The Mother of Parliaments Part 11

And if he adopted this tone to his King, it may be certain that his att.i.tude towards his equals or inferiors was no less overbearing.

[166] Roscoe's "Eminent British Lawyers," p. 258. Other Chancellors were sprung from equally humble origin. Edward Sugden, afterwards Lord St. Leonards, was the son of a barber. To him is attributed a repartee similar to that made many years earlier by Colonel Birch, M.P., who was taunted with having in his youth been a carrier. "It is true, as the gentleman says, I once was a carrier," replied Birch. "But let me tell the gentleman that it is very fortunate for him that he never was a carrier; for, if he had been, he would be a carrier still." See Burnet's "History of His Own Time," p. 259.

[167] Hawkins's "Memoirs," vol. ii. p. 312.

[168] He declared, on a famous occasion, that his debt of grat.i.tude to His Majesty was ample, for the many favours he had graciously conferred upon him, which, when he forgot, might his G.o.d forget him!

Wilkes, who was present, muttered, "G.o.d forget you! He will see you d----d first!" while Burke remarked that to escape the memory of the Almighty would be the very best thing Thurlow could hope for.

Thurlow's character has been cruelly portrayed in the _Rolliad_ under the heading:

"HOW TO MAKE A CHANCELLOR."

"Take a man of great abilities, with a heart as black as his countenance. Let him possess a rough inflexibility, without the least tincture of generosity or affection, and be as manly as oaths and ill-manners can make him. He should be a man who should act politically with all parties--hating and deriding every one of the individuals who compose them."[169]

[169] Page 430.

If the Speaker of the Lords had been expected to conduct himself in a fas.h.i.+on similar to that of the Speaker of the Commons, Thurlow's behaviour on the Woolsack would certainly have given rise to adverse criticism. He was a frank and bitter partisan, and when some opponent had spoken, would step forward on to the floor of the House and, as he himself described it, give his adversary "such a thump in the bread-basket" that he did not easily recover from this verbal onslaught.[170] Thurlow's pet aversion was Lord Loughborough, his successor on the Woolsack. When Loughborough spoke effectively upon some subject opposed by Thurlow, who had not however taken the trouble to study it, the latter could be heard muttering fiercely to himself.

"If I was not as lazy as a toad at the bottom of a well," he would say, "I could kick that fellow Loughborough heels over head, any day of the week." And he was probably right, for Lord Loughborough was a notoriously bad lawyer,[171] whereas his rival's sagacity almost refuted Fox's celebrated saying that "n.o.body could be as wise as Thurlow _looked_."

[170] Twiss's "Life of Eldon," vol. i. p. 214.

[171] Lord Ellenborough was once asked by his hostess after dinner to cease conversing with his host--a judge--and to give the ladies some conversation, as he had been talking law long enough. "Madam," he replied, "I beg your pardon; we have not been talking law, or anything like law. We have been talking of one of the decisions of Lord Loughborough."--Campbell's "Lives," vol. vi. p. 251.

The amount of work accomplished by a Lord Chancellor depends very largely upon the man himself, as we may see by comparing the two most distinguished Chancellors of their day--Lord Eldon and Lord Brougham.

Eldon had worked his way laboriously from the very foot to the topmost rung of the legal ladder. It was his own early experiences that inspired him to say that nothing did a young lawyer so much good as to be half-starved. And in action as well as in word he always maintained that the only road to success at the Bar was "to live like a hermit, and work like a horse."

He was in many ways an original character. He always wore his Chancellor's wig in society, and was otherwise unconventional. One day, after reading much of "Paradise Lost," he was asked what he thought of Milton's "Satan." "A d----d fine fellow," he replied; "I hope he may win." In spite of this view, however, he was an extremely religious man, though he did not attend divine service regularly.

Indeed, when some one referred to him as a "pillar of the church," he demurred, saying that he might justly be called a _b.u.t.tress_ but not a pillar of the church, since he was never to be found inside it. He is probably the most typical Tory of the old school that can be found in political history. His conservatism was of an almost incredibly standstill and reactionary character. As Walter Bagehot said of him in a famous pa.s.sage, he believed in everything which it is impossible to believe in--"in the danger of Parliamentary Reform, the danger of Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation, the danger of altering the Court of Chancery, the danger of altering the Courts of Law, the danger of abolis.h.i.+ng capital punishment for trivial thefts, the danger of making landowners pay their debts, the danger of making anything more, the danger of making anything less."[172]

[172] Bagehot's "Literary Studies," vol. i. p. 150.

Though on political questions Eldon could make up his mind quickly enough, on the bench the extreme deliberation with which he gave judicial decisions was the subject of endless complaints. He agreed with Lord Bacon that "whosoever is not wiser upon advice than upon the sudden, the same man is not wiser at fifty than he was at thirty."[173] His perpetual hesitation in Court, the outcome of an intense desire to be scrupulously just, gave rise to attacks both in Parliament and the press.[174]

[173] Like Lord Bacon, too, he compiled an indifferent "Anecdote Book." Bacon's "Collection of Apothegms," was supposed to have been taken down from his dictation all on "one rainy day," but neither the brevity of the time nor the inclemency of the weather is a sufficient excuse for so poor a production.

[174] These occasionally took the form of lampoons in verse, such as the following:--

THE DERIVATION OF CHANCELLOR

"The Chancellor, so says Lord c.o.ke, His _t.i.tle_ from Cancello took; And ev'ry cause before him tried It was his duty to _decide_.

Lord Eldon, hesitating ever, Takes it from Chanceler, to _waver_, And thinks, as this may bear him out, His bounden duty is to _doubt_."

Pryme's "Recollections," p. 111.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LORD ELDON

FROM THE PAINTING BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE, P.R.A., IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY]

A Commission was eventually appointed, ostensibly to inquire into the means by which time and expense might be saved to suitors in Chancery--where, as Sydney Smith said, Lord Eldon "sat heavy on mankind"--but really to expose the dilatory methods of the Chancellor.

Eldon came well out of the inquiry, however, and it was proved that in the twenty-four years during which he had held the Great Seal, but few of his decisions had been appealed against, and still fewer reversed.

If some fault could be found with Lord Eldon for being a slow if steady worker, no such complaint could be levelled at the head of Lord Brougham. The latter, indeed, erred on the side of extreme haste, and was as restless on the bench as Eldon was composed, and as ignorant and careless of his duties as his predecessor was learned and scrupulous. Brougham's cleverness, was, however, amazing. If he had known a little law, as Lord St. Leonards dryly observed, he would have known a little of everything. He has been called "the most misinformed man in Europe," and in early life, when he was one of the original founders of the _Edinburgh Review_, is said to have written a whole number himself, including articles upon lithotomy and Chinese music.

His ability and brilliance were unsurpa.s.sed, and his oratory was superb. His famous speech (as her Attorney-General) in defence of Queen Caroline was one of the finest forensic efforts ever heard in the House of Lords.[175] His many talents have been epitomised in a famous saying of Rogers: "This morning Solon, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Archimedes, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Chesterfield, and a great many more, went away in one post-chaise." Yet he was eminently unsuccessful as Chancellor, and his domineering fas.h.i.+on of treating his colleagues made him extremely unpopular. Brougham's loquacity was intolerable, and his conceit immense. "The Whigs are all cyphers," he once declared, "and I am the only unit in the Cabinet that gives a value to them." It must, however, be admitted that he was a great statesman if not a great Chancellor, and that to his unique intellectual talents we owe in great measure the emanc.i.p.ation of the negro slave and the pa.s.sing of the Reform Bill.

[175] "There never was anything like the admiration excited by Brougham's speech. Lord Harrowby, G. Somerset, Mr. Montagu, and Granville told me it was in eloquence, ability, and judicious management beyond almost anything they ever heard."--Lady Granville's "Letters" (to Lady G. Morpeth, 5 October, 1820), vol. i. p. 181.

In his lifetime, Brougham was almost universally disliked and feared.

"A 'B' outside and a wasp within," said some wag, pointing to the simple initial on the panel of that carriage which Brougham invented, and which still bears his name.[176] And this was the popular view of that Chancellor whom Sheil called "a bully and a buffoon." Even his friends distrusted him, and in 1835, when Lord Melbourne returned to power, the Great Seal, which Brougham had held but a year before, was not returned to him, but was put into Commission. No reasons were a.s.signed for this step, but they were sufficiently obvious. "My Lords," said Melbourne in the Upper House, when Brougham subsequently attacked him with intense bitterness, "you have heard the eloquent speech of the n.o.ble and learned Lord--one of the most eloquent he ever delivered in this House--and I leave your Lords.h.i.+ps to consider what _must be_ the nature and strength of the objections which prevent my Government from availing themselves of the services of such a man!"[177] Perhaps one of the strongest objections was the intense dislike with which the ex-Chancellor was regarded by the King. This was not lessened by the cavalier fas.h.i.+on in which Brougham treated his sovereign. When he was forced to return the Great Seal into the Royal hands in 1834, he did not deliver it in person, as was proper, but sent it in a bag by a messenger, "as a fishmonger," says Lord Campbell, "might have sent a salmon for the King's dinner!"

[176] The Duke of Wellington once chaffed Brougham, saying that he would only be known hereafter as the inventor of a carriage. The Chancellor retorted by remarking that the Duke would only be remembered as the inventor of a pair of boots. "D---- the boots!" said Wellington. "I had quite forgotten them; you have the best of it!"

[177] Russell's "Recollections," p. 138.

A Privy Councillor, by virtue of his office, and "Prolocutor of the House of Lords by prescription,"[178] the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain occupies to-day the "oldest and most dignified of the lay offices of the Crown." By ancient statute, to kill him is a treasonable offence, and his post as Lord Keeper is not determined by the demise of the Crown. He enjoys precedence after the Royal Family and the Archbishop of Canterbury, holds one of the most prominent places in the Cabinet, and is the highest paid servant of the Crown.

[178] Blackstone's "Commentaries," vol. iii. p. 47.

In Henry I.'s time the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal was paid 5_s._ a day, and received a "livery" of provisions, a pint and a half of claret, one "gross wax-light" and forty candle-ends. The Chancellor's perquisites used always to include a liberal supply of wine from the King's vineyards in Gascony. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, he received a salary of 19,000; but Lord Eldon, in 1813, gave up 5000 of this to the Vice-Chancellor, and for a long time the Woolsack was worth 14,000 a year. A modern Chancellor's salary is 10,000--5000 as Lord Chancellor, and 5000 as Speaker of the House of Lords--and he is further ent.i.tled to a pension of half that amount on retirement.

The extensive patronage that attaches to the office adds much to its importance. The Chancellor recommends the appointment of all judges of the High Court and Court of Appeal, and is empowered to appoint or remove County Court judges and Justices of the Peace. He also has the gift of all Crown livings of 20 or under, according to the valuation made in Henry VIII.'s reign, and of many other places.[179] One of his perquisites is the Great Seal, which, when "broken up," becomes the property of the reigning Chancellor. The breaking up of the Great Seal is a simple ceremony which inflicts no actual damage upon the article itself. Whenever a new Great Seal is adopted, at the beginning of a new reign, on a change of the royal arms, or when the old Seal is worn out, the sovereign gives the latter a playful tap with a hammer, and it is then considered to be useless, and becomes the property of the Lord Chancellor. On the accession of William IV. a dispute arose between Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Brougham as to who should possess the old Seal. The former had been Chancellor when the order was made for the engraving of the new Seal; the latter had occupied the Woolsack when the new Seal was finished and ordered to be put into use. The King, to whom the question was referred, decided, with truly Solomonian sagacity, that the Seal should be divided between the two Chancellors.[180]

[179] Lord Eldon, who dearly loved a joke, wrote as follows to his friend, Dr. Fisher, of the Charter House, who had applied to him for a piece of preferment then vacant--

"DEAR FISHER,

"I cannot, to-day, give you the preferment for which you ask.

"I remain, your sincere friend, "ELDON.

"_Turn over._"

(On the other side of the page he added) "I gave it to you yesterday."

"Life of Eldon," vol. ii. p. 612.

[180] The same difficulty arose in 1878, when Queen Victoria solved it by following the precedent set in 1831, and divided the Seal between Lord Cairns and his predecessor.

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. They expect to find in him a man who has obtained the confidence of his profession before he challenges the confidence of his country, who has secured eminence in the House of Commons before he has aspired to superiority in the House of Lords; a man who has expanded from a great lawyer into a great statesman, and who "brings to the Woolsack the commanding reputation which has been gained in the long and laborious years of an admired career."[181]

Seldom, indeed, are the people of England disappointed.

[181] "The Runnymede Letters," p. 230.

CHAPTER VII

THE SPEAKER