Whilst Sir Thomas More lived in Bucklersbury, he "gained, without grief, not so little as £400 by the year." This income doubtless accrued from the emoluments of his judicial appointment in the City, as well as from his practice at Westminster and elsewhere. In Henry VIII.'s time it was a very considerable income, such as was equalled by few leaders of the bar not holding high office under the Crown.
In Elizabeth's reign, and during the time of her successor, barristers' fees show a tendency toward increase; and the lawyers who were employed as advocates for the Crown, or held judicial appointments, acquired princely incomes, and in some cases amassed large fortunes. Fees of 20s.were more generally paid to counsel under the virgin queen, than in the days of her father; but still half that fee was not thought too small a sum for an opinion given by Her Majesty's Solicitor General. Indeed, the ten-shilling fee was a very usual fee in Elizabeth's reign; and it long continued an ordinary payment for one opinion on a case, or for one speech in a cause of no great importance and of few difficulties. 'A barrister is like Balaam's ass, only speaking when he sees the angel,' was a familiar saying in the seventeenth century. In Chancery, however, by an ordinance of the Lords Commissioners passed in 1654, to regulate the conduct of suits and the payments to masters, counsel, and solicitors, it was arranged that on the hearing of a cause, utter-barristers should receive £1 fees, whilst the Lord Protector's counsel and sergeants-at-law should receive £2 fees,i.e., 'double fees.'
The archives of Lyme Regis show that under Elizabeth the usage was maintained of supplying counsel with delicacies of the table, and also of providing them with means of locomotion. Here are some items in an old record of disbursements made by the corporation of Lyme Regis:—"A.D.Paid for Wine carried with us to Mr. Poulett—£0 3s.6d.; Wine and sugar given to Mr. Poulett, £0 3s.4d.; Horse-hire, and for the Sergeant to ride to Mr. Walrond, of Bovey, and for a loaf of sugar, and for conserves given there to Mr. Poppel, £1 1s.0d.; Wine and sugar given to Judge Anderson, £0 3s.4d.A bottle and sugar given to Mr. Gibbs (a lawyer)."
Under Elizabeth, the allowance made to Queen's Sergeants was £26 6s.8d.for fee, reward, and robes; and £20. for his services whenever a Queen's Sergeant travelled circuit as Justice of Assize. The fee for her Solicitor General was £50. When Francis Bacon was created King's Counsel to James I., an annual salary of forty pounds was assigned to him from the royal purse; and down to William IV.'s time, King's Counsel received a stipend of £40 a year, and an allowance for stationery. Under the last mentioned monarch, however, the stipend and allowance were both withdrawn; and at present the status of a Q.C. is purely an affair of professional precedence, to which no fixed emolument is attached.
But a list of the fees, paid from the royal purse to each judge or crown lawyer under James I., would afford no indication as to the incomes enjoyed by the leading members of the bench and bar at that period. The salaries paid to those officers were merely retaining fees, and their chief remuneration consisted of a large number of smaller fees. Like the judges of prior reigns, King James's judges were forbidden to acceptpresentsfrom actual suitors; but no suitor could obtain a hearing from any one of them, until he had paid into court certain fees, of which the fattest was a sum of money for the judge's personal use. At one time many persons labored under an erroneous impression, that as judges were forbidden to accept presents from actual suitors, the honest judge of past times had no revenue besides his specified salary and allowance. Like the king's judges, the king's counsellors frequently made great incomes by fees, though their nominal salaries were invariably insignificant. At a time when Francis Bacon was James's Attorney General, and received no more than £81 6s.8d.for his yearly salary, he made £6000 per annum in his profession; and of that income—a royal income in those days—the greater portion consisted of fees paid to him for attending to the king's business. "I shall now," Bacon wrote to the king, "again make oblation to your Majesty,—first of my heart, then of my service; thirdly, of my place of Attorney, which I think is honestly worth £6000 per annum; and fourthly, of my place in the Star Chamber, which is worth £1600 per annum, and with the favor and countenance of a Chancellor, much more." Coke had made a still larger income during his tenure of the Attorney's place, the fees from his private official practice amounting to no loss a sum than seven thousand pounds in a single year.
At later periods of the seventeenth century barristers made large incomes, but the fees seem to have been by no means exorbitant. Junior barristers received very modest payments, and it would appear that juniors received fees from eminent counsel for opinions and other professional services. Whilst he acted as treasurer of the Middle Temple, at an early period of his career, Whitelock received a fee from Attorney General Noy. "Upon my carrying the bill," writes Whitelock, "to Mr. Attorney General Noy for his signature, with that of the other benchers, he was pleased to advise with me about a patent the king had commanded him to draw, upon which he gave me a fee for it out of his little purse, saying, 'Here, take those single pence,' which amounted to eleven groats, 'and I give you more than an attorney's fee, because you will be a better man than the Attorney General. This you will find to be true.' After much other drollery, wherein he delighted and excelled, we parted, abundance of company attending to speak to him all this time." Of course the payment itself was no part of the drollery to which Whitelock alludes, for as a gentleman he could not have taken money proffered to him in jest, unless etiquette encouraged him to look for it, and allowed him to accept it. The incident justifies the inference that the services of junior counsel to senior barristers—services at the present time termed 'devilling'—were formerly remunerated with cash payments.
Toward the close of Charles I.'s reign—at a time when political distractions were injuriously affecting the legal profession, especially the staunch royalists of the long robe—Maynard, the Parliamentary lawyer, received on one round of the Western Circuit, £700, "which," observes Whitelock, to whom Maynard communicated the fact, "I believe was more than any one of our profession got before."
Concerning the incomes made by eminent counsel in Charles II.'s time, manydataare preserved in diaries and memoirs. That a thousand a year was looked upon as a good income for a flourishing practitioner of the 'merry monarch's' Chancery bar, may be gathered from a passage in 'Pepys's Diary,' where the writer records the compliments paid to him regarding his courageous and eloquent defence of the Admiralty, before the House of Commons, in March, 1668. Under the influence of half-a-pint of mulled sack and a dram of brandy, the Admiralty clerk made such a spirited and successful speech in behalf of his department, that he was thought to have effectually silenced all grumblers against the management of his Majesty's navy. Compliments flowed in upon the orator from all directions. Sir William Coventry pledged his judgment that the fame of the oration would last for ever in the Commons; silver-tongued Sir Heneage Finch, in the blandest tones, averred that no other living man could have made so excellent a speech; the placemen of the Admiralty vied with each other in expressions of delight and admiration; and one flatterer, whose name is not recorded, caused Mr. Pepys infinite pleasure by saying that the speaker who had routed the accusers of a government office, might easily earn a thousand a year at the Chancery bar.
That sum, however, is insignificant when it is compared with the incomes made by the most fortunate advocates of that period. Eminent speakers of the Common Law Bar made between £2000 and £3500 per annum on circuit and at Westminster, without the aid of king's business; and still larger receipts were recorded in the fee-books of his Majesty's attorneys and solicitors. At the Chancery bar of the second Charles, there was at least one lawyer, who in one year made considerably more than four times the income that was suggested to Pepys's vanity and self-complacence. At Stanford Court, Worcestershire, is preserved a fee-book kept by Sir Francis Winnington, Solicitor-General to the 'merry monarch,' from December 1674 to January 13, 1679, from the entries of which record the reader may form a tolerably correct estimate of the professional revenues of successful lawyers at that time. In Easter Term, 1671, Sir Francis pocketed £459; in Trinity Term £449 10s.; in Michaelmas Term £521; and in Hilary Term 1672, £361 10s.; the income for the year being £1791, without his earnings on the Oxford Circuit and during vacation. In 1673, Sir Francis received £3371; in 1674, he earned £3560;[8]and in 1675—i.e., the first year of his tenure of the Solicitor's office—his professional income wars £4066, of which sum £429 were office fees. Concerning the Attorney-General's receipts about this time, we have sufficient information from Roger North, who records that his brother, whilst Attorney General, made nearly seven thousand pounds in one year, from private and official business. It is noteworthy that North, as Attorney General, made the same income which Coke realized in the same office at the commencement of the century. But under the Stuarts this large income of £7000—in those days a princely revenue—was earned by work so perilous and fruitful of obloquy, that even Sir Francis, who loved money and cared little for public esteem, was glad to resign the post of Attorney and retire to the Pleas with £4000 a year. That the fees of the Chancery lawyers under Charles II. were regulated upon a liberal scale we know from Roger North, and the record of Sir John King's success. Speaking of his brother Francis, the biographer says: "After he, as king's counsel, came within the bar, he began to have calls into the Court of Chancery; which he liked very well, because the quantity of the business,as well as the fees, was greater; but his home was the King's Bench, where he sat and reported like as other practitioners." And in Sir John King's memoirs it is recorded that in 1676 he made £4700, and that he received from £40 to £50 a day during the last four days of his appearance in court. Dying in 1677,[9]whilst his supremacy in his own court was at its height, Sir John King was long spoken of as a singularly successful Chancery barrister.
Of Francis North's mode of taking and storing his fees, the 'Life of Lord Keeper Guildford' gives the following picture: "His business increased, even while he was Solicitor, to be so much as to have overwhelmed one less dexterous; but when he was made Attorney General, though his gains by his office were great, they were much greater by his practice; for that flowed in upon him like an orage, enough to overset one that had not an extraordinary readiness in business. His skull-caps, which he wore when he had leisure to observe his constitution, as I touched before, were now destined to lie in a drawer to receive the money that came in by fees. One had the gold, another the crowns and half-crowns, and another the smaller money. When these vessels were full, they were committed to his friend (the Hon. Roger North), who was constantly near him, to tell out the cash, and put it into the bags according to the contents; and so they went to his treasurers, Blanchard and Child, goldsmiths, Temple Bar."[10]In the days of wigs, skull-caps like those which Francis North used as receptacles for money, were very generally worn by men of all classes and employments. On returning to the privacy of his home, a careful citizen usually laid aside his costly wig, and replaced it with a cheap and durable skull-cap, before he sat down in his parlor. So also, men careful of their health often wore skull-capsundertheir wigs, on occasions when they were required to endure a raw atmosphere without the protection of their beavers. In days when the law-courts were held in the open hall of Westminster, and lawyers practising therein, were compelled to sit or speak for hours together, exposed to sharp currents of cold air, it was customary for wearers of the long robe to place between their wigs and natural hair closely-fitting caps, made of stout silk or soft leather. But more interesting than the money-caps, are the fees which they contained. The ringing of the gold pieces, the clink of the crowns with the half-crowns, and the rattle of the smaller money, led back the barrister to those happier and remote times, when the 'inferior order' of the profession paid the superior order with 'money down;' when, the advocate never opened his mouth till his fingers had closed upon the gold of his trustful client; when 'credit' was unknown in transactions between counsel and attorney;—that trulygoldenage of the bar, when the barrister was less suspicious of the attorney, and the attorney held less power over the barrister.
Having profited by the liberal payments of Chancery whilst he was an advocate, Lord Keeper Guildford destroyed one source of profit to counsel from which Francis North, the barrister, had drawn many a capful of money. Saith Roger, "He began to rescind all motions for speeding and delaying the hearing of causes besides the ordinary rule of court; and this lopped off a limb of the motion practice. I have heard Sir John Churchill, a famous Chancery practitioner, say, that in his walk from Lincoln's Inn down to the Temple Hall, where, in the Lord Keeper Bridgman's time, causes and motions out of term were heard, he had taken £28. with breviates only for motions and defences for hastening and retarding hearings. His lordship said, that the rule of the court allowed time enough for any one to proceed or defend; and if, for special reasons, he should give way to orders for timing matters, it would let in a deluge of vexatious pretenses, which, true or false, being asserted by the counsel with equal assurance, distracted the court and confounded the suitors."
Let due honor be rendered to one Caroline, lawyer, who was remarkable for his liberality to clients, and carelessness of his own pecuniary interests. From his various biographers, many pleasant stories may be gleaned concerning Hale's freedom from base love of money. In his days, and long afterward, professional etiquette permitted clients and counsel to hold intercourse without the intervention of an attorney. Suitors, therefore, frequently addressed him personally and paid for his advice with their own hands, just as patients are still accustomed to fee their doctors. To these personal applicants, and also to clients who approached him by their agents, he was very liberal. "When those who came to ask his counsel gave him a piece, he used to give back the half, and to make ten shillings his fee in ordinary matters that did not require much time or study." From this it may be inferred that whilst Hale was an eminent member of the bar, twenty shillings was the usual fee to a leading counsel, and an angel the customary honorarium to an ordinary practitioner. As readers have already been told, the angel[11]was a common fee in the seventeenth century; but the story of Hale's generous usage implies that his more distinguished contemporaries were wont to look for and accept a double fee. Moreover, the anecdote would not be told in Hale's honor, if etiquette had fixed the double fee as the minimum of remuneration for a superior barrister's opinion. He was frequently employed in arbitration cases, and as an arbitrator he steadily refused payment for his services to legal disputants, saying, in explanation of his moderation, "In these cases I am made a judge, and a judge ought to take no money." The misapprehension as to the nature of an arbitrator's functions, displayed in these words, gives an instructive insight into the mental constitution of the judge who wrote on natural science, and at the same time exerted himself to secure the conviction of witches. A more pleasant and commendable illustration of his conscientiousness in pecuniary matters, is found in the steadiness with which he refused to throw upon society the spurious coin which he had taken from his clients. In a tone of surprise that raises a smile at the average morality of our forefathers, Bishop Burnet tells of Hale: "Another remarkable instance of his justice and goodness was, that when he found ill money had been put into his hands, he would never suffer it to be vented again; for he thought it was no excuse for him to put false money in other people's hands, because some had put it into his. A great heap of this he had gathered together, for many had so abused his goodness as to mix base money among the fees that were given him." In this particular case, the judge's virtue was its own reward. His house being entered by burglars, this accumulation of bad money attracted the notice of the robbers, who selected it from a variety of goods and chattels, and carried it off under the impression that it was the lawyer's hoarded treasure. Besides large sums expended on unusual acts of charity, this good man habitually distributed amongst the poor a tithe of his professional earnings.
In the seventeenth century, General Retainers were very common, and the counsel learned in the law, were ready to accept them from persons of low extraction and questionable repute. Indeed, no upstart deemed himself properly equipped for a campaign at court, until he had recorded a fictitious pedigree at the Herald's College, taken a barrister as well as a doctor into regular employment, and hired a curate to say grace daily at his table. In the summer of his vile triumph, Titus Oates was attended, on public occasions, by a robed counsel and a physician.
[8]In his 'Survey of the State of England in 1685,' Macauley—giving one of those misleading references with which his history abounds—says: "A thousand a year was thought a large income for a barrister. Two thousand a year was hardly to be made in the Court of King's Bench, except by crown lawyers." Whilst making the first statement, he doubtless remembered the passage in 'Pepys's Diary.' For the second statement, he refers to 'Layton's Conversation with Chief Justice Hale.' It is fair to assume that Lord Macauley had never seen Sir Francis Winnington's fee-book.
[8]In his 'Survey of the State of England in 1685,' Macauley—giving one of those misleading references with which his history abounds—says: "A thousand a year was thought a large income for a barrister. Two thousand a year was hardly to be made in the Court of King's Bench, except by crown lawyers." Whilst making the first statement, he doubtless remembered the passage in 'Pepys's Diary.' For the second statement, he refers to 'Layton's Conversation with Chief Justice Hale.' It is fair to assume that Lord Macauley had never seen Sir Francis Winnington's fee-book.
[9]In the fourth day of his fever, he being att the Chancery Bar, he fell so ill of the fever, that he was forced to leave the Court and come to his chambers in the Temple, with one of his clerks, which constantly wayted on him and carried his bags of writings for his pleadings, and there told him that he should return to every clyent his breviat and his fee, for he could serve them no longer, for he had done with this world, and thence came home to his house in Salisbury Court, and took his bed.... And there he sequestered himself to meditation between God and his own soul, without the least regret, and quietly and patiently contented himself with the will of God.—Vide Memoir of Sir John King, Knt., written by his Father.
[9]In the fourth day of his fever, he being att the Chancery Bar, he fell so ill of the fever, that he was forced to leave the Court and come to his chambers in the Temple, with one of his clerks, which constantly wayted on him and carried his bags of writings for his pleadings, and there told him that he should return to every clyent his breviat and his fee, for he could serve them no longer, for he had done with this world, and thence came home to his house in Salisbury Court, and took his bed.... And there he sequestered himself to meditation between God and his own soul, without the least regret, and quietly and patiently contented himself with the will of God.—Vide Memoir of Sir John King, Knt., written by his Father.
[10]The lawyers of the seventeenth century were accustomed to make a show of their fees to the clients who called upon them. Hudibras's lawyer (Hud., Part iii. cant. 3) is described as sitting in state with his books and money before him:"To this brave man the knight repairsFor counsel in his law affairs,And found him mounted in his pew,With books and money placed for shew,Like nest-eggs, to make clients lay,And for his false, opinion pay:To whom the knight, with comely grace,Put off his hat to put his case,Which he as proudly entertain'dAs the other courteously strain'd;And to assure him 'twas not thatHe looked for, bid him put on's hat."Under Victoria, the needy junior is compelled, for the sake of appearances, to furnish his shelves with law books, and cover his table with counterfeit briefs. Under the Stuarts, he placed a bowl of spurious money amongst the sham papers that lay upon his table.
[10]The lawyers of the seventeenth century were accustomed to make a show of their fees to the clients who called upon them. Hudibras's lawyer (Hud., Part iii. cant. 3) is described as sitting in state with his books and money before him:
"To this brave man the knight repairsFor counsel in his law affairs,And found him mounted in his pew,With books and money placed for shew,Like nest-eggs, to make clients lay,And for his false, opinion pay:To whom the knight, with comely grace,Put off his hat to put his case,Which he as proudly entertain'dAs the other courteously strain'd;And to assure him 'twas not thatHe looked for, bid him put on's hat."
Under Victoria, the needy junior is compelled, for the sake of appearances, to furnish his shelves with law books, and cover his table with counterfeit briefs. Under the Stuarts, he placed a bowl of spurious money amongst the sham papers that lay upon his table.
[11]In the 'Serviens ad Legem,' Mr. Sergeant Manning raises question concerning the antiquity ofguineasand half-guineas, with the following remarks:—"Should any cavil be raised against this jocular allusion, on the ground that guineas and half-guineas were unknown to sergeants who flourished in the sixteenth century, the objector might be reminded, that in antique records, instances occur in which the 'guianois d'or,' issued from the ducal mint at Bordeaux, by the authority of the Plantagenet sovereigns of Guienne, were by the same authority, made current among their English subjects; and it might be suggested that those who have gone to the coast of Africa for the origin of the modern guinea, need not have carried their researches beyond the Bay of Biscay.Quære, whether the Guinea Coast itself may not owe its name to the 'guianois d'or' for which it furnished the raw material."
[11]In the 'Serviens ad Legem,' Mr. Sergeant Manning raises question concerning the antiquity ofguineasand half-guineas, with the following remarks:—"Should any cavil be raised against this jocular allusion, on the ground that guineas and half-guineas were unknown to sergeants who flourished in the sixteenth century, the objector might be reminded, that in antique records, instances occur in which the 'guianois d'or,' issued from the ducal mint at Bordeaux, by the authority of the Plantagenet sovereigns of Guienne, were by the same authority, made current among their English subjects; and it might be suggested that those who have gone to the coast of Africa for the origin of the modern guinea, need not have carried their researches beyond the Bay of Biscay.Quære, whether the Guinea Coast itself may not owe its name to the 'guianois d'or' for which it furnished the raw material."
RETAINERS GENERAL AND SPECIAL.
Pemberton's fees for his services in behalf of the Seven Bishops show that the most eminent counsel of his time were content with very modest remuneration for advice and eloquence. From the bill of an attorney employed in that famous trial, it appears that the ex-Chief Justice was paid a retaining-fee of five guineas, and received twenty guineas with his brief. He also pocketed three guineas for a consultation. At the present date, thirty times the sum of these paltry payments would be thought an inadequate compensation for such zeal, judgment, and ability as Francis Pemberton displayed in the defence of his reverend clients.
But, though lawyers were paid thus moderately in the seventeenth century, the complaints concerning their avarice and extortions were loud and universal. This public discontent was due to the inordinate exactions of judges and place-holders rather than to the conduct of barristers and attorneys; but popular displeasure seldom cares to discriminate between the blameless and the culpable members of an obnoxious system, or to distinguish between the errors of ancient custom and the qualities of those persons who are required to carry out old rules. Hence the really honest and useful practitioners of the law endured a full share of the obloquy caused by the misconduct of venal justices and corrupt officials. Counsel, attorneys, and even scriveners came in for abuse. It was averred that they conspired to pick the public pocket; that eminent conveyancers not less than copying clerks, swelled their emoluments by knavish tricks. They would talk for the mere purpose of protracting litigation, injure their clients by vexations and bootless delays, and do their work so that they might be fed for doing it again. Draughtsmen find their clerks wrote loosely and wordily, because they were paid by the folio. "A term," writes the quaint author of 'Saint Hillaries Teares,' in 1642, "so like a vacation; the prime court, the Chancery (wherein the clerks had wont to dash their clients out of countenance with long dashes); the examiners to take the depositions in hyperboles, and roundaboutRobinhoodcircumstances withsaidsandaforesaids, to enlarge the number of sheets." 'Hudibras' contains, amongst other pungent satires against the usages of lawyers, an allusion to this characteristic custom of legal draughtsmen, who being paid by the sheet, were wont
"To make 'twixt words and lines large gaps,Wide as meridians in maps;To squander paper and spare ink,Or cheat men of their words some think."
In the following century the abuses consequent on the objectionable system of folio-payment were noticed in a parliamentary report (bearing date November 8, 1740), which was the most important result of an ineffectual attempt to reform the superior courts of law and to lessen the expenses of litigation.
More is known about the professional receipts of lawyers since the Revolution of 1688 than can be discovered concerning the incomes of their precursors in Westminster Hall. For six years, commencing with Michaelmas Term, 1719, Sir John Cheshire, King's Sergeant, made an average annual income of 3241l.Being then sixty-three years of age, he limited his practice to the Common Pleas, and during the next six years made in that one court 1320l.per annum. Mr. Foss, to whom the present writer is indebted for these particulars with regard to Sir John Cheshire's receipts, adds: "The fees of counsel's clerks form a great contrast with those that are now demanded, being only threepence on a fee of half-a-guinea, sixpence for a guinea, and one shilling for two guineas." Of course the increase of clerk's fees tells more in favor of the master than the servant. At the present time the clerk of a barrister in fairly lucrative practice costs his master nothing. Bountifully paid by his employer's clients, he receives no salary from the counsellor whom he serves; whereas, in old times, when his fees were fixed at the low rate just mentioned, the clerk could not live and maintain a family upon them, unless his master belonged to the most successful grade of his order.
Horace Walpole tells his readers that Charles Yorke "was reported to have received 100,000 guineas in fees;" but his fee-book shows that his professional rise was by no means so rapid as those who knew him in his sunniest days generally supposed. The story of his growing fortunes is indicated in the following statement of successive incomes:—1st year of practice at the bar, 121l.2nd, 201l.; 3rd and 4th, between 300l.and 400l.per annum; 5th, 700l.; 6th, 800l.; 7th, 1000l.; 9th, 1600l.; 10th, 2500l.Whilst Solicitor General he made 3400l.in 1757; and in the following year he earned 5000l.His receipts during the last year of his tenure of the Attorney Generalship amounted to 7322l.The reader should observe that as Attorney General he made but little more than Coke had realized in the same office,—a fact serving to show how much better paid were Crown lawyers in times when they held office like judges during the Sovereign's pleasure, than in these latter days when they retire from place together with their political parties.
The difference between the incomes of Scotch advocates and English barristers was far greater in the eighteenth century than at the present time, although in our own day the receipts of several second-rate lawyers of the Temple and Lincoln's Inn far surpass the revenues of the most successful advocates of the Edinburgh faculty. A hundred and thirty years since a Scotch barrister who earned 500l.per annum by his profession was esteemed notably successful.
Just as Charles Yorke's fee-book shows us the pecuniary position of an eminent English barrister in the middle of the last century, John Scott's list of receipts displays the prosperity of a very fortunate Crown lawyer in the next generation. Without imputing motives the present writer, may venture to say that Lord Eldon's assertions with regard to his earnings at the bar, and his judicial incomes, were not in strict accordance with the evidence of his private accounts. He used to say that his first year's earnings in his profession amounted to half-a-guinea, but there is conclusive proof that he had a considerable quantity of lucrative business in the same year. "When I was called to the bar," it was his humor to say, "Bessie and I thought all our troubles were over, business was to pour in, and we were to be rich almost immediately. So I made a bargain with her that during the following year all the money I should receive in the first eleven months should be mine, and whatever I should get in the twelfth month should be hers. That was our agreement, and how do you think it turned out? In the twelfth month I received half-a-guinea—eighteenpence went for charity, and Bessy got nine shillings. In the other eleven months I got one shilling." John Scott, be it remembered, was called to the bar on February 9, 1776, and on October 2, of the same year, William Scott wrote to his brother Henry—"My brother Jack seems highly pleased with his circuit business. I hope it is only the beginning of future triumphs. All appearances speak strongly in his favor." There is no need to call evidence to show that Eldon's success was more than respectable from the outset of his career, and that he had not been called many years before he was in the foremost rank of his profession. His fee-book gives the following account of his receipts in thirteen successive years:—1786, 6833l.7s.; 1787, 7600l.7s.; 1788, 8419l.14s.; 1789, 9559l.10s.; 1790, 9684l.15s.; 1791, 10,213l.13s.6d.; 1792, 9080l.9s.; 1793, 10,330l.1s.4d.; 1794, 11,592l.; 1795, 11,149l.15s.4d.; 1796, 12,140l.15s.8d.; 1797, 10,861l.5s.8d; 1798, 10,557l.17s.During the last six of the above-mentioned years he was Attorney General, and during the preceding four years Solicitor General.
Although General Retainers are much less general than formerly, they are by no means obsolete. Noblemen could be mentioned who at the present time engage counsel with periodical payments, special fees of course being also paid for each professional service. But the custom is dying out, and it is probable that after the lapse of another hundred years it will not survive save amongst the usages of ancient corporations. Notice has already been taken of Murray's conduct when he returned nine hundred and ninety-five out of a thousand guineas to the Duchess of Marlborough, informing her that the professional fee with the general retainer was neither more nor less than five guineas. The annual salary of a Queen's Counsel in past times was in fact a fee with a general retainer; but this periodic payment is no longer made to wearers of silk.
In his learned work on 'The Judges of England,' Mr. Foss observes: "The custom of retaining counsel in fee lingered in form, at least in one ducal establishment. By a formal deed-poll between the proud Duke of Somerset and Sir Thomas Parker, dated July 19, 1707, the duke retains him as his 'standing counsell in ffee,' and gives and allows him 'the yearly ffee of four markes, to be paid by my solicitor' at Michaelmas, 'to continue during my will and pleasure.'" Doubtless Mr. Foss is aware that this custom still 'lingers in form;' but the tone of his words justifies the opinion that he underrates the frequency with which general retainers are still given. The 'standing counsel' of civic and commercial companies are counsel with general retainers, and usually their general retainers have fees attached to them.
The payments of English barristers have varied much more than the remunerations of English physicians. Whereas medical practitioners in every age have received a certain definite sum for each consultation, and have been forbidden by etiquette to charge more or less than the fixed rate, lawyers have been allowed much freedom in estimating the worth of their labor. This difference between the usages of the two professions is mainly due to the fact, that the amount of time and mental effort demanded by patients at each visit or consultation is very nearly the same in all cases, whereas the requirements of clients are much more various. To get up the facts of a law-case may be the work of minutes, or hours, or days, or even weeks; to observe the symptoms of a patient, and to write a prescription, can be always accomplished within the limits of a short morning call. In all times, however, the legal profession has adopted certain scales of payment—that fixed theminimumof remuneration, but left the advocate free to get more, as circumstances might encourage him to raise his demands. Of the many good stories told of artifices by which barristers have delicately intimated their desire for higher payment, none is better than an anecdote recorded of Sergeant Hill. A troublesome case being laid before this most erudite of George III.'s sergeants, he returned it with a brief note, that he "saw more difficulty in the case than,under all the circumstances, he could well solve." As the fee marked upon the case was only a guinea, the attorney readily inferred that its smallness was one of the circumstances which occasioned the counsel's difficulty. The case, therefore, was returned, with a fee of two guineas. Still dissatisfied, Sergeant Hill wrote that "he saw no reason to change his opinion."
By the etiquette of the bar no barrister is permitted to take a brief on any circuit, save that on which he habitually practises, unless he has received a special retainer; and no wearer of silk can be specially retained with a less fee than three hundred guineas. Erskine's first special retainer was in the Dean of St. Asaph's case, his first speech in which memorable cause was delivered when he had been called to the bar but little more than five years. From that time till his elevation to the bench he received on an average twelve special retainers a year, by which at the minimum of payment he made £3600 per annum. Besides being lucrative and honorable, this special employment greatly augmented his practice in Westminster Hall, as it brought him in personal contact with attorneys in every part of the country, and heightened his popularity amongst all classes of his fellow-countrymen. In 1786 he entirely withdrew from ordinary circuit practice, and confined his exertions in provincial courts to the causes for which he was specially retained. No advocate since his time has received an equal number of special retainers; and if he did not originate the custom of special retainers,[12]he was the first English barrister who ventured to reject all other briefs.
There is no need to recapitulate all the circumstances of Erskine's rapid rise in his profession—a rise due to his effective brilliance and fervor in political trial: but this chapter on lawyers' fees would be culpably incomplete, if it failed to notice some of its pecuniary consequences. In the eighth month after his call to the bar he thanked Admiral Keppel for a splendid fee of one thousand pounds. A few years later a legal gossip wrote: "Everybody says that Erskine will be Solicitor General, and if he is, and indeed whether he is or not, he will have had the most rapid rise that has been known at the bar. It is four years and a half since he was called, and in that time he has cleared £8000 or £9000, besides paying his debts—got a silk gown, and business of at least £3000 a year—a seat in Parliament—and, over and above, has made his brother Lord Advocate."
Merely to mention large fees without specifying the work by which they were earned would mislead the reader. During the railway mania of 1845, the few leaders of the parliamentary bar received prodigious fees; and in some cases the sums were paid for very little exertion. Frequently it happened that a lawyer took heavy fees in causes, at no stage of which he either made a speech or read a paper in the service of his too liberal employers. During that period of mad speculation the committee-rooms of the two Houses were an El Dorado to certain favored lawyers, who were alternately paid for speech andsilencewith reckless profusion. But the time was so exceptional, that the fees received and the fortunes made in it by a score of lucky advocates and solicitors cannot be fairly cited as facts illustrating the social condition of legal practitioners. As a general rule, it may be stated that large fortunes are not made at the bar by large fees. Our richest lawyers have made the bulk of their wealth by accumulating sufficient but not exorbitant payments. In most cases the large fee has not been a very liberal remuneration for the work done. Edward Law's retainer for the defence of Warren Hastings brought with it £500—a sum which caused our grandfathers to raise their hands in astonishment at the nabob's munificence; but the sum was in reality the reverse of liberal. In all, Warren Hastings paid his leading advocate considerably less than four thousand pounds; and if Law had not contrived to win the respect of solicitors by his management of the defence, the case could not be said to have paid him for his trouble. So also the eminent advocate, who in the great case of Smallv.Attwood received a fee of £6000, was actually underpaid. When he made up the account of the special outlay necessitated by that cause, and the value of business which the burdensome case compelled him to decline, he had small reason to congratulate himself on his remuneration.
A statement of the incomes made by chamber-barristers, and of the sums realized by counsel in departments of the profession that do not invite the attention of the general public, would astonish those uninformed persons who estimate the success of a barrister by the frequency with which his name appears in the newspaper reports of trials and suits. The talkers of the bar enjoy moreéclatthan the barristers who confine themselves to chamber practice, and their labors lead to the honors of the bench; but a young lawyer, bent only on the acquisition of wealth, is more likely to achieve his ambition by conveyancing or arbitration-business than by court-work. Kenyon was never a popular or successful advocate, but he made £3000 a year by answering cases. Charles Abbott at no time of his life could speak better than a vestryman of average ability; but by drawing informations and indictments, by writing opinions on cases, he made the greater part of the eight thousand pounds which he returned as the amount of his professional receipts in 1807. In our own time, when that popular common law advocate, Mr. Edwin James, was omnipotent with juries, his income never equalled the incomes of certain chamber-practitioners whose names are utterly unknown to the general body of English society.
[12]Lord Campbell observes: "Some say that special retainers began with Erskine; but I doubt the fact." It is strange that there should be uncertainty as to the time when special retainers—unquestionably a comparatively recent innovation in legal practice—came into vogue.
[12]Lord Campbell observes: "Some say that special retainers began with Erskine; but I doubt the fact." It is strange that there should be uncertainty as to the time when special retainers—unquestionably a comparatively recent innovation in legal practice—came into vogue.
JUDICIAL CORRUPTION.
To a young student making his first researches beneath the surface of English history, few facts are more painful and perplexing than the judicial corruption which prevailed in every period of our country's growth until quiet recent times—darkening the brightest pages of our annals, and disfiguring some of the greatest chieftains of our race.
Where he narrates the fall and punishment of De Weyland towards the close of the thirteenth century, Speed observes: "While the Jews by their cruel usuries had in one way eaten up the people, the justiciars, like another kind of Jews, had ruined them with delay in their suits, and enriched themselves with wicked convictions." Of judicial corruption in the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. a vivid picture is given in a political ballad, composed in the time of one or the other of those monarchs. Of this poem Mr. Wright, in his 'Political Songs,' gives a free version, a part of which runs thus:—
"Judges there are whom gifts and favorites control,Content to serve the devil alone and take from him a toll;If nature's law forbids the judge from selling his decree,How dread to those who finger bribes the punishment shall be."Such judges have accomplices whom frequently they sendTo get at those who claim some land, and whisper as a friend,''Tis I can help you with the judge, if you would wish to plead,Give me but half, I'll undertake before him you'll succeed.'"The clerks who sit beneath the judge are open-mouthed as he,As if they were half-famished and gaping for a fee;Of those who give no money they soon pronounce the state,However early they attend, they shall have long to wait."If comes some noble lady, in beauty and in pride,With golden horns upon her head, her suit he'll soon decide;But she who has no charms, nor friends, and is for gifts too poor,Her business all neglected, she's weeping shown the door."But worse than all, within the court we some relators meet,Who take from either side at once, and both their clients cheat;The ushers, too, to poor men say, 'You labor here in vain,Unless you tip us all around, you may go back again.'"The sheriff's hard upon the poor who cannot pay for rest,Drags them about to every town, on all assizes press'dCompell'd to take the oath prescrib'd without objection made,For if they murmur and can't pay, upon their backs they're laid."They enter any private house, or abbey that they choose,Where meat and drink and all things else are given as their dues;And after dinner jewels too, or this were all in vain,Bedels and garçons must receive, and all that form the train."And next must gallant robes be sent as presents to their wives,Or from the manor of the host some one his cattle drives;While he, poor man, is sent to gaol upon some false pretence,And pays at last at double cost, ere he gets free from thence."I can't but laugh to see their clerks, whom once I knew in need,When to obtain a bailiwick they may at last succeed;With pride in gait and countenance and with their necks erectThey lands and houses quickly buy and pleasant rents collect."Grown rich they soon the poor despise, and new-made laws display,Oppress their neighbors and become the wise men of their day;Unsparing of the least offence, when they can have their will,The hapless country all around with discontent they fill."
In the fourteenth century judicial corruption was so general and flagrant, that cries came from every quarter for the punishment of offenders. The Knights Hospitallers' Survey, made in the year 1338, gives us revelations that confound the indiscreet admirers of feudal manners. From that source of information it appears that regular stipends were paid to persons "tam in curia domini regis quam justiciariis, clericis, officiariis et aliis ministris, in diversis curiis suis, ac etiam aliis familaribus magnatum tam pro terris tenementis redditbus et libertatibus Hospitalis, quam Templariorum, et maxime pro terris Templariorum manutenendis." Of pensions to the amount of £440 mentioned in the account, £60 were paid to judges, clerks, and minor officers of courts. Robert de Sadington, the Chief Baron, received 40 marks annually; twice a year the Knights Hospitallers presented caps to one hundred and forty officers of the Exchequer; and they expended 200 marksper annumon gifts that were distributed in law courts, "pro favore habendo, et pro placitis habendis, et expensis parliamentorum." In that age, and for centuries later, it was customary for wealthy men and great corporations to make valuable presents to the judges and chief servants the king's courts; but it was always presumed that the offerings were simple expressions of respect—not tribute rendered, "pro favore habendo."
Bent on purifying the moral atmosphere of his courts, Edward III. raised the salaries of his judges, and imposed upon them such oaths that none of their order could pervert justice, or even encourage venal practices, without breaking his solemn vow[13]to the king's majesty.
From the amounts of theroyalfees or stipends paid to Edward III.'s judges, it may be vaguely estimated how far they were dependent on gifts andcourtfees for the means of living with appropriate state. John Knyvet, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, has £40 and 100 marks per annum. The annual fee of Thomas de Ingleby, the solitary puisne judge of the King's Bench at that time, was at first 40 marks; but he obtained an additional £40 when the 'fees' were raised, and he received moreover £20 a year as a judge of assize. The Chief of the Common Pleas, Robert de Thrope, received £40 per annum, payable during his tenure of office, and another annual sum of £40 payable during his life. John de Mowbray, William de Wychingham, and William de Fyncheden, the other judges of the Common Pleas, received 40 marks each as official salary, and £20 per annum for their services at assizes. Mowbray's stipend was subsequently increased by 40 marks, whilst Wychingham and Fyncheden received an additional £40 par annum. To the Chief Baron and the other two Barons of the Exchequer annual fees of 40 marks each were paid, the Chief Baron receiving £20 per annum as Justice of Assize, and one of the puisne Barons, Almaric de Shirland, getting an additional 40 marks for certain special services. The 'Issue Roll of 44 Edward III., 1370,' also shows that certain sergeants-at-law acted as Justices of Assize, receiving for their service £20 per annum.
Throughout his reign Edward III. strenuously exerted himself to purge his law courts of abuses, and to secure his subjects from evils wrought by judicial dishonesty; and though there is reason to think that he prosecuted his reforms, and punished offending judges with more impulsiveness than consistency—with petulance rather than firmness[14]—his action must have produced many beneficial results. But it does not seem to have occurred to him that the system adopted by his predecessors, and encouraged by the usages of his own time, was the real source of the mischief, and that so long as judges received the greater part of their remuneration from suitors, fees and the donations of the public, enactments and proclamations would be comparatively powerless to preserve the streams of justice from pollution. The fee-system poisoned the morality of the law-courts. From the highest judge to the lowest usher, every person connected with a court of justice was educated to receive small sums of money for trifling services, to be always looking out for paltry dues or gratuities, to multiply occasions for demanding, and reasons for pocketing petty coins, to invent devices for legitimate peculation. In time the system produced such complications of custom, right, privilege, claim, that no one could say definitely how much a suitor was actually bound to pay at each stage of a suit. The fees had an equally bad influence on the public. Trained to approach the king's judges with costly presents, to receive them on their visits with lavish hospitality, to send them offerings at the opening of each year, the rich and the poor learnt to look on judicial decisions as things that were bought and sold. In many cases this impression was not erroneous. Judges were forbidden to accept gifts from actual suitors, or to take paymentsforjudgments after their delivery; but on the judgment-seat they were often influenced by recollections of the conduct of suitors whohad beenmunificent before the commencement of proceedings, and most probably would be equally munificent six months after delivery of a judgment favorable to their claims. Humorous anecdotes heightened the significance of patent facts. Throughout a shire it would be told how this suitor won a judgment by a sumptuous feast; how that suitor bought the justice's favor with a flask of rare wine, a horse of excellent breed, a hound of superior sagacity.
In the fifteenth century the judge whose probity did not succumb to an excellent dinner was deemed a miracle of virtue. "A lady," writes Fuller of Chief Justice Markham, who was dismissed from his place in 1470, "would traverse a suit of law against the will of her husband, who was contented to buy his quiet by giving her her will therein, though otherwise persuaded in his judgment the cause would go against her. This lady, dwelling in the shire town, invited the judge to dinner, and (though thrifty enough herself) treated him with sumptuous entertainment. Dinner being done, and the cause being called, the judge gave it against her. And when, in passion, she vowed never to invite the judge again, 'Nay, wife,' said he, 'vow never to invite ajust judgeany more.'" It may be safely affirmed that no English lady of our time ever tried to bribe Sir Alexander Cockburn or Sir Frederick Pollock with a dinnerà la Russe.
By his eulogy of Chief Justice Dyer, who died March 24, 1582, Whetstone gives proof that in Elizabethan England purity was the exception rather than the rule with judges:—
"And when he spake he was in speeche reposde;His eyes did search the simple suitor's harte;To put by bribes his hands were ever closde,His processe juste, he tooke the poore man's parte.He ruld by lawe and listened not to arte,Those foes to truthe—loove, hate, and private gain,Which most corrupt, his conscience could not staine."
There is no reason to suppose that the custom of giving and receiving presents was more general or extravagant in the time of Elizabeth than in previous ages; but the fuller records of her splendid reign give greater prominence to the usage than it obtained in the chronicles of any earlier period of English history. On each New Year's day her courtiers gave her costly presents—jewels, ornaments of gold or silver workmanship, hundreds of ounces of silver-gilt plate, tapestry, laces, satin dresses, embroidered petticoats. Not only did she accept such costly presents from men of rank and wealth, but she graciously received the donations of tradesmen and menials. Francis Bacon made her majesty "a poor oblation of a garment;" Charles Smith, the dustman, threw upon the pile of treasure "two bottes of cambric." The fashion thus countenanced by the queen was followed in all ranks of society; all men, from high to low, receiving presents, as expressions of affection when they came from their equals, as declarations of respect when they came from their social inferiors. Each of her great officers of state drew a handsome revenue from such yearly offerings. But though the burdens and abuses of this system were excessive under Elizabeth, they increased in enormity and number during the reigns of the Stuarts.
That the salaries of the Elizabethan judges were small in comparison with the sums which they received in presents and fees may be seen from the following Table of stipends and allowances annually paid, towards the close of the sixteenth century:—
Prior to and in the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign, the sheriffs had been required to provide diet and lodging for judges travelling on circuit, each sheriff being responsible for the proper entertainment of judges within the limits of his jurisdiction. This arrangement was very burdensome upon the class from which the sheriffs were elected, as the official host had not only to furnish suitable lodging and cheer for the justices themselves, but also to supply the wants of their attendants and servants. The ostentatious and costly hospitality which law and public opinion thus compelled or encouraged them to exercise towards circuiteers of all ranks had seriously embarrassed a great number of country gentlemen; and the queen was assailed with entreaties for a reform that should free a sheriff of small estate from the necessity of either ruining himself, or incurring a reputation for stinginess. In consequence of these urgent representations, an order of council, bearing date February 21, 1574, decided "the justices shall have of her majesty several sums of money out of her coffers for their daily diet." Hence rose the usage of 'circuit allowances.' The sheriffs, however, were still bound to attend upon the judges, and make suitable provision for the safe conduct of the legal functionaries from assize town to assize town;—the sheriff of each county being required to furnish a body-guard for the protection of the sovereign's representatives. This responsibility lasted till the other day, when an innovation (of which Mr. Arcedeckne, of Glevering Hall, Suffolk, was the most notorious, though not the first champion), substituted guards of policemen, paid by county-rates, for bands of javelin-men equipped and rewarded by the sheriffs. In some counties the javelin-men—remote descendants of the mail-clad knights and stalwart men-at-arms who formerly mustered at the summons of sheriffs—still do duty with long wands and fresh rosettes; but they are fast giving way to the wielders of short staves.
Amongst the bad consequences of the system of gratuities was the color which it gave to idle rumors and malicious slander against the purity of upright judges.
When Sir Thomas More fell, charges of bribery were preferred against him before the Privy Council. A disappointed suitor, named Parnell, declared that the Chancellor had been bribed with a gift-cup to decide in favor of his (Parnell's) adversary. Mistress Vaughan, the successful suitor's wife, had given Sir Thomas the cup with her own hands. The fallen Chancellor admitting that "he had received the cup as a New Year's Gift," Lord Wiltshire cried, with unseemly exultation, "Lo! did I not tell you, my lords, that you would find this matter true?" It seemed that More had pleaded guilty, for his oath did not permit him to receive a New Year's Gift from an actual suitor. "But, my lords," continued the accused man, with one of his characteristic smiles, "hear the other part of my tale. After having drunk to her of wine, with which my butler had filled the cup, and when she had pledged me, I restored it to her, and would listen to no refusal." It is possible that Mistress Vaughan did not act with corrupt intention, but merely in ignorance of the rule which forbade the Chancellor to accept her present. As much cannot be said in behalf of Mrs. Croker, who, being opposed in a suit to Lord Arundel, sought to win Sir Thomas More's favor by presenting him with a pair of gloves containing forty angels. With a courteous smile he accepted the gloves, but constrained her to take back the gold. The gentleness of this rebuff is charming; but the story does not tell more in favor of Sir Thomas than to the disgrace of the lady and the moral tone of the society in which she lived.
Readers should bear in mind the part which New Year's Gifts and other customary gratuities played in the trumpery charges against Lord Bacon. Adopting an old method of calumny, the conspirators against his fair fame represented that the gifts made to him, in accordance with ancient usage, were bribes. For instance Reynel's ring, presented on New Year's day, was so construed by the accusers; and in his comment upon the charge, Bacon, who had inadvertently accepted the gift during the progress of a suit, observes, "This ring was received certainlypendente lite, and though it were at New Year's tide, yet it was too great a value for a New Year's Gift, though, as I take it, nothing near the value mentioned in the articles." So also Trevor's gift was a New Year's present, of which Bacon says, "I confess and declare that I received at New Year's tide an hundred pounds from Sir John Trevor, and because it came as a New Year's Gift, I neglected to inquire whether the cause was ended or depending; but since I find that though the cause was then dismissed to a trial at law, yet the equity is reserved, so as it was in that kindpendente lite." Bacon knew that this explanation would be read by men familiar with the history of New Year's Gifts, and all the circumstances of the ancient usage; and it is needless to say that no man of honor thought the less highly of Bacon at that time, because his pure and guiltless acceptance of customary presents was by ingenious and unscrupulous adversaries made to assume an appearance of corrupt compliance.
How far the Chancellors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries depended upon customary gratuities for their revenues may be seen from the facts which show the degree of state which they were required to maintain, and the inadequacy of the ancient fees for the maintenance of that pomp. When Elizabeth pressed Hatton for payment of the sums which he owed her, the Chancellor lamented his inability to liquidate her just claims, and urged in excuse that theancient feeswere very inadequate to the expenses of the Chancellor's office. But though Elizabethan Chancellors could not live upon their ancient fees, they kept up palaces in town and country, fed regiments of lackeys, and surpassed the ancient nobility in the grandeur of their equipages. Egerton—the needy and illegitimate son of a rural knight, a lawyer who fought up from the ranks—not only sustained the costly dignities of office, but left to his descendants a landed estate worth £8000 per annum. Bacon's successor in the 'marble chair,' Lord Keeper Williams, assured Buckingham that in Egerton's time the Chancellor's lawful income was less than three thousand per annum. "The lawful revenue of the office stands thus," wrote Williams, speaking from his intimate knowledge of Ellesmere's affairs, "or not much above it at anytime:—in fines certain, £1300 per annum, or thereabouts; in fines casual, £1250 or thereabouts; in greater writs, £140; for impost of wine, £100—in all, £2790; and these are all the true means of that great office." It is probable that Williams under-stated the revenue, but it is certain that the income, apart from gratuities, was insufficient.
The Chancellor was not more dependent on customary gratuities than the chief of the three Common Law courts. At Westminster and on circuit, whenever he was required to discharge his official functions, the English judge extended his hand for the contributions of the well-disposed. No one thought of blaming judges for their readiness to take customary benevolences. To take gifts was a usage of the profession, and had its parallel in the customs of every calling and rank of life. The clergy took dues in like manner: from the earliest days of feudal life the territorial lords had supplied their wants in the same way; amongst merchants and yeomen, petty traders and servants, the system existed in full force. These presents were made without any secrecy. The aldermen of borough towns openly voted presents to the judges; and the judges received their offerings—not as benefactions, but as legitimate perquisites. In 1620—just a year before Lord Bacon's fall—the municipal council of Lyme Regis left it to the "mayor's discretion" to decide "what gratuity he will give to the Lord Chief Baron and his men" at the next assizes. The system, it is needless to say, had disastrous results. Empowering the chief judge of every court to receive presents not only from the public, but from subordinate judges, inferior officers, and the bar; and moreover empowering each place-holder to take gratuities from persons officially or by profession concerned in the business of the courts, it produced a complicated machinery for extortion. By presents the chief justices bought their places from the crown or a royal favorite; by presents the puisne justices, registrars, counsel bought place or favor from the chief; by presents the attorneys, sub-registrars, and outside public sought to gain their ends with the humbler place-holders. The meanest ushers of Westminster Hall took coins from ragged scriveners. Hence every place was actually bought and sold, the sum being in most cases very high. Sir James Ley offered the Duke of Buckingham £10,000 for the Attorney's place. At the same period the Solicitor General's office was sold for £4000. Under Charles I. matters grew still worse than they had been under his father. When Sir Charles Cæsar consulted Laud about the worth of the vacant Mastership of the Rolls, the archbishop frankly said, "that as things then stood, the place was not likely to go without more money than he thought any wise man would give for it." Disregarding this intimation, Sir Charles paid the king £15,000 for the place, and added a loan of £2000. Sir Thomas Richardson, at the opening of the reign, gave £17,000 for the Chiefship of the Common Pleas. If judges needed gifts before the days when vacant seats were put up to auction, of course they stood all the more in need of them when they bought their promotions with such large sums. It is not wonderful that the wearers of ermine repaid themselves by venal practices. The sale of judicial offices was naturally followed by the sale of judicial decisions. The judges having submitted to the extortions of the king, the public had to endure the extortions of the judges. Corruption on the bench produced corruption at the bar. Counsel bought the attention and compliance of 'the court,' and in some cases sold their influence with shameless rascality. They would take fees to speak from one side in a cause and fees to be silent from the other side—selling their own clients as coolly as judges sold the suitors of their courts. Sympathizing with the public, and stung by personal experience of legal dishonesty, the clergy sometimes denounced from the pulpit the extortions of corrupt judges and unprincipled barristers. The assize sermons of Charles I.'s reign were frequently seasoned with such animadversions. At Thetford Assizes, March, 1630, the Rev. Mr. Ramsay, in the assize-sermon, spoke indignantly of judges who "favored causes," and of "counsellors who took fees to be silent." In the summer of 1631, at the Bury Assizes, "one Mr. Scott made a sore sermon in discovery of corruption in judges and others." At Norwich, the same authority, viz., 'Sir John Rous's Diary,' informs us—"Mr. Greene was more plaine, insomuch that Judge Harvey, in his charge, broke out thus: 'It seems by the sermon that we are corrupt, but we know that we can use conscience in our places as well as the best clergieman of all.'"
In his 'Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale,' Bishop Burnet tells a good story of the Chief's conduct with regard to a customary gift. "It is also a custom," says the biographer, "for the Marshall of the King's Bench to present the judges of that court with a piece of plate for a New Year's Gift, that for the Chief Justice being larger than the rest. This he intended to have refused, but the other judges told him it belonged to his office, and the refusing it would be a prejudice to his successors; so he was persuaded to take it, but he sent word to the marshall, that instead of plate he should bring him the value of it in money, and when he received it, he immediately sent it to the prisons for the relief and discharge of the poor there."