employed him in her most weighty emergencies. In 1598, he was in commission for treating with the Dutch, and, jointly with the lord Buckhurst, Cecil, and others, signed a new treaty with their ambassadors in London, by which the queen was eased of an annual charge of 120,000l. In 1600, he was again in commission with the lord treasurer Buckhurst and the earl of Essex, for negotiating affairs with the senate of Denmark. His conduct in regard to the unfortunate earl of Essex, whose name will for ever distinguish yet disgrace the annals of Elizabeth, exhibits his character both as a wise and loyal subject, and a sincere and honest friend. These illustrious men filled two of the highest and most important offices of state at the same time, and with the most perfect harmony, although their characters were very different. Sensible, however, of Essex's great merit as a soldier, and of his constitutional infirmity as a man, the lord keeper took every opportunity to soften the violence and asperity of his disposition, and to reclaim him to the dictates of reason and duty. An instance of his friendly interference, in the year 1598, is given by Mr. Camden; by which the high and resentful spirit of Essex, which disdained to brook an insult from a queen, who, our readers will remember, struck him, was at length softened into a due submission to his royal benefactress; in consequence of which he was pardoned, and again received into her favour. (See DEVEREUX). From this unfortunate affair, however, his friends took an omen of his future ruin, under the conviction that princes, once offended, are seldom thoroughly reconciled. When on his hasty and unexpected return from the Irish expedition, he was summoned before the privy council, suspended from his offices, and committed to the custody of the lord keeper, the latter rendered him every kind and friendly office; and, in all his future conduct to this unfortunate man, tempered justice with compassion; preserving a proper medium between the duty of the magistrate, and the generosity of the friend. By the most popular and well-timed measures, he appeased the minds of a prejudiced people, who then became tumultuous from the injuries and indignities which they supposed were done to the person of their favourite general; asserting the queen's authority, and justifying the conduct of the public counsels, without heightening or exaggerating the misconduct of the unfortunate earl. Still as the minds of

As

the people remained dissatisfied, under a persuasion of his innocence, to remove the grounds of these suspicions, the queen resolved that his cause should have an open hearing, not in the star-chamber, but in the lord keeper Egerton's house, before the council, four earls, two barons, and four judges, in order that a censure might be formally passed upon him, but without charge of perfidy. On this occasion, when he began to excuse and justify his conduct, the lord keeper interrupted him in the most friendly manner, and advised him to throw himself upon the mercy and goodness of the queen, and not, by an attempt to alleviate his offences, to extenuate her clemency. The issue of this trial it is unnecessary here to relate, as it may be found in our account of this unfortunate nobleman. far as the subject of the present article is concerned, it may be sufficient to add, that after the execution of Essex, with Cuffe, Merrick, Danvers, and Blunt, principal confederates, the lord keeper was in a special commission, with others of the first dignity, to summon all their accomplices, in order to treat and compound with them for the redemption of their estates; and, on security being given for the payment of the fines assessed, their pardon and redemption were obtained. The next year, 1602, he was again commissioned with others of the privy council, to reprieve all such persons convicted of felony as they should think convenient, and to send them, for a certain time, to some of the queen's galleys. And again, in the forty-fifth year of Elizabeth, for putting the laws in execution against the Jesuits and seminary priests, ordained according to the rites of the church of Rome. In March 1603, after the queen, oppressed with the infirmities of age, had retired from Westminster to Richmond, the lord keeper and the lord admiral, accompanied by the secretary, were deputed by the rest of the privy council to wait upon her there, in order to remind her majesty of her intentions, in regard to her successor to the crown, whom she appointed to be her nearest kinsman, James of Scotland. After the queen's death, the care and administration of the kingdom devolved upon the lord keeper and the other ministers of state, till the arrival of king James, her successor, from Scotland, who, by his sign manual, dated at Holy-rood house, 5th of April, 1603, signified to the privy council, that it was his royal pleasure that sir Thomas Egerton should exercise the office of lord keeper till farther orders.

On the 3d of May he waited upon the king at Broxbourne in Hertfordshire, and resigned the great seal to his majesty, who delivered it back again, confirming his office, and commanding him to use it as he had done before. On the 19th of July, king James caused the great seal to be broken, and put a new one into his hands, accompanied with a paper of his own writing, by which he created him "Baron of Ellesmere for his good and faithful services, not only in the administration of justice, but also in council, both to the late queen and himself;" the patent for which title he caused to be dispatched the 21st of the same month. On the 24th, the day before his coronation, he constituted him lord. high chancellor of England, which high and important office of state he supported for more than twelve years, with equal dignity, learning, and impartiality. On the 25th and 26th of November, Henry lord Cobham, and Thomas lord Grey de Wilton, were tried by their peers, the lord chancellor sitting as lord high steward. In 1604, he was, with certain other commissioners, authorized by act of parliament, to bring about an union between England and Scotland, it being the king's desire, that, as the two crowns were united in one person, an union of the nations might be effected by naturalization. But, differences arising between the house of lords and house of commons upon this point of the naturalization of the Scotch, he was one of the lords appointed of the committee of conference between the two houses. The whole of this transaction, and the causes of its failure, are stated at large in the fifth volume of the Parliamentary History. In 1605, he was appointed high steward of the city of Oxford, and in 1609, he was in commission to compound with all those, who, holding lands by knight's service, &c. were to pay the aid for making the king's son a knight.

At the death of Dr. Bancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, who was chancellor of the university of Oxford, on the 2d of Nov. 1610, lord Ellesmere was the next day unanimously elected into that honourable office; and on the 10th, installed in the bishop of Durham's house in London. At this period, that university was in a very flourishing state in point of the number of its members, which amounted to more than 2420; but many of them, and those of the senior part, were tainted with factious principles, both of a civil and religious nature. Convinced how destructive these ideas and principles, inculcated on

the minds of the youth of the university, who were to be called forth to fill the several departments of church and state, would be of the future health and prosperity of the constitution, he bent his earliest attention to eradicate and correct them.

The fame of John Williams, fellow of St. John's college, in Cambridge, as an able scholar and accomplished preacher, came to the ear of the lord chancellor, who sent for him, and about Midsummer 1611, made him his chaplain (the first chancellor since the reformation who had a domestic chaplain); and to this promotion, and the subsequent friendship of his patron, this great prelate, afterwards archbishop of York, was indebted for all his future success. The lord chancellor, indeed, employed on all occasions the ablest servants and coadjutors, and his affection made choice of the most honourable and valuable friends. Besides the archbishop Williams, sir Francis Bacon lord Verulam was honoured by his friendship, and promoted by his favour.

Neither the infirmities of old age, nor the active exertions of a long and laborious life, devoted to the service of their country, are always a privilege which can shelter men from unmerited persecution. On the 19th of January, 1615, the lord chancellor being much indisposed, and now in his seventy-fifth year, a professional attack from that great lawyer the lord chief justice Coke, though unable to damp the firmness of his spirit, threw an additional weight of anxiety upon his mind. Sir Edward Coke had heard and determined a cause at common law, but there was some collusion in the matter; for, the witness that knew, and should have related the truth, was prevailed upon to absent himself, on condition that some person would under

take to excuse his non-appearance. A fellow of the party

undertook it, in a whimsical manner: he went with the witness to a tavern, called for a gallon of sack, and bade him drink; and, leaving him in the act of drinking, went immediately into court. This witness was called for, on whose evidence the issue of the cause depended, when the fellow answered upon oath, "that he left him in such a condition, that, if he continued in it but a quarter of an hour, he was a dead man." This evidence of the witness's incapacity to appear in court lost the cause. The plaintiffs removed it into chancery; and the defendants, having already had judgment at common law, refused to obey the

orders of that court; on which the chancellor, for contempt of court, committed them to prison. They preferred two indictments against his lordship the last day of Hilary term, and he was threatened with a præmunire in the star-chamber upon the statutes 27 Edw. III. and 4 Hen. IV. The lord chancellor being recovered of his indisposition, pursued this affair in Easter Term with great spirit and alacrity; and, it being brought to a hearing before the king as supreme judge of the jurisdiction of courts, he referred the matter to sir Francis Bacon and sir Henry Yelverton, his attorney and solicitor, sir Henry Montague and sir Ranulph Crewe, his serjeants, and Mr. Walter, the prince's attorney, all eminent men in their profession, who, upon a serious consideration of the statutes, and the occasion of making them, and of the precedents since that time, in April 1616 presented the king with their opinions and reasons why they conceived these statutes did not extend to the court of chancery. Consonant to this resolution, his majesty, upon farther advice, gave judgment in July following." That the statute of 27 E. III. ch. 1. and 4 Hen. IV. did not extend to the court of chancery: for the first was enacted against those who sued at Rome, and the latter was designed to settle possessions against disturbances, and not to take away remedy in equity." Upon this, his majesty ordered the case, the certificate, and the transactions thereupon, to be enrolled in the court of chancery *.

The lord chancellor, having repelled, with credit and success, this extraordinary attack, and being recovered from his indisposition, was, on the 12th of May 1616, constituted lord high steward for the trial of Robert earl of Somerset and Frances his wife, for poisoning sir Thomas Overbury, who were both convicted. After their conviction the chancellor resolutely and consistently refused to affix, the great seal to the very extraordinary pardon granted, and already signed by the too indulgent lenity of

The chief point in controversy between lord chancellor Ellesmere and lord chief justice Coke was, whether the Chancery can relieve by subpœna, after a judgment at law in the same matter. Coke on various occasions resisted the equitable interpositions; and during the seventeenth century, the bounds of equitable jurisdiction were often a matter of dispute, but

since 1695 when sir Robert Atkyns published an elaborate treatise agamst the equitable jurisdiction of chancery (which produced no effect), that jurisdiction, as well after as before judgment, has been uniformly exercised without controversy or interruption.-Part of a long note on the subject by Mr. Hargrave in Biog. Brit. val. V. P. 574.