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ly unjust, is yet so plausible and popular, that perhaps no polemic ever had virtue enough to resist the temptation of employing it. What other con. troversialist can be named, who, having the power to crush antagonists whom he viewed as the disturbers of the quiet of his own declining age, the destroyers of all the hopes which he had cherished for mankind, contented himself with severity of language (for which he humbly excuses himself in his "Apology," in some measure a dying work,) and with one instance of unfair inference against opponents who are too zealous to be merciful.

In the autumn of 1529 More returned from Cambray, where he had been once more joined in commission with his friend Tunstall as ambassador to the emperor. He paid a visit to the court, then at Woodstock. A private letter written from court to his wife, on occasion of a mishap at home, which is inserted to afford a little glimpse into the management of his most homely concerns, and especially as a specimen of his regard for a deserving woman, who was, probably, too "coarsely kind" even to have inspired him with tenderness.*

"Mistress Alyce, in my most hearty will, I recomend me to you. And whereas I am enfourmed by my son Heron of the loss of our barnes and our neighbours also, wt all the corne that was therein, albeit (saving God's pleasure) it is gret pitie of so much good corne lost, yet sith it hath liked hym to send us such a chance, we must saie bounden, not only to be content, but also to be glad of his visitation. He sent us all that we have lost; and sith he hath by such a chance taken it away againe, his pleasure be fulfilled. Let us never grudge thereat, but take it in good worth, and hartely thank him, as well for adversitie, as for prosperitie. And par adventure we have more cause to thank him for our losse, than for our winning. For his wisedom better seeth what is good for us then we do ourselves. Therefore I pray you be of good cheere, and take all the howsold with you to church, and there thank God both for that he hath given us, and for that he has left us, which if it please hym, he can increase when he will. And if it please him to leave us yet lesse, at hys pleasure be it. I praye you to make some good ensearche what my poor neighbours have loste, and bidde them take no thought therefore, and if I shold not leave myself a spone, there shall no poore neighbour of mine bere no losse by any chance happened in my house. I pray you be with my children and household mery in God. And devise somewhat with your friends, what way wer best to take, for provision to be made for corne for our household and for sede thys yere

* In More's metrical inscription for his own monument, we find a just but long, and somewhat laboured, commendation of Alice, which in tenderness is outweighed by one word applied to the long departed companion of his youth.

"Chara Thomæ jacet hic Joanna uxorcula Mori." English Works, 1420.

At my

coming, if ye thinke it good that we keepe the ground still in our handes. And whether ye think it good yt we so shall do or not, yet I think it were not best sodenlye thus to leave it all up, and to put away our folk of our farme, till we have some what advised us thereon. Howbeit if we have more nowe than ye shall neede, and which can get the other maisters, ye may then discharge us of them. But I would not that any man wer sodenly sent away he wote nere wether. coming hither. I perceived none other, but that I shold tary still with the kinges grace. But now I shall (I think), because of this change, get leave this next weke to come home and se you; and then shall we further devise together uppon all thinges, what order shall be best to take and thus as hartely fare you well with all your children as you can wishe. At Woodstok the thirde daye of Septembre, by the hand of

"Your loving husband,

"THOMAS MORE, Knight."

A new scene now opened on More, of whose private life the above simple letter enables us to form no inadequate or unpleasing estimate. On the 25th October 1529, sixteen days after the commencement of the prosecution against Wolsey, the king, by delivering the great seal to him at Greenwich, constituted him lord chancellor, the highest dignity of the state and of the law, which had been generally held by ecclesiastics.* A very summary account of the nature of this high office may perhaps prevent some confusion respecting it among those who know it only in its present state. The office of chancellor was known to all the European governments, who borrowed it, like many other institutions, from the usage of the vanquished Romans. In those of England and France, which most resembled each other, and whose history is most familiar and most interesting to us †, the chancellor, whose office had been a conspicuous dignity under the lower empire, was originally a secretary who derived a great part of his consequence from the trust of holding the king's seal, the substitute for subscription under illiterate monarchs, and the stamp of legal authority in more cultivated times. From his constant access to the king, he acquired every where some authority in the cases which were the frequent subject of complaint to the crown. In France, he became a minister of state with a peculiar superintendence over courts of justice, and some re mains of a special jurisdiction, which continued till the downfall of the French monarchy. In the English chancellor were gradually united the characters of a legal magistrate and a political adviser; and since that time the office has been confined to lawyers in eminent practice. He has

* Thorpe, in 1871, and Knivet, in 1372, seem to be the last exceptions.

† Ducange and Spelman Gloss. in voce "Cancellarius," who give us the series of chancellor in both

countries.

been presumed to have a due reverence for the law, as well as a familiar acquaintance with it, and his presence and weight in the counsels of a free commonwealth have been regarded as links which bind the state to the law.

One of the earliest branches of the chancellor's duties seems, by slow degrees, to have enlarged his jurisdiction to the extent which it reached in modern times.* From the chancery issued those writs which first put the machinery of law in motion in every case where legal redress existed. In that court new writs were framed, when it was fit to adapt the proceedings to the circumstances of a new case. When a case arose in which it appeared that the course and order of the common law could hardly be adapted, by any variation in the forms of procedure, to the demands of justice, the complaint was laid, by the chancellor, before the king, who commanded it to be considered in council; a practice which, by degrees, led to a reference to that magistrate himself. To facilitate an equitable determination in such complaints, the writ was devised called the writ of subpana, commanding the person complained of to appear before the chancellor, and to answer the complaint. The essential words of a petition for this writ, which in process of time has become of 80 great importance, were in the reign of Richard III. as follows: "Please it therefore, your lordship, considering that your orator has no remedy by course of the common law,-to grant a writ subpana, commanding T. Coke to appear in chancery, at a certain day, and upon a certain pain to be limited by you, and then to do what by this court shall be thought reasonable and according to conscience." The form was not materially different in the earliest instances, which appear to have occurred from 1380 to 1400. It appears that this device was not first employed to enforce the observance of the duties of trustees who held lands, as has been hitherto supposed†, but for cases of an extremely different nature, where the failure of justice in the ordinary courts might ensue, not from any defect in the common law, but from the power of turbulent barons, who, in their acts of outrage and lawless violence, bade defiance to all ordinary jurisdiction. In some of the earliest cases we find a statement of the age and poverty of the complainant, and of the power, and even learning, of the supposed wrong-doer; topics addressed to compassion, or at most to equity in a very loose and popular sense of the word, which throw light on the original nature of this high jurisdiction. It is apparent, from the earliest cases in the reign of Richard II., that the occasional relief proceeding from mixed feelings of pity and of regard to substantial justice, not effectually aided by law, or overpowered by tyrannical violence, had then

"Non facile est digito monstrare quibus gradibus, sed conjecturam accipe."-Spel. in voc. Cancellarius. † Blackstone, book mì. c.-4.

grown into a regular system, and was subject to rules resembling those of legal jurisdiction.* At first sight it may appear difficult to conceive how ecclesiastics could have moulded into a regular form this anomalous branch of jurisprudence. But many of the ecclesiastical order, originally the only lawyers, were eminently skilled in the civil and canon law, which had attained an order and precision unknown to the digests of barbarous usages then attempted in France and England. The ecclesiastical chancellors introduced into their court a course of proceeding very similar to that adopted by other European nations, who all owned the authority of the canon law, and were enlightened by the wisdom of the Ronan code. The proceedings in chancery, lately recovered from oblivion, show the system to have been in regular activity about a century and a half before the chancellorship of sir Thomas More, the first common lawyer who held the great seal since the chancellor had laid any foundations (known to us) of his equitable jurisdiction. The course of education, and even of negotiation in that age, conferred on More, who was the most distinguished of the practisers of the common law, the learning and ability of a civilian and a canonist. In his administration, from the 25th of October 1529, to the 16th of May 1532, four hundred bills and answers are still preserved, which afford an average of about a hundred and sixty suits annually. Though this average may by no means adequately represent the whole occupations of a court which had many other duties to perform, it supplies us with some means of comparing the extent of its business under him with the number of similar proceedings in succeeding times. The whole amount of bills and answers in the reign of James I. was 32,000. How far the number may have differed at different parts of that reign, the unarranged state of the records does not yet enable us to ascertain. But supposing it, by a rough estimate, to have continued the same, the annual average of bills and answers during the four years of Lord Bacon's administration was 1461, being an increase of nearly tenfold in somewhat less than a century. Though causes connected with the progress of the jurisdiction and the character of the chancellor must have contri

*Calendars of Proceedings in Chanc. temp. Eliz. [London, 1827.] Of ten of these suits which occurred in the last ten years of the fourteenth century, one complains of ouster from land by violence; another, of exclusion from a benefice, by a writ obtained from the king under false suggestions; a third, for the seizure of a freeman, under pretext of being a slave (or nief); a fourth, for being disturbed in the enjoyment of land by a trespasser, abetted by the sheriff; a fifth, for imprisonment on a false allegation of debt. No case is extant prior to the first year of Henry V., which relates to the trust of lands, which eminent writers have represented as the original object of this jurisdiction. In the reign of Henry VI. there is a bill against certain Wycliffites for outrages done to the plaintiff, Robert Burton, chanter of the cathedral of Lincoln, on account of his zeal as an inquisitor in the diocese of Lincoln, to convict and punish heretics.

buted to this remarkable increase, yet it must be ascribed principally to the extraordinary impulse given to daring enterprise and national wealth by the splendid administration of Elizabeth, which multiplied alike the occasions of litigation and the means of carrying it on.* In a century and a half after, when equitable jurisdiction was completed in its foundations and most necessary parts by lord chancellor Nottingham, the whole number of equity suits was about fifteen thousand, which yields an average of sixteen hundred and fifty to every year of his chancellorship.†

Under lord Hardwicke, the chancellor of most professional celebrity, the yearly average of bills and answers appears to have been about two thousand; probably in part because more questions had been finally determined, and partly also because the delays were so aggravated by the multiplicity of business, that parties aggrieved chose rather to submit to wrong than to be ruined in pursuit of right. This last mischief arose in a great measure from the variety of affairs added to the original duties of a chancellor, of which the principal were bankruptcy and parliamentary appeals. Both these causes continued to act with increasing force; so that, in spite of a vast increase of the property and dealings of the kingdom, the average number of bills and answers was considerably less from 1800 to 1809 than it had been from 1745 to 1754. ‡

It must not be supposed that men trained in any system of jurisprudence, as the ecclesiastical chancellors, could have been indifferent to the inconvenience and vexation which necessarily harass the holders of a merely arbitrary power. Not having a law, they were a law unto themselves; and every chancellor who contributed by a determination to establish a principle, became instrumental in circumscribing the power of his successor. Selden is, indeed, represented to have said, that equity is according to the conscience of him who is chancellor; which is as uncertain as if we made the chancellor's foot the standard for the measure which we call a foot. § But this was spoken in the looseness of table-talk, and under the influence of the prejudices then prevalent among common lawyers against equitable jurisdiction. Still, perhaps, in his time what he said might be true enough for a smart saying. But in process of time a system of rules was established which has constantly tended to limit the originally discretionary powers of the Chancery. Equity, in the acceptation in which that

*From a letter of lord Bacon (Lords' Journals, 20th March, 1680,) it appears that he made 2000 decrees and orders in a year; so that in his time the bills and answers amounted to about two thirds of the whole business.

The numbers have been obligingly supplied by the gentlemen of the Record Office in the Tower.

Account of Proceedings in Parliament relative to the Court of Chancery. By C. P. Cooper, Esq. p. 102, &c. London, 1828. A work equally remarkable for knowledge and acuteness.

§Table Talk, p. 55. Edinburgh, 1809.

word is used in English jurisprudence, is no longer to be confounded with that moral equity which generally corrects the unjust operation of law, and with which it seems to have been synonymous in the days of Selden and Bacon. It is a part of law formed from usages and determinations which sometimes differ from what is called common law in its subjects, but chiefly varies from it in its modes of proof, of trial, and of relief; it is a jurisdiction so irregularly formed, and often so little dependent on general principles, that it can hardly be defined or made intelligible otherwise than by a minute enumeration of the matters cognisable by it.*

It will be seen from the above that sir Thomas More's duties differed very widely from the various exertions of labour and intellect required from a modern chancellor. At the utmost he did not hear more than two hundred cases and arguments yearly, including those of every description. No authentic account of any case tried before him, if any such be extant, has been yet brought to light. No law book alludes to any part of his judgments or reasonings. Nothing of this higher part of his judicial life is preserved, which can warrant us in believing more than that it must have displayed his never-failing integrity, reason, learning, and eloquence.

The particulars of his instalment are not un worthy of being specified as a proof of the reverence for his endowments and excellences professed by the king and entertained by the public, to whose judgment the ministers of Henry seemed virtually to appeal, with an assurance that the king's appointment would be ratified by the general voice. "He was led between the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk up Westminster Hall to the Stone Chamber, and there they honourably placed him in the high judgment-seat of chancellort ;" (for the chancellor was, by his office, the president of that terrible tribunal.) "The duke of Norfolk, premier peer and lord high treasurer of England," continues the biographer, "by the command of the king, spoke thus unto the people there with great applause and joy gathered together :

"The king's majesty (which, I pray God, may prove happie and fortunate to the whole realme of England) hath raised to the most high dignitie of chancellourship sir Thomas More, a man for his extraordinarie worth and sufficiencie well knowne to himself and the whole realme, for no other cause or earthlie respect, but for that he hath plainely perceaved all the gifts of nature and grace to be heaped upon him, which either the people could desire, or himself wish, for the discharge of so great an office. For the admirable wisedome, integritie, and innocencie, joyned with the most pleasant facilitie of witt, that this man is endowed

* Blackstone, book iii. c. 27. Lord Hardwicke's Letter to Lord Kames, 30th June, 1757. Lord Woodhouselee's Life of Lord Kames, vol. i. p. 237.

More's Life of Sir T. More, 156. 163.

withall, have been sufficiently knowen to all Englishmen from his youth, and for these manie yeares also to the king's majestie himself. This hath the king abundantly found in manie and weightie affayres, which he hath happily dispatched both at home and abroad; in divers offices which he hath born, in most honourable embassages which he hath undergone; and in his daily counsell and advises upon all other occasions. He hath perceaved no man in his realme to be more wise in deliberating, more sincere in opening to him what he thought, nor more eloquent to adorne the matter which he uttered. Wherefore, because he saw in him such excellent endowments, and that of his especiall care he hath a particular desire that his kingdome and people might be governed with all equitie and justice, integritie and wisedome; he of his owne most gracious disposition hath created this singular man lord chancellor; that, by his laudable performance of this office, his people may enjoy peace and justice; and honour also and fame may redounde to the whole kingdome. It may perhaps seeme to manie a strange and unusuall matter, that this dignitie should be bestowed upon a layman, none of the nobilitie, and one that hath wife and children; because heretofore none but singular learned prelates, or men of greatest nobilitie, have possessed this place; but what is wanting in these respects, the admirable vertues, the matchless guifts of witt and wisedome of this man, doth most plentifully recompence the same. For the king's majestie hath not regarded how great, but what a man he was; he hath not cast his eyes upon the nobilitie of his bloud, but on the worth of his person; he hath respected his sufficiencie, not his profession; finally, he would show by this his choyce, that he hath some rare subjects amongst the rowe of gentlemen and laymen, who deserve to manage the highest offices of the realme, which bishops and noblemen think they only can deserve. The rarer therefore it was, so much both himself held it to be the more excellent, and to his people he thought it would be the more gratefull. Wherefore, receave this your chancellour with joyful acclamations, at whose hands you may expect all happinesse and content.'

"Sir Thomas More, according to his wonted modestie, was somewhat abashed at this the duke's speech, in that it sounded so much to his praise; but recollecting himself as that place and time would give him leave, he answered in this sorte: Although, most noble duke, and you right honourable lords, and worshipfull gentlemen, I knowe all these things, which the king's majestie, it seemeth, hath bene pleased should be spoken of me at this time and place, and your grace hath with most eloquent wordes thus amplifyed, are as far from me, as I could wish with all my hart they were in me for the better performance of so great a charge; and although this your speech hath caused in me greater feare than

I can well express in words: yet this incomparable favour of my dread soueraigne, by which he showeth how well, yea how highly he conceaveth of my weakenesse, having commanded that my meanesse should be so greatly commended, cannot be but most acceptable to me: and I cannot choose but give your most noble grace exceeding thankes, that what his majestie hath willed you briefly to utter, you, of the abundance of your love unto me, have in a large and eloquent oration dilated. As for myself, I can take it no otherwise, but that his majestie's incomparable favour towards me, the good will and incredible propension of his royall minde (wherewith he hath these manie yeares favoured me continually) hath alone without anie desert of mine at all, caused both this my new honour, and these your undeserved commendations of me. For who am I, or what is the house of my father, that the king's highnesse should heape upon me by such a perpetuall streame of affection, these so high honours? I am farre lesse then anie the meanest of his benefitts bestowed on me; how can I then thinke myself worthie or fitt for this so peerlesse dignitie? I have bene drawen by force, as the king's majestie often professeth, to his highnesse's service, to be a courtier; but to take this dignitie upon me, is most of all against my will; yet such is his highnesse's benignitie, such is his bountie, that he highly esteemeth the small dutiefulnesse of his meanest subjects, and seeketh still magnificently to recompence his servants; not only such as deserve well, but even such as have but a desire to deserve well at his hands, in which number I have alwaies wished myself to be reckoned, because I cannot challenge myself to be one of the former; which being so, you may all perceave with me how great a burden is layde upon my backe, in that I must strive in some sorte with my diligence and dutie to corresponde with his royall benevolence, and to be answerable to that great expectation, which he and you seeme to have of me: wherefore those so high praises are by me so much more grievous unto me, by how much more I know the greater charge I have to render myself worthie of, and the fewer means I have to make them goode. This weight is hardly suitable to my weake shoulders; this honour is not correspondent to my poore desert; it is a burden, not a glorie; a care, not a dignitie; the one therefore I must beare as manfully as I can, and discharge the other with as much dexteritie as I shall be able. The earnest desire which I have alwaies had and doe now acknowledge myself to have, to satisfye by all meanes I can possible, the most ample benefitts of his highnesse, will greatly excite and ayde me to the diligent performance of all, which I trust also I shall be more able to doe, if I finde all your good wills and wishes both favourable unto me, and conformable to his royal munificence: because my serious endeavours to doe well, joyned with your favourable acceptance, will easily procure

that whatsoever is performed by me, though it be in itself but small, yet will it seeme great and praiseworthie; for those things are alwaies atchieved happily, which are accepted willingly; and those succeede fortunately, which are receaved by others courteously. As you therefore doe hope for great matters, and the best at my hands, so though I dare not promise anie such, yet do I promise truly and affectionately to perform the best I shall be able.'

"When sir Thomas More had spoken these wordes, turning his face to the high judgement seate of the Chancerie, he proceeded in this manner :-' But when I looke upon this seate, when I thinke how greate and what kinde of personages have possessed this place before me, when I call to minde who he was that sate in it last of all-a man of what singular wisdome, of what notable experience, what a prosperous and favourable fortune he had for a great space, and how at the last he had a most grievous fall, and dyed inglorious— I have cause enough by my predecessor's example to think honour but slipperie, and this dignitie not so grateful to me as it may seeme to others; for both is it a hard matter to follow with like paces or praises, a man of such admirable witt, prudence, authoritie, and splendour, to whome I may seeme but as the lighting of a candle, when the sun is downe; and also the sudden and unexpected fall of so great a man as he was doth terribly putt me in minde that this honour ought not to please me too much, nor the lustre of this glistering seate dazel mine eyes. Wherefore I ascende this seate as a place full of labour and danger, voyde of all solide and true honour; the which by how much the higher it is, by so much greater fall I am to feare, as well in respect of the verie nature of the thing it selfe, as because I am warned by this late fearfull example. And truly I might even now at this verie just entrance stumble, yea faynte, but that his majestie's most singular favour towardes me, and all your good wills, which your joyfull countenance doth testifye in this most honourable assemblie, doth somewhat recreate and refresh me; otherwise this seate would be no more pleasing to me, than that sword was to Damocles, which hung over his head, tyed only by a hayre of a horse's tale, when he had store of delicate fare before him, seated in the chair of state of Denis the Tirant of Sicilie; this therefore shall be always fresh in my minde, this will I have still before mine eies, that this seate will be honorable, famous, and full of glorie unto me, if I shall with care and diligence, fidelitie and wisedom, endeavour to doe my dutie, and shall persuade inyself, that the enjoying thereof may be but short and uncertaine: the one whereof my labour ought to performe; the other my predecessor's example may easily teach me. All which being so, you may easily perceave what great pleasure I take in this high dignitie, or in this most noble duke's praising of me.'

"All the world took notice now of sir Thomas's dignitie, whereof Erasmus writeth to John Fabius, bishopp of Vienna, thus:-Concerning the new increase of honour lately happened to Thomas More, I should easily make you believe it, if I should shew you the letters of many famous men, rejoicing with much alacritie, and congratulating the king, the realme, himself, and also me, for More's honor, in being made lord chancellour of England.""

When sir Thomas More was seated in his court of Chancery, his father, sir John More, who was nearly of the age of ninety, was the most ancient judge of the King's Bench. "What a grateful spectacle was it," says their descendant, "to see the son ask the blessing of the father every day upon his knees before he sat upon his own seat?"* Even in a more unceremonious age, the simple character of More would have protected these daily rites of filial reverence from the suspicions of affectation, which could alone destroy their charm. But at that time it must have borrowed its chief power from the conspicuous excellence of the father and son. For if inward worth had then borne any proportion to the grave and reverend ceremonial of the age, we might be well warranted in regarding our forefathers as a race of superior beings.

The contrast of the humble and affable More with the haughty cardinal, astonished and delighted the suitors. No application could be made to Wolsey, which did not pass through many hands; and no man could apply, whose fingers were not tipped with gold. But More sat daily in an open hall, that he might receive in person the petitions of the poor. If any reader should blame his conduct in this respect, as a breach of an ancient and venerable precept, "Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment; thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty; but in righteousness shalt thou judge they neighbourt:" let it be remembered, that there still clung to the equitable jurisdiction some remains of that precarious and eleemosynary nature from which it originally sprung; which, in the eyes of the compassionate chancellor, might warrant more preference for the helpless poor than could be justified in proceedings more rigorously legal.

Courts of law were jealous then, as since, of the power assumed by chancellors to issue injunctions to parties to desist from doing certain acts which they were by law entitled to do, until the court of Chancery should determine whether the exercise of the legal right would not work injustice. There are many instances in which irreparable wrong may be committed, before a right can be ascertained, in the ordinary course of proceedings. In such cases it is the province of the chancellor to

*More's Life of Sir T. More, p. 163. Leviticus, xix. 15.

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