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CHAP.
VIII.

"Oh, do you see yon pale-faced boy*
That's catching at the ball?
He is King Henry's only son,
And I love him the least of all."

But she was a very different person from her successor, Isabella of France, Queen of Edward II., and there is not reason to doubt that she was ever a faithful wife and a loving mother to all her children.

Although none of her judicial decisions, while she held the Great Seal, have been transmitted to us, we have very full and accurate information respecting her person, her career, and her character, for which we are chiefly indebted to Matthew Paris, who often dined at table with her and her husband, and composed his history of those times with their privity and assistance. †

*Prince Edmund.

† Mat. Par. 562. 654. 719. 799. 884. 989. 1172. 1200. 1202.

CHAPTER IX.

LORD CHANCELLORS FROM THE RESIGNATION OF LADY KEEPER
QUEEN ELEANOR TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY III.

IX.

ON Queen Eleanor's resignation of the office of Lady Keeper, CHAP. WILLIAM DE KILKENNY, who had been employed by her to seal writs while she held the Great Seal*, was promoted to WILLIAM the office of Chancellor.

DE KIL

KENNY,

to the

He did not continue in it long, and in his time nothing Chancellor. memorable occurred, except the representation from the clergy A. D. 1254. respecting alleged encroachments by the Crown upon their order. A deputation, consisting of the Primate and the Bishops of Winchester, Salisbury, and Carlisle, came to the King with an address on the frequent violation of their privileges, the oppressions with which he had loaded them and all his subjects, and the uncanonical and forced elections which were made to vacant ecclesiastical dignities. Lord Chancellor Kilkenny is said to have written the King's celebrated answer, "It Reprimand is true I have been faulty in this particular: I obtruded you, clergy. my Lord of Canterbury, on your see: I was obliged to employ both entreaties and menaces, my Lord of Winchester, to have you elected. My proceedings, I confess, were very irregular, my Lords of Salisbury and Carlisle, when I raised you from the lowest stations to your present dignities. I am determined henceforth to correct these abuses; and it will also become you, in order to make a thorough reformation, to resign your present benefices, and try again to become successors of the Apostles in a more regular and canonical manner."†

On St. Edward's day, in the year 1255, William de Kil- Kilkenny's resignation.

Mandamus

Rex dilectæ consorti suæ A, eadem gratia Reginæ salutem. vobis quod cum delectus clericus noster W. de Kilkenni, Archidiaconus Coventrensis ad vos venerit, liberatis ei sigillum scaccarii nostri bajulandum et custodiendum usque ad reditum nostrum de partibus Wasconiæ, &c.-Pat. 37.

H. 3. m. 5.

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IX.

CHAP. kenny* resigned his office of Chancellor, but he was still in such favour, that, though suspected of having misapplied funds that came officially into his hands, the King granted him letters patent whereby he declared that William, having long served him diligently and acceptably, should be quit of all reckonings and demands for the whole time that he had been Keeper of the King's Seal in England. He was afterwards sent on an embassy to Spain, where he died on the 21st of September, 1256. He is said to have been a very handsome person, eloquent, prudent, and well skilled in the municipal laws of the realm, as well as in the civil and canon law.

Embassy

to Spain.

Death.

HENRY DE

WENGHAM.

A. D. 1255.

On the day of his resignation, the Great Seal was delivered to HENRY DE WENGHAM, afterwards Bishop of London,and, with William de Merton for his deputy, he remained Chancellor till he was removed by the mutinous Barons who for some time established an oligarchy in England. †

The ill-humour of the nation was manifested at a General Council called to meet in London at Easter, 1255, when the attempt was renewed that the Chancellor and other great officers should be appointed by the Prelates and Barons, as was said anciently to have been the custom, and that those officers might not be removed, except upon notorious faults, without the common assent. The King refusing these demands, a resolution was carried to postpone the further consideration of supply till Michaelmas. ‡

Simon de Montfort was now taking advantage of the unpopularity of the government for his own aggrandisement, and attempting successfully to wrest the sceptre from the Mad Par feeble hand which held it. In June, 1258, met "the Mad

liament.

"Provi

sions of Oxford."

Parliament," where, notwithstanding the resistance of the Chancellor and the King's other ministers, were passed the famous" Provisions of Oxford," by which twenty-four Barons were appointed with unlimited power, to reform the Commonwealth, and annually to choose the Chancellor and other great officers of state. § The King for the time submitted,

Rot. Pat. 39 Hen. 3. m. 16.
M. Paris. 904. 1 Parl. Hist. 27.

+1 Parl. Hist. 29.
§ Rot. Pat. 39 H. 3. m. 16.

and even Prince Edward was obliged to take an oath to obey CHAP. their authority.

De Wengham was for some time permitted by them to retain the office of Chancellor, having made oath that he would duly keep the King's Seal under their control. *

1260.

made

IX.

Chancellor

Barons.

However, to give full proof of their prerogative, they sub- Oct. 18. sequently removed him, and elected in his place NICHOLAS NICHOLAS DE ELY, Archdeacon of Ely†, a mere creature of their own. DE ELY The old Great Seal, surrendered up by De Wengham, was broken in pieces, and a new one was delivered to the Chan- by the cellor of the Barons. We have a very circumstantial account of this ceremony, showing that the King was present as a mere puppet of the twenty-four. After relating the oath of the new Chancellor, and that he forthwith sealed with the new seal, it says that "the King delivered the pieces of the old broken seal to Robert Wallerand, to be presented to some poor religious house of the King's gift."

covers his

But the nation was soon disgusted by the arbitrary and King recapricious acts of Montfort and his associates: there was a authority. strong reaction in favour of the King, and for a time he recovered his authority. Before proceeding to resume the full exercise of his royal functions, he applied to Rome for a dispensation from "the Provisions of Oxford," which he had very solemnly sworn to observe. This was readily promised him; but, unluckily, Alexander the Pope died before the dispensation was sealed, and considerable delay was likely to arise before a successor could be elected.

ment.

Henry or his advisers, to take advantage of the present A parliafavourable state of the public mind, called a Parliament to meet in the castle of Winchester. There he openly declared

The oath made by the Chancellor was to this effect: "That he would not seal writs without the command of the King and his Council, and in the presence of some of them, nor seal the grant of any great wardship, great marriage, or escheat, without the assent of the Council or the major part of it, nor would seal any thing contrary to the ordinances made or to be made by the twenty-four, or the greater part of them, nor would take any reward but only such as other Chancellors have formerly received; and if he should appoint a deputy, it should be only according to the power to be provided by the council."- Annal. Burton, 413.

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CHAP.
IX.

WALTER DE
MERTON,
Chancellor.

that he would no longer be bound by "the Provisions of Oxford," which had rendered him more a slave than a King. He then called before him the Chancellor and Justiciary appointed by the Barons, and demanded from them the seals and the rolls of their respective offices. They answered that they could not lawfully obey him, without the consent of the Council of twenty-four. The baronial officers were however, in his power: they were obliged to submit, and the Great Seal was delivered up to Henry.

He appointed WALTER DE MERTON as Chancellor.* At the same time, to put on an appearance of moderation, the following Letters Patent were passed under the Great Seal, in compliment to the Ex-chancellor thus forcibly displaced.

"The King to all whom, &c. Know ye that our beloved clerk, Master Nicholas, Archdeacon of Ely, did, on the day of St. Luke the Evangelist, in the 44th year of our reign, receive from us our Great Seal to be kept, which said Seal we received from him on Tuesday next after the Feast of the Translation of St. Thomas the Martyr, in the 45th year of our reign. We have therefore specially to recommend him for his good services to us. In witness, &c. Witness the King, at the Tower of London, on the 14th day of July."†

De Wengham would probably have been restored to the office; but he had fallen into bad health, and he died soon after. De Merton's appointment was by patent, with an express declaration that it was "without the consent of the Barons." At the same time a grant was made to him of 400 marks a year for support of himself and the Chancery, so long as he should remain in office. ‡

Rot. Pat. 45 Hen. 3. m. 8.

Pat. 45 H. 3. m. 7. Liberata 45 Hen. 3. m. 3. Pat. 49 Hen. 3. m. 18. This sum would be equal to about 4000l. of present money. An addition of 100 marks was made to the salary of his successor. Out of this the Chancellor had to pay the Chancery clerks or Masters in Chancery, and to defray other expenses of the Chancery, but he had besides, as we have seen, high fees on grants from the Crown, and he generally held large ecclesiastical benefices, so that he must have had a revenue and maintained a state equal to the great hereditary Barons. In the reign of Henry II. the Chancellor was allowed "five shillings a day, two demean and seasoned simnels, one sextary of clear wine, one sextary of vinum expansabile, one pound of wax and forty pieces of candle." The five shillings per diem would have been then equal to about 1400l. per annum,

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