture on their long delays, telling their Lordships "that the ordinance concerning the Great Seal was of such absolute necessity that the Commonwealth suffered great prejudice for want thereof." The difficulties, whatever they might have been, were then overcome; and, after some Nov. 10. conferences to fix the names of the Commissioners, the ordinance received the assent of both Houses, and, according to the doctrine then prevailing, became law. Six Commission ers were appointed, - two members of the House of Peers, and four members of the House of Commons, "which said persons, or any three or more of them, whereof one member 1643. Parlia mentary Commis sioners of Great Seal. LXVIII. CHAP. or more of the Lords' House, also one member or more of the House of Commons, should be present, were authorised to have the keeping, ordering, and disposing of the new Great Seal, as also all such and the like power as any Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper, or Commissioners of the Great Seal ever had, used, or ought to have."* Ceremony them in. After some preliminaries had been settled as to the form of of swearing the oath to be taken by the Commissioners, and the place where the Seal was to be kept by them †,-on the 30th of November the Speaker of the Commons, attended by the whole House, appeared at the bar of the Lords, and said, "My Lords, Whereas the Great Seal of England was, by order of the House of Commons, appointed to be in my custody, without being made use of until it should be settled and disposed of by authority of ordinance of both Houses of parliament, I am now commanded by the House of Commons to deliver the same to the Speaker of your Lordship's House, so that the Commissioners may be sworn, and the Great Seal delivered to them in full parliament." The Speaker of the Lords went down from his place to the bar and received it from the hands of the Speaker of the Commons, and brought it to the woolsack. Thereupon the Earl of Kent and the Earl of Bolingbroke, the two Peers Commissioners, were sworn at the table, the Speaker of the Lords administering the oath of office to them. Next the four Commissioners, members of the House of Commons, viz. Oliver St. John, Solicitor to his Majesty; Mr. Serjeant Wilde, Samuel Brown, Esq., and Edward Prideaux, Esq., took the oath, the Clerk of the Parliament reading it to them. Then the Speaker of the Lords carried the Great Seal to the bar, and delivered it * Lords' Jour. vi. 300, 301. "It must surely excite a smile that men who had raised armies and fought battles against the King, should be perplexed how to get over so technical a difficulty. But the Great Seal in the eyes of English lawyers has a sort of mysterious efficacy, and passes for the depository of royal authority in a higher degree than the person of the King.". Hall. Const. Hist. ii. 222. That this Seal might not be carried off to the King, or applied to any improper purpose, it was to be kept in the office of the clerk of the House of Peers, sealed up with three of the Commissioner's seals, in an iron chest, under three different locks, each Commissioner having one key. - - Lords' Jour. vi. 300, 301. to the Six Commissioners in full parliament, and the Com- CHAP mons and their Speaker returned to their own House.* On a subsequent day the Lords Commissioners all took the oath required by the Triennial Act, and the oaths of allegiance and supremacy † before both Houses,-at the same time that Lenthal was sworn in Master of the Rolls, having been appointed to that office by ordinance, while Colepeper enjoyed the same title at Oxford under the King's patent.‡ As soon as the news of these proceedings reached Oxford, a proclamation was issued by the King, under his Great Seal, denouncing the counterfeiting of the Great Seal by the parliament as “High Treason," forbidding the use of it, declaring null and void all done under it, and threatening to prosecute, as traitors or accessories, all who should use it or pay respect to it. But this was treated at Westminster as brutum fulmen, and was not thought even worthy of an answer. § LXVIII. ProclamaKing, charging cerned in making the new Great Seal with tion by the those con High Treason. Jan. 1644. Court of By several supplemental ordinances and resolutions of the two Houses, offices were provided for the "Lords Commis- Chancery sioners" and "His Honour,”—and, after an interruption of re-opened. nearly two years, the Court of Chancery was re-opened at Westminster, and the business proceeded with great vigour. On the first day the Commissioners sat, they sealed above five hundred writs. In judicial matters they were left to their own discretion; but in putting the Seal to grants and appointments to offices they acted ministerially, under the orders of the two Houses. The House of Commons immediately ordered an account of all sums paid into the Court of Chancery for the last twenty years, and that if any should prove to be the monies This graphic description of the ceremony is nearly in the very words of the Lords' Journals, vi. 318. These oaths continued to be taken by all persons in employment under the parliament till the end of the civil war. In the absence of royal authority, great importance seems to have been attached to the allegation that these acts were done "en plein parliament," an expression frequently occurring in the early rolls respecting the granting of honours and offices. § Nov. 29. 1648. Doquets of Great Seal at Oxford, Temp. Car. I. Origin of "Suitors' Fund" in CHAP. LXVIII. Activity of Proceedings on King's at Oxford. Aug. 11. 1646. * of malignants or delinquents, or to be dead stock, it should be applied to the public service. This is the origin of the "Suitors' Fund.” In answer to a proclamation under the King's Great Seal adjourning the Courts to Oxford, the first state document to which the Lords Commissioners put their Great Seal, was a counter proclamation, by which all judges, officers, suitors, and other faithful subjects of his Majesty, were enjoined, under a heavy penalty, to attend the Courts at Westminster.f Serjeant Wilde appears to have been by far the most active of the six Commissioners, and next to him, at a long interval, came Oliver St. John, who was an able lawyer, but devoted much of his time to politics. One of the noble Lords Commissioners always sat along with the Commoners, but did not interfere unless on occasions of ceremony. A commission was soon after issued, authorising the Master of the Rolls, and certain of the Judges, to assist in the hearing of causes in the Court of Chancery. Things continued on this footing at Westminster till the capture of month of August, 1646, when the King's Great Seal, having been taken at Oxford, was broken in pieces with great solemnity in the presence of both Houses, and there ceased to be rival Great Seals in England. At the same time the Earl of Salisbury, who had been appointed in the place of the Earl of Bolingbroke, deceased, was sworn as a Lord Commissioner. The Earl of Kent, having taken his place as a Peer, came down to the bar and received the parliamentary Great Seal from the other Commissioners. He presented it to the Clerk of the Parliament, by whom it was carried to the Speaker of the House of Lords, and laid on the woolsack. The Earl of Salisbury, then at the table took the oath of supremacy, the oath of allegiance, the oath of office, and the oath under the triennial act. Finally, the Speaker of the House of Lords carried the Seal to the bar, where the Commons, with their Speaker, then stood, and delivered it to the Com. Jour. iii. 346. The return made would be very curious, but I have not been able to meet with it. Ante, Vol. II. p. 618. Jan. 6. 1644. Com. Jour. iil. 359. Earl of Salisbury to be kept by him with the rest of the CHAP. Commissioners.* LXVIII. nance re Seal passes Violent disputes now arose respecting the Commisionership Self-denyof the Great Seal and other offices. Oliver Cromwell, who at ing ordifirst was probably influenced only by a fanatical zeal for religion specting and liberty, had for some time been goaded on by personal ambi- the Great tion, and distinctly aimed at supreme power. With this view Commons. he was pursuing his "Self-denying Ordinances,"— from which he meant that he himself should be excepted, whilst they should deprive of all power the Earl of Essex, the Earl of Manchester, and the leaders in both Houses, whose ascendency he dreaded. Accordingly, on the self-denying principle, he caused an ordinance to be brought in by which it was declared that the Great Seal should not, in future, be held by any member of either House, and three new Commissioners, not in parliament, were named to supersede the six now in office. In the Commons, a vote was obtained, by a majority of 75 to 65, "that no member of either House should be a Commissioner of the Great Seal," and three Commissioners were agreed upon, who were not in parliament,— Sir Rowland Wandesford, Sir Thomas Biddingfield, and Bradshaw, afterwards President of the High Court of Justice. At the same time it was provided that the presentations to livings and the appointment of Justices of the Peace should be in the two Houses; and an order was made, "that the Commissioners for the custody of the Great Seal do not relieve any person in Chancery in any case where the party may be relieved by the common law." t by the But the self-denying system was not at all approved of by Rejected the Lords, as it operated most unequally, by at once disquali- Lords. fying the whole body of the Peerage from holding any public employment. They therefore rejected the ordinance for transferring the Seal to the three new Commissioners. The Commons then passed another ordinance, as a compromise for the present, "That the Speakers of both Houses should have power to seal all original writs and processes, and likewise commissions and pardons, which have usually passed, |