the King in the Marches of Scotland, before the other Barons, and also Roger de Brabançon, the King's Justiciary for Pleas before the King himself, and Ralph de Hingham, Justiciary of the Bench, took the oath well and faithfully to demean himself in the office of Chancellor, and the impressions of the private seals with which the purse containing the Great Seal was guarded, being broken, it was taken therefrom and delivered to the said Ralph de Baldock, to be kept by him as Chancellor." CHAP. XI. A D. 1307. tion and rise. De Baldock, by industry and ability, had reached his His educapresent high station from an obscure origin. He studied at Merton College, Oxford, and made himself master of all the learning of the times. He wrote in Latin "Annals of the English Nation," a work which was praised in his lifetime, although it has not come down to us. When appointed Bishop of London, he gained great fame by the splendid repair of St. Paul's Cathedral at his cost, and it was on this occasion that the immense collection of ox skulls were dug up, which fortified the tradition that here had stood a great temple of Diana. Having received the Great Seal he remained stationary, Death of devoting himself to his official duties, till news reached Edward I. London of the death of the King. Edward, at the head of a mighty army, was marching for Scotland to take vengeance for the defeat which his General, Aymer de Valence, had sustained from Robert Bruce, and (as he hoped) finally to subjugate the Scottish nation; but he sickened and died at Burgh on Sands, near Carlisle, on the 7th of July 1307, in July 7. the 69th year of his age, and the 35th of his reign. 1307. In the present day such an event as the demise of the Crown would be known in a few hours all over the kingdom; but for a period of eighteen days the news of the death of Edward I. did not reach the Chancellor in London, who down to the 25th of July, continued to seal writs as usual, unconscious that a new reign had commenced. Letters of Accession Privy Seal were then received from the new King, ordering that his father's seal should be sent to him under the seal of the Chancellor, and accordingly he received it into his own hands at Carlisle, on the 2d of August.† of Edward CHAP. Removal of De Baldock. His eagerness to change the Chancellor in whom his father had confided, showed that the influence of personal favourites was already felt, and was a prelude to his own misfortunes and the disgrace which he brought upon the country. De Baldock, freed from the cares of office, spent the remainder of his days in the pursuit of literature and the serHis death. vices of religion. He died on the 24th of July, 1313. Jurisdic tion of Chancellor in the reign of Edw. I. Improvements in law. to law re Although we have no trace of the decisions of the Chancellors of Edward I., we know, from recent discoveries in the Tower of London, that they exercised important judicial functions, both in the King's council and in their own court, where they sometimes had the assistance of others, and sometimes sat alone. No case of importance was heard in the Council when the Chancellor was absent; and cases were referred by the Council for his consideration in Chancery, either by himself, or with the advice of specified persons whom he was to summon to assist him. Sometimes the subject of these suits was such as would now only be taken cognisance of in courts of common law,—as disturbance of right of pasture; but others were of a nature that would now be properly considered in a court of equity, as assignment of dower, a discovery of facts by the examination of the defendant, and the exercise of the visitatorial power of the Chancellor representing the Sovereign. All writers who have touched upon our juridical history have highly extolled the legal improvements which distinguished the reign of Edward I., without giving the slightest credit for them to any one except the King himself; but if he is to be denominated the English Justinian, it should be made known who were the Tribonians who were employed Gratitude by him: and the English nation owes a debt of gratitude to the Chancellors, who must have framed and revised the statutes which are the foundation of our judicial system,-who must, by explanation and argument, have obtained for them the sanction of Parliament, and who must have watched over their construction and operation when they first passed into law. I shall rejoice if I succeed in doing tardy justice to the memory of Robert Burnel, decidedly the first in this class, and if I attract notice to his successors, who walked in formers. XI. Law books. his footsteps. To them, too, we are probably indebted for СНАР. the treatises entitled "Fleta" and "Brittont," which are said to have been written at the request of the King, and which, though inferior in style and arrangement to Bracton, are wonderful performances for such an age, and make the practitioners of the present day, who are bewildered in the midst of an immense legal library, envy the good fortune of their predecessors, who, in a few manuscript volumes, copied by their own hand, and constantly accompanying them, could speedily and clearly discover all that was known on every point that might arise. We now approach a period when civil strife and national misfortune suspended all improvement, and when a career of faction and violence terminated in the deposition and murder of the Sovereign. • Fleta must have been written after the thirteenth year of the King, and not much later; for it frequently quotes the statute of Westminster the second, without referring to the later statutes of the reign. The title is taken from its having been written in the Fleet Prison. † Britton has been attributed to John Breton, Bishop of Hereford; but this cannot be correct, for he died in the third year of the King, and the Treatise quotes the statutes of the thirteenth. It set the example of writing law books in French, which was followed for four centuries. CHAPTER XII. CHANCELLORS DURING THE REIGN OF EDWARD II. It is not certainly known from records or otherwise, how the young King disposed of the Great Seal from the time when he received it at Carlisle till his return to London in the autumn of the year 1307. He probably carried it with him into Scotland in the short and inglorious campaign which he then made in that country,-forgetting alike what the exigencies of justice required in his own dominions, and the dying injunctions of his father to lead on the expedition with the utmost energy, and never to desist till he had reduced the Scottish nation to complete subjection. From the hour of his accession to the throne, he betrayed an utter incapacity for government, and an unconquerable aversion to all serious business. He seems for a long time to have appointed neither Chancellor nor Keeper of the Seal. He retreated without striking a blow, disbanded his army, and thought of nothing but conferring power and places on his favourite, Piers Gaveston.* Whilst the Barons, from the beginning, showed the utmost indignation at the advancement of this upstart, John de Langton, Bishop of Chichester, who had been Chancellor in the late reign, formed a coalition with him, and in recompense was restored to his former office. It was thought, even by the Gascon youth himself, that it would have been too great an outrage at once to have made him Chancellor, although, as we shall see, he was ere long intrusted with the Seal as Keeper. The two years during which John de Langton was now * A charge was afterwards brought against Gaveston of having about this time put the Great Seal to blank charters, which he filled up according to his fancy. Chancellor, were chiefly occupied with the disputes between the King and the Barons on account of the preference shown to the foreign favourite. CHAP. XII. abroad. Edward continued occasionally to find a respite beyond King sea from the factious proceedings of his native subjects. In the beginning of 1308, going to Aquitaine, he left the Chancellor guardian of the realm, and delivered to him a new seal to be used for certain necessary purposes. The Great Seal was intrusted to the keeping of William Melton, the King's secretary, who accompanied him. On Edward's return, the Chancellor delivered to him the Seal which had been in use during his absence, and the King delivered back to the Chancellor the Great Seal which he had carried with him abroad.* logne. Soon after, the King paid a short visit to Boulogne, when King goes the Chancellor seems to have accompanied him, for Piers to BouGaveston was left with a seal to be used for the sealing of writs and other necessary business. In the Close Roll we have a very circumstantial account of the manner in which this seal was dealt with in the Court of Exchequer on the King's return.t self uses Edward was in the habit of occasionally taking the Seal King himinto his own custody, and using it without any responsible the Great adviser. Thus, on the 13th of June, 1308, at the New Seal. Temple in London, the Bishop elect of Worcester, the Treasurer, ordered the Chancellor, pursuant, he said, to the verbal commands he had received from the King, to send the Great Seal to Windsor by Adam de Osgodebey, which was ac Rot. Cl. 1 Ed. 2. m. 7. "Whereupon William de Melton, controller of the King's wardrobe, came and brought into the Exchequer the King's Seal used in England at the time when the King was in foreign parts; which Seal was used for sealing the writs that issued out of the King's Chancery in England, at that time under the teste of Peter de Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, then the King's lieutenant in England, and the said Seal being in a bag or purse of white leather, sealed with the Privy Seal of John de Langton, Bishop of Chichester, Chancellor of England, was by him delivered in at the Exchequer in the presence of the Chancellor of the same Exchequer, and the Barons and the Remembrancer. And straightway the said Seal, being in the purse so sealed up, was delivered to the Chamberlain of the Exchequer to be kept in the King's treasury," &c.-Hil. Com. 1 Ed. 2. Rot. 40. b. Madd. Exch. 51, 52. VOL. I. |