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CHAPTER 3 THE WORK OF THE CHANCELLORS SUMMARY Robert Burnell The later Metliaeval Chancel/ors Sir Thomas More LordEllesmere LordBacon Lord Nottingham Post-Revolution Chancellors LordHardwicN LordEldon PAGE 696 696 697 697 699 702 704 704 706 Some reference to the early history of the office of chancellor is essential if the later development of the office is to appear in its full significance. Originally a strictly household office, it separated much slower than the exchequer.l Some of the twelfth-century holders became powerful enough to withstand the King, but their power was not yet derived from the office; on the contrary, it seems that it was they who conferred dignity upon the Chancery. In the hands of a Becket or a Longchamp, the office of chancellor threatened to become a menace to the Crown, and it is not surprising that Henry II kept it vacant for eleven years. On the continent the papacy suppressed the office altogether; in France it was left vacant for generations at a time; in other realms it became attached as an ex officio dignity to certain sees (which at least prevented it becoming hereditary). In England it was common to give the office to clerks who had risen from the lower ranks of the civil service, hut early in the thirteenth century there appears the practice of selling the office, the qolder repaying himselfout ofthe profits. Henry III stubbornly maintained the tradition that the headship of the Chancery was a household position, to be occupied by professional administrators, and to be shorn of political significance; above all, the chancellor was the King's man, responsible to him alone.lI His office was therefore partly the headship of an administrative department, and partly that of an informal confidential adviser of the King. 1 Above, pp. 163-165. 2 The place of the Chancety in the thirteenth century is still the subject of debate among historians; see the various interpretations by Tout, AtiministralilleHistl»Y, i, and his EbartlII, 58; Treharne, Baronial Plan ojR£j(Jf'm, 14-21; Wilkinson, Chancery tutti" Eth'artl Ill. 695 696 EQUITY ROBERT BURNELL Edward I allowed the chancellorship to take on a new importance with the appointment of Robert Burnell. He was the trusted personal friend and chancellor of Edward even before he came to the throne, and was made Chancellor of England as soon as the new King came home from the Crusade in 1274. For eighteen years he held the Great Seal, and for eighteen years there flowed the vast stream ofreforming legislation which extends from the Statute ofWestminster the First toQuiaEmptqrcJ'. Burnell (who soon became bishop of Bath and Wells) must have had a large part in the preparation of these statutes, and must be regarded as legally the most eminent of our mediaeval chancellors.l THE LATER MEDIAEVAl CHANCELLORS After Burnell's day the office of chancellor steadily increases in importance. It was not yet a judicial office, and his successors, like Burnell himself, took a prominent part in politics. It soon became clear that the office of chancellor generally implied that its holder was the King's principal adviser, and since that advice came from the head of the chief government department the chancellors appear as a sort of mediaeval prime minister. This duty of counselling the King involved the chancellor, like the judges, in several political crises, one of which we have already mentioned,2 and as the demands of the baronial opposition to the official class become more clearly defined, they sometimes include a demand that laymen should be appointed chancellors-possibly with the hope that members of the baronial class would be appointed instead of clerical civil servants. This made no difference to the general nature of the office, which continued to be political, whether it was held by a bishop, a knight or a common lawyer. It is only when the equitable jurisdiction of the oRice made the work of it too arduous that we find the character of the chancellorship changing. Even in modern times the chancellors have frequently had an extremely important influence upon politics, which is a relic of their mediaeval position; at the present day in England the Lord Chancellor is a member of the Cabinet and comes in and goes out with the Government. Henry VIII's reign contains two notable examples of political chancellors. Cardinal Wolsey (1515-1529) achieved fame as a statesman, although it is also clear that he was deeply interested in...

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