Luke Owen Pike

“ The History of England since the Conquest runs parallel with the History of England's Records. You cannot thoroughly understand either without knowing something of the other.
Statutory definition of the Public Records. I will first of all give you the statutory definition of Public: 'They shall be taken to mean all rolls, records, writs, books, proceedings, decrees, warrants, accounts, papers, and documents whatsoever of a public nature belonging to His Majesty'. ”

“ Last of all the offices of the Comptroller-General of the Receipt and Issue of the Exchequer, of the Auditor of Excise, and of the Commissioners for Auditing Public Accounts were united by statute into the existing office of 'The Comptroller-General of the Receipt and Issue of the Exchequer and Auditor-General of Public Accounts', which is known as the 'Exchequer and Audit Department'. Statutes may expressly declare that an old office is abolished and a new office created, when changes such as these are effected, but they do not thereby undo the history of the past. ”

“ It was the Court coram ejus Justiciis. It was a Court in which the King did not sit in his own person, but to which he had delegated certain functions. The mode of delegation grew almost certainly out of the system of the Eyres; and some of the earlier rolls which are left to us show how the growth came about. The Justices in Eyre not uncommonly adjourn unfinished causes from one place in their circuit to another; and, when their journey is coming to an end, they adjourn causes sometimes, as they express it, to Westminster, sometimes 'into the Bench'. ”

“ He had as Chief Secretary a definite place assigned to him in the House of Lords, by an Act of the reign of Henry VIII. By the end of the reign of Elizabeth, if not before, he had become Her Majesty's ' Principal Secretary of State'.
The 'Secretary of State', and the 'Secretaries of State'. And now I have brought you to a new kind of machinery, but one developed, like all the rest, out of the old models. It has shown itself capable of infinite expansion, and has brought and is bringing into being an enormous number of Public Records, some of which are of the highest interest. ”

“ Out of this procedure was gradually developed the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery as a Court of Equity, and the growth may be traced by a careful study of the records which have been handed down to us.
The Chancery an office of the Parliament. As soon as the Great King's Court in one sense of the term—that of the Common Council of the Realm—began to take the name of Parliament, an office of that Parliament, for the custody of its records, was the Chancery; and in this way Parliament Rolls and Statute Rolls have come into the Public Record Office. ”

“ Various powers in relation to charities have also by Act of Parliament been given to Charity Commissioners, whose records are also under the charge and superintendence of the Master of the Rolls.
The idea of a Commission as old as Domesday Book. The original idea of a commission, however, is as old as the oldest of the public records. A commission was, in principle, the delegation of an authority to certain persons for the performance of some particular duty, usually within a limited time. From the idea of a temporary Commission was developed the idea of a renewable or permanent Commission. ”

“ For many centuries after King John's time proceedings to be had in the King's Bench were invariably described as to be had 'before the Lord the King, wheresoever he may be in England'; and the Court of King's Bench always continued to be 'the Court before the King himself' even when the Sovereign had ceased to sit in it, and had permanently delegated his authority there, as in other Courts, to Justices. ”

“ Annual account of the revenue to be sent to the King or his officer: the Great Rolls. You will have noticed the words of the writs 'how much the King ought to have in twelve months from each shire'. You see here the determination of the King and his Court or Council to have an annual account of the royal revenues; and accordingly the earliest records after Domesday are rolls which show the annual accounts of the Sheriffs, and which, like Domesday, were not retained in the respective shires, but were sent to the King or his proper officer. ”

“ I shall now have to take you back to the Chancellor as he existed at the time of the Conquest, and show how other branches of the executive, with their corresponding records, grew out of the functions originally belonging to him. At first he seems to have had documents prepared, and, where necessary, to have had the Great Seal attached, without much intermediate formality. In the earliest Patent Rolls which are now extant—those of the reign of King John—we find at the foot of each instrument the words Teste me ipso, 'witness myself' (i.e. the King himself) . ”

“ As a spending department the office of Works still has a close connexion with the Treasury, while the Treasury draws supplies from those land revenues which fall into the office of Woods and Forests.
Commissioners of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues: Auditor of Land Revenues:Office of Land Revenue Records and Enrolments The existing Commissioners of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, though constituted by statute, are the nearest representatives of the old Accountants for the Land Revenues of the Crown who appear in the table. ”

“ There are abundant materials in the Record Office, beginning in the reign of Richard I, for the proof and illustration of all these matters in detail. The records themselves which have fortunately been preserved are of inestimable value for those who know how to use them, teaching us how the Courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas acquired their respective jurisdictions, and the relations which each bore to the other, and the Eyre to both. ”

“ The records of the Courts, however, present some essential features of difference. The records of the Courts of the Eyre, when the Justices travelled with full jurisdiction, are largely made up of crown or criminal matters; the records of the Court at Westminster contain but few of such matters. In the records of the Eyre Courts the matters relating to each particular county are brought together; in the records of the Court at Westminster the matters relating to the various counties are intermixed, without any attempt at arrangement. ”

“ There soon, however, appear other accountants for land revenues, and according to an early statute of uncertain date, which was at one time assigned to the fifty-first year of the reign of Henry III, three surveyors were to be appointed to survey and value the King's wardships and escheats, to look after and improve the rents of the King's demesnes, and to be answerable for the issues at the Exchequer. ”

“ Of the courts which have been omitted it may be said that they are or (where extinct) have been of inferior jurisdiction to those which are mentioned, and of them, as well as of the minor departments, that they do not illustrate any principle unnoticed in the plan or the lecture.
The plan or table of evolution is, it is believed, the first attempt to teach constitutional history through the eye, by chart or diagram, after the manner of some of the more exact sciences. ”

“ When in the first reigns after the Conquest the Sheriffs rendered their accounts, they made deductions for works and buildings, which appear on the Great Roll, and so we find the amounts due for revenues and the amounts paid for works in juxtaposition. ”