Chancel

“ 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. ”

“ 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 Lord Chancellor recovered himself with a great effort, and pointed to the open window. "If your High Excellency will listen for a moment to the shouts of the exasperated populace—— " ("of the exasperated populace!" the Sub-Warden repeated in a louder tone, as the Lord Chancellor, being in a state of abject terror, had dropped almost into a whisper) "——you will understand what it is they want." ”

“ All eyes were fixed upon the spot where the Chancellor lay foundering. The top of the mizzen was the first to disappear, then followed the main-top; and soon, of what had been a noble vessel, not a vestige was to be seen. ”

“ On all the great questions that have divided party opinion or agitated the public mind, the Chancellor has been found uniformly and without a single exception on the side of prerogative and power, and against every proposal for the advancement of freedom. ”

“ As the Chancellor said to me, ‘the fact is, he is mad.’ The fact is that he is a spoiled, selfish, odious beast, and has no idea of doing anything but what is agreeable to himself, or of there being any duties attached to the office he holds. ”

“ After all these lauds and praises of English laws, which the chancellor has stuck all over with stars quite through his book, and has made their perfection to centre in this, that they either are or soon may be, the best in the world; because, in case they labour under any defect, that fault may be immediately amended by a wife senate: What if that wise senate be no where to be found, or is at no certainty? ”

“ The Chancellor’s amazing talents—his eloquence, sarcasm, and varied powers—can never fail to produce considerable effect; but in the House of Lords the field is narrow for the display of these qualities, the audience is cold and unfriendly, and he has excited such a general feeling of personal animosity against himself, and has done such irreparable injury to his character—having convinced all the world that he is desperately ambitious, false, capricious, intriguing, and governed by no principle, and under the influence of no sentiment of honour—that his influence is exceedingly diminished. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our Lord Chancellor has never done what other Lord Chancellors have done, viz., wielded the fierce democracy of the lower house, shone unrivalled on the parliamentary arena, thundered from the platform, won fame by their daring, and acumen, and learning, and eloquence, in every corner of the land. ”

“ In the reign of Edward I. we begin to perceive signs of the rise of the extraordinary or equitable jurisdiction of the Chancellor. The numerous petitions addressed to the King and his Council, seeking the interposition of the royal grace and favour either to mitigate the harshness of the Common Law or supply its deficiencies, had been in the special care of the Chancellor, who examined and reported upon them to the King. ... ”

“ The greatest political dignitary in the British government, the one endowed by law with the most exalted and most diverse functions, the only great officer of state who has retained his ancient rights, the man who defies the doctrine of the separation of powers more than any other personage on earth, is the Lord Chancellor. ”

“ Chancellor is most happy as he takes us round the old streets and houses, and gives—as it were—almost personal introductions to the quaint and interesting people who inhabited them. His pages are sentient with living [Pg vi] personages, and as we read we forget the years that have rolled away, while we enjoy the laugh and quip with the interesting old characters which are met with at every turn and corner. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Plenty will come in, but none can help. The Lord Chancellor of that court, true to his title in his last act, has died the death of all lord chancellors in all courts and of all authorities in all places under all names soever, where false pretences are made, and where injustice is done. ”

“ The phlegm of the Chancellor’s disposition gives one almost a surfeit of impartiality and candour: we are sick of the eternal poise of childish dilatoriness; and would wish law and justice to be decided at once by a cast of the dice (as they were in Rabelais) rather than be kept in frivolous and tormenting suspense. But there is a limit even to this extreme refinement and scrupulousness of the Chancellor. The understanding acts only in the absence of the passions. ”

“ One day, when the king was in a rage with the parliaments, the chancellor seized the opportunity to tell him that the cabal, who were opposed to my presentation, testified so much resistance, under the idea, and in the hope, that they would be supported by the parliaments of Paris.
“If your majesty,” added the chancellor, “had less condescension towards these malcontents, they would fear your authority more.”
“You will see,” replied the king, “that it will be their audacity which will urge me on to a step, which otherwise I should wish to avoid.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ By Article XXIV. of the Act of Union (1705) one great seal was appointed to be kept for all public acts, and in this department the lord chancellor’s authority extends to the whole of Britain, and thus the commissions of the peace for Scotland as well as England issue from him. [1] As an administrative officer, as a judge and as head of the law, he acts merely for England. ”

“ The present Chancellor, in his first electioneering contest with the Lowthers, upon some occasion where he was recriminating upon the other party, and complaining that stratagems, which they might practise with impunity, were denied to him and his, happened to point the moral of his complaint, by alleging the old adage, that one man might steal a horse with more hope of indulgence than another could look over the hedge. ”

“ I am very desirous to invite the concurrence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the propriety of my application of it, or whether he considers that nobleness would be a better description of the circumstances which I am about to describe. ”

“ And when the question concerning the chancellor’s new writs was again brought on the carpet towards the end of the session, the commons were so little alarmed at the precedent, that though they readmitted some old members, whose seats had been vacated on account of slight indispositions, yet they confirmed the chancellor’s sentence, in instances where the distemper appeared to have been dangerous and incurable. ”

“ The Chancellor will not be there, so that I shall have the whole battle, or nearly so, upon my shoulders. It is not, however, the first time that this has happened to me, and most probably it will not be the last; and I have no uneasiness as to the result in point of effect or impression, even though the Prince of Wales should (as is said) be persuaded that this is an occasion in which it befits his station and prospects to put himself forward. ”

“ An extract of a letter, dated January 14th, from the learned Lord to Lady F. J. Bankes, supports his views: "This coalition," he writes, "I think will have consequences very different from those expected by the members of Administration who have brought it about. I hate coalitions." [77] The Lord Chancellor was in truth very much put out of temper by an arrangement in which he had not been consulted, and revenged himself by circulating all the jokes (harmless enough) he could hear or invent, at the expense of his new colleagues. ”

“ He was, in fact, as Stubbs puts it, a sort of secretary of state for all departments. “This is he,” wrote John of Salisbury (d. 1180) , “who cancels (cancellat) the evil laws of the realm, and makes equitable (aequa) the commands of a pious prince,” a curious anticipation of the chancellor’s later equitable jurisdiction. Under Henry II., indeed, the chancellor was already largely employed in judicial work, either in attendance on the king or in provincial visitations; though the peculiar jurisdiction of the chancery was of later growth. ”

“ Chancellor Farnsworth, the chairman of the committee appointed to confer with me, called to-day, but I was out. I saw him this evening. Whipple had repeated to him the substance of my conversation with him, and I am desired to commit my plans to writing, that he may embody it in his report at the next meeting of the regents. This I am to do to-morrow (D. V.) and to call on the chancellor to-morrow evening, with Whipple, to talk over the matter. There is every reason to believe that my propositions will be adopted. ”

“ The paragraph in the Courier is disclaimed by everybody, and will, I trust, lead to the breaking off of all connexion between that paper and Government.
I have heard nothing more on the subject of Ireland, but have talked with some of my colleagues, who seem to feel as strongly as I do the necessity of the removal of the Chancellor. You shall hear when I know anything more. ”

“ The people of England, as Disraeli said some seventy years ago, have been accustomed to recognize in the Lord Chancellor a man of singular acuteness, of profound learning, and vast experience, who has won his way to a great position by the exercise of great qualities, by patient study, and unwearied industry. ”

“ At the same time, as the people had shewn symptoms of discontent, on account of the great offices being all in the distinguished families, it was thought expedient to ordain, that the Chancellor should always be taken from among the Secretaries of the senate, who were citizens. ”

“ In the antient times, before the division of the courts, the chancellor was a very considerable officer of the curia regis. It was his business to [305] write and seal with the great seal the diplomata, or chartæ regis, what we now call letters patents; to issue all writs, either for founding the jurisdiction of the curia regis, and the bringing causes into that court, that by the antient law belonged to the courts in the country; or those to the nobles, to summon them to attend the commune concilium, or parliament. ”

“ The title of chancellor has naturally been widely used in the German and Scandinavian states, and in Russia since the reign of Peter the Great. It has there as elsewhere wavered between being a political and a judicial office. ”

“ The King tried to pull it off, the Chancellor tried to keep it on, both were near rolling from their saddles in the mud, when the Chancellor submitted, and the King gave the cloak to the old beggar: much to the beggar's astonishment, and much to the merriment of all the courtiers in attendance. For, courtiers are not only eager to laugh when the King laughs, but they really do enjoy a laugh against a Favorite.
"I will make," thought King Henry the Second, "this Chancellor of mine, Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. ”

“ Parliament is touched to its very core on this momentous point, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is full of sympathy and benevolence; and the glorious result is that knowledge is taxed upwards of a million a year, and less than one-tenth of the ill-gotten treasure is given back to the people. ”

“ The chancellor, as was natural from his old association with the chapter, was especially anxious to bring about a compromise favourable to the church. He proposed that the city should have the view of frankpledge over the whole city and precincts, and should only make arrests ordered by that court; and on the other hand the bishop “to have his courts of his own tenants and to hold pleas of greater sum than the court baron, forty shillings, and spake of forty marks. ”