Chancery

“ He puts the Court of Chancery in the centre of the stage, a sombre and sinister temple, and groups round it in artistic relation decaying and frantic figures, its offspring and its satirists, An old dipsomaniac keeps a rag and bone shop, type of futility and antiquity, and calls himself the Lord Chancellor. ”

“ It is not so unlike the Court of Chancery but that we may pass from the one scene to the other, as the crow flies. Both the world of fashion and the Court of Chancery are things of precedent and usage: oversleeping Rip Van Winkles who have played at strange games through a deal of thundery weather; sleeping beauties whom the knight will wake one day, when all the stopped spits in the kitchen shall begin to turn prodigiously! ”

“ Thus your grave Chancery lawyer becomes a chatty pleasant man of the world, witty and conversable; your abstruse mathematician, leaving conic sections behind him, talks away with the harmless innocence of a child about men and politics; and even your cold ‘exclusive’ bids a temporary farewell to his ‘morgue,’ and answers his next neighbour at table without feeling shocked at his obtrusion. ”

“ A system of laws like that of Chancery, so comprehensive and so equitable, defined and administered by a long succession of the most upright and enlightened men of the land, could not but have left a deep impression on the entire jurisprudence of the people who profited by its protection—an impression, indeed, that neither the mental obliquity of the fanatic nor the sophistry of the pedant has been able to obliterate. ”

“ To a man of Mathew's alert, energetic, and radical mind the procedure in Chancery, especially in chambers, seemed a cumbersome survival of medievalism; and when sitting occasionally as a chancery judge he tried to introduce some of the reforms he had found efficacious in the commercial court. ”

“ The Court of Chancery it self is but a Branch of the King’s Prerogative, to Relieve men against the inexorable rigour of the Law, which without it is no better than a Tyrant, since Summum Jus, is Summa Injuria. ”

“ The King's council has practically limited itself to cases in which the state has an interest, especially the maintenance of public order. Chancery became an independent court rather than the arm of the king and his council. In Chancery and the King's Bench, the intellectual revival brought by humanism inspires novel procedures to be devised to meet current problems in disputed titles to land, inheritance, debt, breach of contract, promises to perform acts or services, deceit, nuisance, defamation, and the sale of goods. ”

“ On such an afternoon some score of members of the High Court of Chancery bar ought to be—as here they are—mistily engaged in one of the ten thousand stages of an endless cause, tripping one another up on slippery precedents, groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their goat-hair and horsehair warded heads against walls of words and making a pretence of equity with serious faces, as players might. ”

“ As you know, in the prize ring, when a boxer had got his adversary into a hopeless position and could treat him as he liked, the beaten man was said to be “in chancery.”
It is generally supposed that the Chancellor in “Bleak House” is the famous Lord Eldon, whose tenure of that exalted office is almost the longest on record. He was a man of many virtues and singularly kind-hearted,—the description of his reception of the wards in Chancery in the book before [Pg 236] us does ample justice to this trait—and as a lawyer he ranks among the very foremost exponents of the law of England. ”

“ We do not admit any binding authority in the decisions and adjudications of the court of king’s bench or common pleas, or the court of chancery, over America; but we quote them as the opinions of learned men. ”

“ The hardships of a particular case would not justify this tribunal in prostrating the fundamental rules of a Court of Chancery; rules which have been established for ages, on the soundest and clearest principles of general utility. ”

“ The principle on which the Court of Chancery acts when called on to deal with a dispute among the members of a Nonconformist body is settled by a line of decisions: the only difficulty which might be anticipated lies in applying the principle to the facts. ”

“ But they are the trustees of the nation, not its masters; and there is a High Court of Chancery in the public opinion of the nation at large, which exercises a vigilant control over these privileged classes of the community, and to which they are equitably and morally amenable. ”

“ Haven't you noticed that the entire population is concerned in one vast Chancery suit; consequently, on attaining majority, one man becomes a judge, another a barrister, a third a solicitor, and so on, and so on. ”

“ There is certainly nothing in the history of the English Court of Chancery to induce this court to adopt rules in relation to rearguments, analogous to the chancery practice upon applications for a rehearing. ”

“ In order therefore to prevent disagreeable contests with young gentlemen, it has become a practice for many guardians, of large estates especially, to indemnify themselves by applying to the court of chancery, acting under it's direction, and accounting annually before the officers of that court. For the lord chancellor is, by right derived from the crown, the general and supreme guardian of all infants, as well as idiots and lunatics; that is, of all such persons as have not discretion enough to manage their own concerns. ”

“ The Chancery was given jurisdiction by statute over men of great power taking by force women who had lands and tenements or goods and not setting them free unless they bound themselves to pay great sums to the offenders or to marry them. ”

“ His book is one which we would advise every lawyer, in Virginia at least, to buy; and even those in other states—the Western, especially, whose Chancery systems most resemble ours—can hardly find one that will aid them so much in disentangling the intricacies of Chancery Practice. Never have we paid the price of a commodity more ungrudgingly. ”

“ Early in this year, (1615, Æt. 55,) a dispute which occasioned considerable agitation, arose between the Court of Chancery and the Court of King's Bench, respecting the jurisdiction of the chancellor after judgment given in courts of law. ”

“ The Inrollment in Chancery is always fair and distinct; and the Acts are entered in a regular Series, on one Roll or subsequent Rolls, as Part of the Proceedings of a Parliament, the Time of the holding of which is stated at the Beginning of the Roll. ”

“ Now this was a very noble device, for the mere name of Chancery, and the high repute of the fees therein, and low repute of the lawyers, and the comfortable knowledge that the woolsack itself is the golden fleece, absorbing gold for ever, if the standard be but pure; consideration of these things staved off at once the lords of the manors, and all the little farmers, and even those whom most I feared; videlicet, the parsons. And the King's Commissioner was compelled to profess himself contented, although of all he was most aggrieved ”

“ The Honourable Gentleman pretends to justify the severity with which he has attacked the Noble Lord who presides in the Court of Chancery, But I say such attacks are pregnant with mischief to Government itself. ”

“ Masters in chancery may continue to exercise the functions of their offices in the court of chancery, so long as the chancellor shall continue to exercise the functions of his office, under the provisions of this Constitution. ”

“ Such conservative thinkers as Sir Thomas More, one of England’s greatest Lord Chancellors, the only one who ever cleared the docket of the Court of Chancery, continued to believe in it nearly a century after the Middle Ages had closed, but above all is quite frank in the expression of his opinion that some of the mutism, the tics, and bad habits, and repeated blasphemies, attributed to it, may be cured by soundly thrashing the young folks who are subject to them. ”

“ Masters in Chancery, are the twelve assistants of the Chancellor or Lord Keeper, the first of whom is Master of the rolls, which is a place of great dignity, and is in the gift of the King. These gentlemen sit at Westminster hall, with the Lord Chancellor, three at a time while the term lasts, and two at a time when the Lord Chancellor sits to hear causes in his own house, and to them he often refers the farther hearing of causes ”

“ This authority is so directly in point, that it cannot be necessary to refer to any other. But the principle will be found in accordance with the highest authority, both in this country and in the English Chancery. ”

“ There is another well-known suit in Chancery, not yet decided, which was commenced before the close of the last century and in which more than double the amount of seventy thousand pounds has been swallowed up in costs. ”

“ It’s parchment, and it’s the right stuff to make wills on. People gets into Chancery if they don’t make them o’ this stuff, and I reckon Tom Jackson thowt he’d have a fresh job on it if he could get it into Chancery ”

“ This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man’s acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give—who does not often give—the warning, “Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!” ”

“ They afterwards re-elected him to the pastoral office. Their good intentions were however defeated by the heirs-at-law, who disputed the legality of the bequest in the court of Chancery on the statute of mortmain, and gained their suit. Mr. ”

“ In diplomacy generally the chancellor of an embassy or legation is an official attached to the suite of an ambassador or minister. He performs the functions of a secretary, archivist, notary and the like, and is at the head of the chancery, or chancellery (Fr. chancellerie) , of the mission. The functions of this office are the transcribing and registering of official despatches and other documents, and generally the transaction of all the minor business, e.g. marriages, passports and the like, connected with the duties of a diplomatic agent towards his nationals in a foreign country. ”

“ The Chancellor is about to bow to the bar when the prisoner is presented. Nothing can possibly come of the prisoner’s conglomeration but his being sent back to prison, which is soon done. The man from Shropshire ventures another remonstrative “My lord!” but the Chancellor, being aware of him, has dexterously vanished. Everybody else quickly vanishes too. ”

“ Upon the very voluminous pleadings in this case, assuming more the shape of elaborate arguments, than the simple and precise allegation of facts, which belong to Chancery proceedings, the principal questions discussed have been, 1. ”

“ You secretly ingross the power, while you decline the title of minister, and though you dare not be Chancellor, you know how to secure the emoluments of the office.—Are the seals to be for ever in commission, that you may enjoy five thousand pounds a year?—I beg pardon, my Lord;—your fears have interposed at last, and forced you to resign.—The odium of continuing speaker of the house of lords, upon such terms, was too formidable to be resisted. What a multitude of bad passions are forced to submit to a constitutional infirmity! ”

“ The Chancellor added that if any member had anything else to suggest, to the profit and advantage of the realm, and for the common weal, he was not to omit doing so, in conformity with the obligation and duty of everybody, nor to fail thus to act readily and willingly as becoming; and his right reverend Lordship having spoken with much more energy than by reason of his indisposition any one would have expected, the business of this first day of the session ended. ”

“ The noble lord, himself, I have no doubt, a magistrate, himself at once a judge and a politician, accompanied by several gentlemen who are at once judges and politicians, will go to the bar of the Lords, who are all at once judges and politicians, will deliver the bill into the hands of the Chancellor, who is at once the chief judge of the realm and a Cabinet Minister, and will return hither proud of having purified the administration of justice from the taint of politics. ”

“ A spectator at the law sessions of the Upper House is struck by the appearance of the Lord Chancellor on the woolsack, in wig and gown, listening to arguments, with two lay lords, like two lay figures, on the side benches, merely to constitute a quorum so as to legalize the decision of the Chancellor. ”

“ When the subject of discussion in a civil matter involves the examination of accounts, or by the absence of witnesses out of the kingdom, or by other reasons it happens that the Assizes cannot render justice, then the cause may be either commenced in the Court of the Pretor, or be brought there, and appeal shall be had from the Pretor to the Chancellor, and from the Chancellor to the Senate, whether upon the facts or upon the judgments rendered, as well upon the principle as upon the form, the whole in the manner which the legislature shall determine upon. ”

“ Thou Christian Bishop, thou Lord Chancellor Of England! no more rein upon thine anger Than any child! Thou mak'st me much ashamed That I was for a moment wroth at thee. MARY. I come for counsel and ye give me feuds, Like dogs that set to watch their master's gate, Fall, when the thief is ev'n within the walls, To worrying one another. My Lord Chancellor, You have an old trick of offending us; And but that you are art and part with us In purging heresy, well we might, for this Your violence and much roughness to the Legate, Have shut you from our counsels. ”