That reform has reduced the depositaries for wills in this country from nearly 400 to 40.It has brought complicated testamentary proceedings into a system governed by one vigilant court.It has relieved the public anxiety respecting "the doom of English wills" by placing them in the custody of responsible men.It has thrown open the courts of law to the entire legal profession.It has given the public the right to prove wills or obtain letters of administration without professional assistance.It has given to literary men an interesting field for research.It has provided that which ancient Rome is said to have possessed, but which London did not possess—viz., a place of deposit for the wills of living persons.It has extended the English favourite mode of trial—viz., trial by jury—by admitting jurors to try the validity of wills and questions of divorce.It has made divorce not a matter of wealth but of justice: the wealthy and the poor alike now only require a clear case and "no collusion."It has enabled the humblest wife to obtain a "protection order" for her property against an unprincipled husband.It has afforded persons wanting to establish legitimacy, the validity of marriages, and the right to be deemed natural born subjects, the means of so doing.Amongst its minor benefits it has enabled persons needing copies of wills which have been proved since January, 1858, in any part of the country, to obtain them from the principal registry of the Court of Probate in Doctors' Commons.
That reform has reduced the depositaries for wills in this country from nearly 400 to 40.
It has brought complicated testamentary proceedings into a system governed by one vigilant court.
It has relieved the public anxiety respecting "the doom of English wills" by placing them in the custody of responsible men.
It has thrown open the courts of law to the entire legal profession.
It has given the public the right to prove wills or obtain letters of administration without professional assistance.
It has given to literary men an interesting field for research.
It has provided that which ancient Rome is said to have possessed, but which London did not possess—viz., a place of deposit for the wills of living persons.
It has extended the English favourite mode of trial—viz., trial by jury—by admitting jurors to try the validity of wills and questions of divorce.
It has made divorce not a matter of wealth but of justice: the wealthy and the poor alike now only require a clear case and "no collusion."
It has enabled the humblest wife to obtain a "protection order" for her property against an unprincipled husband.
It has afforded persons wanting to establish legitimacy, the validity of marriages, and the right to be deemed natural born subjects, the means of so doing.
Amongst its minor benefits it has enabled persons needing copies of wills which have been proved since January, 1858, in any part of the country, to obtain them from the principal registry of the Court of Probate in Doctors' Commons.
Sir Cresswell Cresswell was appointed Judge of the Probate Court at its commencement. He was likewise the first Judge of the Divorce Court.
The College property—the freehold portion, subject to a yearly rent-charge of £105, and to anannual payment of 5s. 4d., both payable to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's—was put up for sale by auction, in one lot, on November 28, 1862. The place has now been demolished, and the materials have been sold, the site being required in forming the new thoroughfare from Earl Street, Blackfriars, to the Mansion House; the roadway passes directly through the College garden.
Chaucer, in his "Canterbury Tales," gives an unfavourable picture of the old sompnour (or apparitor to the Ecclesiastical Court):—
"A sompnour was ther with us in that place,Thad hadde a fire-red cherubimes face;For sausefleme he was, with eyen narwe.As hote he was, and likerous as a sparwe,With scalled browes blake, and pilled berd;Of his visage children were sore aferd.Ther n'as quiksilver, litarge, ne brimston,Boras, ceruse, ne oile of Tartre non,Ne oinement that wolde clense or bite,That him might helpen of his whelkes white,Ne of the nobbes sitting on his chekes.Wel loved he garlike, onions, and lekes,And for to drinke strong win as rede as blood.Than wold he speke, and crie as he were wood.And when that he wel dronken had the win,Than wold he speken no word but Latin.A fewe termes coude he, two or three,That he had lerned out of some decree;No wonder is, he herd it all the day.And eke ye knowen wel, how that a jayCan clepen watte, as well as can the pope.But who so wolde in other thing him grope,Than hadde he spent all his philosophie,Ay,Questio quid juriswold he crie."
In 1585 there were but sixteen or seventeen doctors; in 1694 that swarm had increased to forty-four. In 1595 there were but five proctors; in 1694 there were forty-three. Yet even in Henry VIII.'s time the proctors were complained of, for being so numerous and clamorous that neither judges nor advocates could be heard. Cranmer, to remedy this evil, attempted to gradually reduce the number to ten, which was petitioned against as insufficient and tending to "delays and prolix suits."
"Doctors' Commons," says Defoe, "was a name very well known in Holland, Denmark, and Sweden, because all ships that were taken during the last wars, belonging to those nations, on suspicion of trading with France, were brought to trial here; which occasioned that sarcastic saying abroad that we have often heard in conversation, that England was a fine country, but a man called Doctors' Commons was a devil, for there was no getting out of his clutches, let one's cause be never so good, without paying a great deal of money."
A writer in Knight's "London" (1843) gives apleasant sketch of the Court of Arches in that year. The Common Hall, where the Court of Arches, the Prerogative Court, the Consistory Court, and the Admiralty Court all held their sittings, was a comfortable place, with dark polished wainscoting reaching high up the walls, while above hung the richly emblazoned arms of learned doctors dead and gone; the fire burned cheerily in the central stove. The dresses of the unengaged advocates in scarlet and ermine, and of the proctors in ermine and black, were picturesque. The opposing advocates sat in high galleries, and the absence of prisoner's dock and jury-box—nay, even of a public—impressed the stranger with a sense of agreeable novelty.
Apropos of the Court of Arches once held in Bow Church. "The Commissary Court of Surrey," says Mr. Jeaffreson, in his "Book about the Clergy," "still holds sittings in the Church of St. Saviour's, Southwark; and any of my London readers, who are at the small pains to visit that noble church during a sitting of the Commissary's Court, may ascertain for himself that, notwithstanding our reverence for consecrated places, we can still use them as chambers of justice. The court, of course, is a spiritual court, but the great, perhaps the greater, part of the business transacted at its sittings is of an essentially secular kind."
The nature of the business in the Court of Arches may be best shown by the brief summary given in the report for three years—1827, 1828, and 1829. There were 21 matrimonial cases; 1 of defamation; 4 of brawling; 5 church-smiting; 1 church-rate; 1 legacy; 1 tithes; 4 correction. Of these 17 were appeals from the courts, and 21 original suits.
The cases in the Court of Arches were often very trivial. "There was a case," says Dr. Nicholls, "in which the cause had originally commenced in the Archdeacon's Court at Totnes, and thence there had been an appeal to the Court at Exeter, thence to the Arches, and thence to the Delegates; after all, the issue having been simply, which of two persons had the right of hanging his hat on a particular peg." The other is of a sadder cast, and calculated to arouse a just indignation. Our authority is Mr. T.W. Sweet (Report on Eccles. Courts), who states: "In one instance, many years since, a suit was instituted which I thought produced a great deal of inconvenience and distress. It was the case of a person of the name of Russell, whose wife was supposed to have had her character impugned at Yarmouth by a Mr. Bentham. He had no remedy at law for the attack upon the lady's character, and a suit for defamation was instituted in the Commons. It was supposed the suit would be attended with very little expense, but I believe in the end it greatly contributed to ruin the party who instituted it; I think he said his proctor's bill would be £700. It went through several courts, and ultimately, I believe (according to the decision or agreement), each party paid his own costs." It appears from the evidence subsequently given by the proctor, that he very humanely declined pressing him for payment, and never was paid; and yet the case, through the continued anxiety and loss of time incurred for six or seven years (for the suit lasted that time), mainly contributed, it appears, to the party's ruin.
THE PREROGATIVE OFFICE, DOCTORS' COMMONS
As the law once stood, says a writer in Knight's "London," if a person died possessed of propertylying entirely within the diocese where he died, probate or proof of the will is made, or administration taken out, before the bishop or ordinary of that diocese; but if there were goods and chattels only to the amount of £5 (except in the diocese of London, where the amount is £10)—in legal parlance,bona notabilia—within any other diocese, and which is generally the case, then the jurisdiction lies in the Prerogative Court of the Archbishop of the province—that is, either at York or at Doctors' Commons; the latter, we need hardly say, being the Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The two Prerogative Courts therefore engross the great proportion of the business of this kind through the country, for although the Ecclesiastical Courts have no power over the bequests of or succession to unmixed real property, if such were left, cases of that nature seldom or never occur. And, as between the two provinces, not only is that of Canterbury much more important and extensive, but since the introduction of the funding system, and the extensive diffusion of such property, nearly all wills of importance belonging even to the Province of York are also proved in Doctors' Commons, on account of the rule of the Bank of England to acknowledge no probate of wills but from thence. To this cause, amongst others, may be attributed the striking fact that the business of this court between the three years ending with 1789, and the three years ending with 1829, had been doubled. Of the vast number of persons affected, or at least interested in this business, we see not only from the crowded rooms, but also from the statement given in the report of the select committee on the Admiralty and other Courts of Doctors' Commons in 1833, where it appears that in one year (1829) the number of searches amounted to30,000. In the same year extracts were taken from wills in 6,414 cases.
ST. PAUL'S AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. (From Aggas' Plan, 1563.)
On the south side is the entry to the Prerogative Court, and at No. 10 the Faculty Office. They have no marriage licences at the Faculty Office of an earlier date than October, 1632, and up to 1695 they are only imperfectly preserved. There is a MS. index to the licences prior to 1695, for which the charge for a search is 4s. 6d. Since 1695 the licences have been regularly kept, and the fee for searching is a shilling.
The great Admiralty judge of the early part of this century was Dr. Johnson's friend, Lord Stowell, the brother of Lord Eldon.
According to Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, Lord Stowell's decisions during the war have since formed a code of international law, almost universally recognised. In one year alone (1806) he pronounced 2,206 decrees. Lord Stowell (then Dr. Scott) was made Advocate-General in Doctors' Commons in 1788, and Vicar-General or official principal for theArchbishop of Canterbury. Soon after he became Master of the Faculties, and in 1798 was nominated Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, the highest dignity of the Doctors' Commons Courts. During the great French war, it is said Dr. Scott sometimes received as much as £1,000 a case for fees and perquisites in a prize cause. He left at his death personal property exceeding £200,000. He used to say that he admired above all other investments "the sweet simplicity of the Three per Cents.," and when purchasing estate after estate, observed "he liked plenty of elbow-room."
"It was," says Warton, "by visiting Sir Robert Chambers, when a fellow of University, that Johnson became acquainted with Lord Stowell; and when Chambers went to India, Lord Stowell, as he expressed it to me, seemed to succeed to his place in Johnson's friendship."
"Sir William Scott (Lord Stowell)," says Boswell, "told me that when he complained of a headache in the post-chaise, as they were travelling together to Scotland, Johnson treated him in a rough manner—'At your age, sir, I had no headache.'
"Mr. Scott's amiable manners and attachment to our Socrates," says Boswell in Edinburgh, "at once united me to him. He told me that before I came in the doctor had unluckily had a bad specimen of Scottish cleanliness. He then drank no fermented liquor. He asked to have his lemonade made sweeter; upon which the waiter, with his greasy fingers, lifted a lump of sugar and put it into it. The doctor, in indignation, threw it out. Scott said he was afraid he would have knocked the waiter down."
Again Boswell says:—"We dined together with Mr. Scott, now Sir William Scott, his Majesty's Advocate-General, at his chambers in the Temple—nobody else there. The company being so small, Johnson was not in such high spirits as he had been the preceding day, and for a considerable time little was said. At last he burst forth—'Subordination is sadly broken down in this age. No man, now, has the same authority which his father had—except a gaoler. No master has it over his servants; it is diminished in our colleges; nay, in our grammar schools.'"
"Sir William Scott informs me that on the death of the late Lord Lichfield, who was Chancellor of the University of Oxford, he said to Johnson, 'What a pity it is, sir, that you did not follow the profession of the law! You might have been Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, and attained to the dignity of the peerage; and now that the title of Lichfield, your native city, is extinct, you might have had it.' Johnson upon this seemed muchagitated, and in an angry tone exclaimed, 'Why will you vex me by suggesting this when it is too late?'"
The strange marriage of Lord Stowell and the Marchioness of Sligo has been excellently described by Mr. Jeaffreson in his "Book of Lawyers."
"On April 10, 1813," says our author, "the decorous Sir William Scott, and Louisa Catherine, widow of John, Marquis of Sligo, and daughter of Admiral Lord Howe, were united in the bonds of holy wedlock, to the infinite amusement of the world of fashion, and to the speedy humiliation of the bridegroom. So incensed was Lord Eldon at his brother's folly that he refused to appear at the wedding; and certainly the chancellor's displeasure was not without reason, for the notorious absurdity of the affair brought ridicule on the whole of the Scott family connection. The happy couple met for the first time in the Old Bailey, when Sir William Scott and Lord Ellenborough presided at the trial of the marchioness's son, the young Marquis of Sligo, who had incurred the anger of the law by luring into his yacht, in Mediterranean waters, two of the king's seamen. Throughout the hearing of thatcause célèbre, the Marchioness sat in the fetid court of the Old Bailey, in the hope that her presence might rouse amongst the jury or in the bench feelings favourable to her son. This hope was disappointed. The verdict having been given against the young peer, he was ordered to pay a fine of £5,000, and undergo four months' incarceration in Newgate, and—worse than fine and imprisonment—was compelled to listen to a parental address, from Sir William Scott, on the duties and responsibilities of men of high station. Either under the influence of sincere admiration for the judge, or impelled by desire of vengeance on the man who had presumed to lecture her son in a court of justice, the marchioness wrote a few hasty words of thanks to Sir William Scott, for his salutary exhortation to her boy. She even went so far as to say that she wished the erring marquis could always have so wise a counsellor at his side. This communication was made upon a slip of paper, which the writer sent to the judge by an usher of the court. Sir William read the note as he sat on the bench, and having looked towards the fair scribe, he received from her a glance and a smile that were fruitful of much misery to him. Within four months the courteous Sir William Scott was tied fast to a beautiful, shrill, voluble termagant, who exercised marvellous ingenuity in rendering him wretched and contemptible. Reared in a stately school of old-world politeness, the unhappy man was a model of decorum and urbanity. He tookreasonable pride in the perfection of his tone and manner, and the marchioness—whose malice did not lack cleverness—was never more happy than when she was gravely expostulating with him, in the presence of numerous auditors, on his lamentable want of style and gentleman-like bearing. It is said that, like Coke and Holt under similar circumstances, Sir William preferred the quietude of his chambers to the society of an unruly wife, and that in the cellar of his inn he sought compensation for the indignities and sufferings which he endured at home."
"Sir William Scott," says Mr. Surtees, then "removed from Doctors' Commons to his wife's house in Grafton Street, and, ever economical in his domestic expenses, brought with him his own door-plate, and placed it under the pre-existing plate of Lady Sligo, instead of getting a new door-plate for them both. Immediately after the marriage, Mr. Jekyll, so well known in the earliest part of this century for his puns and humour, happening to observe the position of these plates, condoled with Sir William on having to 'knock under.' There was too much truth in the joke for it to be inwardly relished, and Sir William ordered the plates to be transposed. A few weeks later Jekyll accompanied his friend Scott as far as the door, when the latter observed, 'You see I don't knock under now.' 'Not now,' was the answer received by the antiquated bridegroom; 'nowyou knock up.'"
There is a good story current of Lord Stowell in Newcastle, that, when advanced in age and rank, he visited the school of his boyhood. An old woman, whose business was to clean out and keep the key of the school-room, conducted him. She knew the name and station of the personage whom she accompanied. She naturally expected some recompense—half-a-crown perhaps—perhaps, since he was so great a man, five shillings. But he lingered over the books, and asked a thousand questions about the fate of his old school-fellows; and as he talked her expectation rose—half-a-guinea—a guinea—nay, possibly (since she had been so long connected with the school in which the great man took so deep an interest) some little annuity! He wished her good-bye kindly, called her a good woman, and slipped a piece of money into her hand—it was a sixpence!
"Lord Stowell," says Mr. Surtees, "was a great eater. As Lord Eldon had for his favourite dish liver and bacon, so his brother had a favourite quite as homely, with which his intimate friends, when he dined with them, would treat him. It was a rich pie, compounded of beef steaks and layers of oysters. Yet the feats which Lord Stowell performed with the knife and fork were eclipsed by those which he would afterwards display with the bottle, and two bottles of port formed with him no uncommon potation. By wine, however, he was never, in advanced life at any rate, seen to be affected. His mode of living suited and improved his constitution, and his strength long increased with his years."
At the western end of Holborn there was a room generally let for exhibitions. At the entrance Lord Stowell presented himself, eager to see the "green monster serpent," which had lately issued cards of invitation to the public. As he was pulling out his purse to pay for his admission, a sharp but honest north-country lad, whose business it was to take the money, recognised him as an old customer, and, knowing his name, thus addressed him: "We can't take your shilling, my lord; 'tis t' old serpent, which you have seen six times before, in other colours; but ye can go in and see her." He entered, saved his money, and enjoyed his seventh visit to the "real original old sea-sarpint."
Of Lord Stowell it has been said by Lord Brougham that "his vast superiority was apparent when, as from an eminence, he was called to survey the whole field of dispute, and to unravel the variegated facts, disentangle the intricate mazes, and array the conflicting reasons, which were calculated to distract or suspend men's judgment." And Brougham adds that "if ever the praise of being luminous could be bestowed upon human compositions, it was upon his."
It would be impossible with the space at our command to give anything like a tithe of the good stories of this celebrated judge. We must pass on to other famous men who have sat on the judicial bench in Doctors' Commons.
Of Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, one of the great ecclesiastical judges of modern times, Mr. Jeaffreson tells a good story:—
"In old Sir Herbert's later days it was no mere pleasantry, or bold figure of speech, to say that the court had risen, for he used to be lifted from his chair and carried bodily from the chamber of justice by two brawny footmen. Of course, as soon as the judge was about to be elevated by his bearers, the bar rose; and, also as a matter of course, the bar continued to stand until the strong porters had conveyed their weighty and venerable burden along the platform behind one of the rows of advocates and out of sight. As the trio worked their laborious way along the platform, there seemed to be some danger that they might blunder and fall through one of the windows into the space behind the court; and at a time when Sir Herbert andDr. —— were at open variance, that waspish advocate had, on one occasion, the bad taste to keep his seat at the rising of the court, and with characteristic malevolence of expression say to the footmen, 'Mind, my men, and take care of that judge of yours; or, by Jove, you'll pitch him out of the window.' It is needless to say that this brutal speech did not raise the speaker in the opinion of the hearers."
Dr. Lushington, recently deceased, aged ninety-one, is another ecclesiastical judge deserving notice. He entered Parliament in 1807, and retired in 1841. He began his political career when the Portland Administration (Perceval, Castlereagh, and Canning) ruled, and was always a steadfast reformer through good and evil report. He was one of the counsel for Queen Caroline, and aided Brougham and Denman in the popular triumph. He worked hard against slavery and for Parliamentary reform, and had not only heard many of Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russell's earliest speeches, but also those of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli. "Though it seemed," says theDaily News, "a little incongruous that questions of faith and ritual in the Church, and those of seizures or accidents at sea, should be adjudicated on by the same person, it was always felt that his decisions were based on ample knowledge of the law and diligent attention to the special circumstances of the individual case. As Dean of Arches he was called to pronounce judgment in some of the most exciting ecclesiastical suits of modern times. When the first prosecutions were directed against the Ritualistic innovators, as they were then called, of St. Barnabas, both sides congratulated themselves that the judgment would be given by so venerable and experienced a judge; and perhaps the dissatisfaction of both sides with the judgment proved its justice. In the prosecution of the Rev. H.B. Wilson and Dr. Rowland Williams, Dr. Lushington again pronounced a judgment which, contrary to popular expectation, was reversed on appeal by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council."
But how can we leave Doctors' Commons without remembering—as we see the touters for licences, who look like half pie-men, half watermen—Sam Weller's inimitable description of the trap into which his father fell?
"Paul's Churchyard, sir," says Sam to Jingle; "a low archway on the carriage-side; bookseller's at one corner, hotel on the other, and two porters in the middle as touts for licences."
"Touts for licences!" said the gentleman.
"Touts for licences," replied Sam. "Two coves in white aprons, touches their hats when you walkin—'Licence, sir, licence?' Queer sort them, and their mas'rs, too, sir—Old Bailey proctors—and no mistake."
"What do they do?" inquired the gentleman.
"Do!you, sir! That ain't the worst on't, neither. They puts things into old gen'lm'n's heads as they never dreamed of. My father, sir, was a coachman, a widower he wos, and fat enough for anything—uncommon fat, to be sure. His missus dies, and leaves him four hundred pound. Down he goes to the Commons to see the lawyer, and draw the blunt—very smart—top-boots on—nosegay in his button-hole—broad-brimmed tile—green shawl—quite the gen'lm'n. Goes through the archway, thinking how he should inwest the money; up comes the touter, touches his hat-'Licence, sir, licence?' 'What's that?' says my father. 'Licence, sir,' says he. 'What licence,' says my father. 'Marriage licence,' says the touter. 'Dash my weskit,' says my father, 'I never thought o' that.' 'I thinks you want one, sir,' says the touter. My father pulls up and thinks a bit. 'No,' says he, 'damme, I'm too old, b'sides I'm a many sizes too large,' says he. 'Not a bit on it, sir,' says the touter. 'Think not?' says my father. 'I'm sure not,' says he; 'we married a gen'lm'n twice your size last Monday.' 'Did you, though?' said my father. 'To be sure we did,' says the touter, 'you're a babby to him—this way, sir—this way!' And sure enough my father walks arter him, like a tame monkey behind a horgan, into a little back office, vere a feller sat among dirty papers, and tin boxes, making believe he was busy. 'Pray take a seat, vile I makes out the affidavit, sir,' says the lawyer. 'Thankee, sir,' says my father, and down he sat, and stared with all his eyes, and his mouth wide open, at the names on the boxes. 'What's your name, sir?' says the lawyer. 'Tony Weller,' says my father. 'Parish?' says the lawyer. 'Belle Savage,' says my father; for he stopped there when he drove up, and he know'd nothing about parishes,hedidn't. 'And what's the lady's name?' says the lawyer. My father was struck all of a heap. 'Blessed if I know,' says he. 'Not know!' says the lawyer. 'No more nor you do,' says my father; 'can't I put that in arterwards?' 'Impossible!' says the lawyer. 'Wery well,' says my father, after he'd thought a moment, 'put down Mrs. Clarke.' 'What Clarke?' says the lawyer, dipping his pen in the ink. 'Susan Clarke, Markis o' Granby, Dorking,' says my father; 'she'll have me if I ask, I dessay—I never said nothing to her; but she'll have me, I know.' The licence was made out, and shedidhave him, and what's more she's got him now; andInever had any of the four hundred pound, worse luck. Beg your pardon, sir," said Sam, when he had concluded, "but when I gets on this here grievance, I runs on like a new barrow with the wheel greased."
Doctors' Commons is now a ruin. The spider builds where the proctor once wove his sticky web. The college, rebuilt after the Great Fire, is described by Elmes as an old brick building in the Carolean style, the interior consisting of two quadrangles once occupied by the doctors, a hall for the hearing of causes, a spacious library, a refectory, and other useful apartments. In 1867, when Doctors' Commons was deserted by the proctors, a clever London essayist sketched the ruins very graphically, at the time when the Metropolitan Fire Brigade occupied the lawyers' deserted town:—
"A deserted justice-hall, with dirty mouldering walls, broken doors and windows, shattered floor, and crumbling ceiling. The dust and fog of long-forgotten causes lowering everywhere, making the small leaden-framed panes of glass opaque, the dark wainscot grey, coating the dark rafters with a heavy dingy fur, and lading the atmosphere with a close unwholesome smell. Time and neglect have made the once-white ceiling like a huge map, in which black and swollen rivers and tangled mountain ranges are struggling for pre-eminence. Melancholy, decay, and desolation are on all sides. The holy of holies, where the profane vulgar could not tread, but which was sacred to the venerable gowned figures who cozily took it in turns to dispense justice and to plead, is now open to any passer-by. Where the public were permitted to listen is bare and shabby as a well-plucked client. The inner door of long-discoloured baize flaps listlessly on its hinges, and the true law-court little entrance-box it half shuts in is a mere nest for spiders. A large red shaft, with the word 'broken' rudely scrawled on it in chalk, stands where the judgment-seat was formerly; long rows of ugly piping, like so many shiny dirty serpents, occupy the seats of honour round it; staring red vehicles, with odd brass fittings: buckets, helmets, axes, and old uniforms fill up the remainder of the space. A very few years ago this was the snuggest little law-nest in the world; now it is a hospital and store-room for the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. For we are in Doctors' Commons, and lawyers themselves will be startled to learn that the old Arches Court, the old Admiralty Court, the old Prerogative Court, the old Consistory Court, the old harbour for delegates, chancellors, vicars-general, commissaries, prothonotaries, cursitors, seal-keepers, serjeants-at-mace, doctors, deans, apparitors, proctors,and what not, is being applied to such useful purposes now. Let the reader leave the bustle of St. Paul's Churchyard, and, turning under the archway where a noble army of white-aproned touters formerly stood, cross Knightrider Street and enter the Commons. The square itself is a memorial of the mutability of human affairs. Its big sombre houses are closed. The well-known names of the learned doctors who formerly practised in the adjacent courts are still on the doors, but have, in each instance, 'All letters and parcels to be addressed' Belgravia, or to one of the western inns of court, as their accompaniment. The one court in which ecclesiastical, testamentary, and maritime law was tried alternately, and which, as we have seen, is now ending its days shabbily, but usefully, is through the further archway to the left. Here the smackHenry and Betsywould bring its action for salvage against the schoonerMary Jane; here a favoured gentleman was occasionally 'admitted a proctor exercent by virtue of a rescript;' here, as we learnt with awe, proceedings for divorce were 'carried on in pœnam,' and 'the learned judge, without entering into the facts, declared himself quite satisfied with the evidence, and pronounced for the separation;' and here the Dean of Peculiars settled his differences with the eccentrics who, I presume, were under his charge, and to whom he owed his title."
Such are the changes that take place in our Protean city! Already we have seen a palace in Blackfriars turn into a prison, and the old courts of Fleet Street, once mansions of the rich and great, now filled with struggling poor. The great synagogue in the Old Jewry became a tavern; the palace of the Savoy a barracks. These changes it is our special province to record, as to trace them is our peculiar function.
The Prerogative Will Office contains many last wills and testaments of great interest. There is a will written in short-hand, and one on a bed-post; but what are these to that of Shakspeare, three folio sheets, and his signature to each sheet? Why he left only his best bed to his wife long puzzled the antiquaries, but has since been explained. There is (or rather was, for it has now gone to Paris) the will of Napoleon abusing "the oligarch" Wellington, and leaving 10,000 francs to the French officer Cantello, who was accused of a desire to assassinate the "Iron Duke." There are also the wills of Vandyke the painter, who died close by; Inigo Jones, Ben Jonson's rival in the Court masques of James and Charles; Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Johnson, good old Izaak Walton, and indeed almost everybody who had property in the south.
HERALDS' COLLEGE. (From an old Print.)
HERALDS' COLLEGE
Early Homes of the Heralds—The Constitution of the Herald's College—Garter King at Arms—Clarencieux and Norroy—The Pursuivants—Duties and Privileges of Heralds—Good, Bad, and Jovial Heralds—A Notable Norroy King at Arms—The Tragic End of Two Famous Heralds—The College of Arms' Library.
Early Homes of the Heralds—The Constitution of the Herald's College—Garter King at Arms—Clarencieux and Norroy—The Pursuivants—Duties and Privileges of Heralds—Good, Bad, and Jovial Heralds—A Notable Norroy King at Arms—The Tragic End of Two Famous Heralds—The College of Arms' Library.
Turning from the black dome of St. Paul's, and the mean archway of Dean's Court, into a region of gorgeous blazonments, we come to that quiet and grave house, like an old nobleman's, that stands aside from the new street from the Embankment, like an aristocrat shrinking from a crowd. The original Heralds' College, Cold Harbour House, founded by Richard II., stood in Poultney Lane, but the heralds were turned out by Henry VII., who gave their mansion to Bishop Tunstal, whom he had driven from Durham Place. The heralds then retired to Ronceval Priory, at Charing Cross (afterwards Northumberland Place). Queen Mary, however, in 1555 gave Gilbert Dethick, Garter King of Arms, and the other heralds and pursuivants, their present college, formerly DerbyHouse, which had belonged to the first Earl of Derby, who married Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother to King Henry VII. The grant specified that there the heralds might dwell together, and "at meet times congregate, speak, confer, and agree among themselves, for the good government of the faculty."
THE LAST HERALDIC COURT. (From an Old Picture in the Heralds' College; the Figures by Rowlandson, Architecture by Wash.)
The College of Arms, on the east side of St. Bennet's Hill, was swept before the Great Fire of 1666; but all the records and books, except one or two, were preserved. The estimate for the rebuilding was only £5,000, but the City being drained of money, it was attempted to raise the money by subscription; only £700 was so raised, the rest was paid from office fees, Sir William Dugdale building the north-west corner at his own charge,and Sir Henry St. George, Clarencieux, giving £530. This handsome and dignified brick building, completed in 1683, is ornamented with Ionic pilasters, that support an angular pediment, and the "hollow arch of the gateway" was formerly considered a curiosity. The central wainscoted hall is where the Courts of Sessions were at one time held; to the left is the library and search-room, round the top of which runs a gallery; on either side are the apartments of the kings, heralds, and pursuivants.
"This corporation," we are told, "consists of thirteen members—viz., three kings at arms, six heralds at arms, and four pursuivants at arms; they are nominated by the Earl Marshal of England, as ministers subordinate to him in the execution of their offices, and hold their places patent during their good behaviour. They are thus distinguished:—
Kings at Arms.Heralds.Pursuivants.Garter.Somerset.Rouge Dragon.Clarencieux.Richmond.Blue Mantle.Norroy.Lancaster.Portcullis.Windsor.Rouge Croix.Chester.York.
"However ancient the offices of heralds may be, we have hardly any memory of their titles or names before Edward III. In his reign military glory and heraldry were in high esteem, and the patents of the King of Arms at this day refer to the reign of King Edward III. The king created the two provincials, by the titles of Clarencieux and Norroy; he instituted Windsor and Chester heralds, and Blue Mantle pursuivant, beside several others by foreign titles. From this time we find the officers of arms employed at home and abroad, both in military and civil affairs: military, with our kings and generals in the army, carrying defiances and making truces, or attending tilts, tournaments, and duels; as civil officers, in negotiations, and attending our ambassadors in foreign Courts; at home, waiting upon the king at Court and Parliament, and directing public ceremonies.
"In the fifth year of King Henry V. armorial bearings were put under regulations, and it was declared that no persons should bear coat arms that could not justify their right thereto by prescription or grant; and from this time they were communicated to persons asinsignia,gentilitia, and hereditary marks ofnoblesse. About the same time, or soon after, this victorious prince instituted the office of Garter King of Arms; and at a Chapter of the Kings and Heralds, held at the siege of Rouen in Normandy, on the 5th of January, 1420, they formed themselves into a regular society,with a common seal, receiving Garter as their chief.
"The office of Garter King at Arms was instituted for the service of the Most Noble Order of the Garter; and, for the dignity of that order, he was made sovereign within the office of arms, over all the other officers, subject to the Crown of England, by the name of Garter King at Arms of England. By the constitution of his office he must be a native of England, and a gentleman bearing arms. To him belongs the correction of arms, and all ensigns of arms, usurped or borne unjustly, and the power of granting arms to deserving persons, and supporters to the nobility and Knights of the Bath. It is likewise his office to go next before the sword in solemn processions, none interposing except the marshal; to administer the oath to all the officers of arms; to have a habit like the registrar of the order, baron's service in the Court, lodgings in Windsor Castle; to bear his white rod, with a banner of the ensigns of the order thereon, before the sovereign; also, when any lord shall enter the Parliament chamber, to assign him his place, according to his degree; to carry the ensigns of the order to foreign princes, and to do, or procure to be done, what the sovereign shall enjoin relating to the order, with other duties incident to his office of principal King of Arms. The other two kings are called Provincial kings, who have particular provinces assigned them, which together comprise the whole kingdom of England—that of Clarencieux comprehending all from the river Trent southwards; that of Norroy, or North Roy, all from the river Trent northward. These Kings at Arms are distinguished from each other by their respective badges, which they may wear at all times, either in a gold chain or a ribbon, Garters being blue, and the Provincials purple.
"The six heralds take place according to seniority in office. They are created with the same ceremonies as the kings, taking the oath of an herald, and are invested with a tabard of the Royal arms embroidered upon satin, not so rich as the kings', but better than the pursuivants', with a silver collar of SS.; they are esquires by creation.
"The four pursuivants are also created by the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl Marshal, when they take their oath of a pursuivant, and are invested with a tabard of the Royal arms upon damask. It is the duty of the heralds and pursuivants to attend on the public ceremonials, one of each class together by a monthly rotation.
"These heralds are the king's servants in ordinary, and therefore, in the vacancy of the office of Earl Marshal, have been sworn into their offices by the Lord Chamberlain. Their meetings are termed Chapters, which they hold the first Thursday in every month, or oftener if necessary, wherein all matters are determined by a majority of voices, each king having two voices."
One of the earliest instances of the holding an heraldic court was that in the time of Richard II., when the Scropes and Grosvenors had a dispute about the right to bear certain arms. John of Gaunt and Chaucer were witnesses on this occasion; the latter, who had served in France during the wars of Edward III., and had been taken prisoner, deposing to seeing a certain cognizance displayed during a certain period of the campaign.
The system of heraldic visitations, when the pedigrees of the local gentry were tested, and the arms they bore approved or cancelled, originated in the reign of Henry VIII. The monasteries, with their tombs and tablets and brasses, and their excellent libraries, had been the great repositories of the provincial genealogies, more especially of the abbeys' founders and benefactors. These records were collected and used by the heralds, who thus as it were preserved and carried on the monastic genealogical traditions. These visitations were of great use to noble families in proving their pedigrees, and preventing disputes about property. The visitations continued till 1686 (James II.), but a few returns, says Mr. Noble, were made as late as 1704. Why they ceased in the reign of William of Orange is not known; perhaps the respect for feudal rank decreased as the new dynasty grew more powerful. The result of the cessation of these heraldic assizes, however, is that American gentlemen, whose Puritan ancestors left England during the persecutions of Charles II., are now unable to trace their descent, and the heraldic gap can never be filled up.
Three instances only of the degradation of knights are recorded in three centuries' records of the Court of Honour. The first was that of Sir Andrew Barclay, in 1322; of Sir Ralph Grey, in 1464; and of Sir Francis Michell, in 1621, the last knight being convicted of heinous offences and misdemeanours. On this last occasion the Knights' Marshals' men cut off the offender's sword, took off his spurs and flung them away, and broke his sword over his head, at the same time proclaiming him "an infamous arrant knave."
The Earl Marshal's office—sometimes called the Court of Honour—took cognizance of words supposed to reflect upon the nobility. Sir Richard Grenville was fined heavily for having said thatthe Duke of Suffolk was a base lord; and Sir George Markham in the enormous sum of £10,000, for saying, when he had horsewhipped the huntsman of Lord Darcy, that he would do the same to his master if he tried to justify his insolence. In 1622 the legality of the court was tried in the Star Chamber by a contumacious herald, who claimed arrears of fees, and to King James's delight the legality of the court was fully established. In 1646 (Charles I.) Mr. Hyde (afterwards Lord Chancellor Clarendon) proposed doing away with the court, vexatious causes multiplying, and very arbitrary authority being exercised. He particularly cited a case of great oppression, in which a rich citizen had been ruined in his estate and imprisoned, for merely calling an heraldic swan a goose. After the Restoration, says Mr. Planché, in Knight's "London," the Duke of Norfolk, hereditary Earl Marshal, hoping to re-establish the court, employed Dr. Plott, the learned but credulous historian of Staffordshire, to collect the materials for a history of the court, which, however, was never completed. The court, which had outlived its age, fell into desuetude, and the last cause heard concerning the right of bearing arms (BlountversusBlunt) was tried in the year 1720 (George I.). In the old arbitrary times the Earl Marshal's men have been known to stop the carriage of aparvenu, and by force deface his illegally assumed arms.
Heralds' fees in the Middle Ages were very high. At the coronation of Richard II. they received £100, and 100 marks at that of the queen. On royal birthdays and on great festivals they also required largess. The natural result of this was that, in the reign of Henry V., William Burgess, Garter King of Arms, was able to entertain the Emperor Sigismund in sumptuous state at his house at Kentish Town.
The escutcheons on the south wall of the college—one bearing the legs of Man, and the other the eagle's claw of the House of Stanley—are not ancient, and were merely put up to heraldically mark the site of old Derby House.
In the Rev. Mark Noble's elaborate "History of the College of Arms" we find some curious stories of worthy and unworthy heralds. Among the evil spirits was Sir William Dethick, Garter King at Arms, who provoked Elizabeth by drawing out treasonable emblazonments for the Duke of Norfolk, and James I. by hinting doubts, as it is supposed, against the right of the Stuarts to the crown. He was at length displaced. He seems to have been an arrogant, stormy, proud man, who used at public ceremonials to buffet the heralds and pursuivantswho blundered or offended him. He was buried at St. Paul's, in 1612, near the grave of Edward III.'s herald, Sir Pain Roet, Guienne King at Arms, and Chaucer's father-in-law. Another black sheep was Cook, Clarencieux King at Arms in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who was accused of granting arms to any one for a large fee, and of stealing forty or fifty heraldic books from the college library. There was also Ralph Brooke, York Herald in the same reign, a malicious and ignorant man, who attempted to confute some of Camden's genealogies in the "Britannia." He broke open and stole some muniments from the office, and finally, for two felonies, was burnt in the hand at Newgate.
To such rascals we must oppose men of talent and scholarship like the great Camden. This grave and learned antiquary was the son of a painter in the Old Bailey, and, as second master of Westminster School, became known to the wisest and most learned men of London, Ben Jonson honouring him as a father, and Burleigh, Bacon, and Lord Broke regarding him as a friend. His "Britannia" is invaluable, and his "Annals of Elizabeth" are full of the heroic and soaring spirit of that great age. Camden's house, at Chislehurst, was that in which the Emperor Napoleon has recently died.
Sir William Le Neve (Charles I.), Clarencieux, was another most learned herald. He is said to have read the king's proclamation at Edgehill with great marks of fear. His estate was sequestered by the Parliament, and he afterwards went mad from loyal and private grief and vexation. In Charles II.'s reign we find the famous antiquary, Elias Ashmole, Windsor Herald for several years. He was the son of a Lichfield saddler, and was brought up as a chorister-boy. That impostor, Lilly, calls him the "greatest virtuoso and curioso" that was ever known or read of in England; for he excelled in music, botany, chemistry, heraldry, astrology, and antiquities. His "History of the Order of the Garter" formed no doubt part of his studies at the College of Arms.
In the same reign as Ashmole, that great and laborious antiquary, Sir William Dugdale, was Garter King of Arms. In early life he became acquainted with Spelman, an antiquary as profound as himself, and with the same mediæval power of work. He fought for King Charles in the Civil Wars. His great work was the "Monasticon Anglicanum," three volumes folio, which disgusted the Puritans and delighted the Catholics. His "History of Warwickshire" was considered a model of county histories. His "Baronage of England"contained many errors. In his visitations he was very severe in defacing fictitious arms.
Francis Sandford, first Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, and then Lancaster Herald (Charles II., James II.), published an excellent "Genealogical History of England," and curious accounts of the funeral of General Monk and the coronation of James II. He was so attached to James that he resigned his office at the Revolution, and died, true to the last, old, poor and neglected, somewhere in Bloomsbury, in 1693.
Sir John Vanbrugh, the witty dramatist, for building Castle Howard, was made Clarencieux King of Arms, to the great indignation of the heralds, whose pedantry he ridiculed. He afterwards sold his place for £2,000, avowing ignorance of his profession and his constant neglect of his official duties.
In the same reign, to Peter Le Neve (Norroy) we are indebted for the careful preservation of the invaluable "Paxton Letters," of the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III., purchased and afterwards published by Sir John Fenn.
Another eminent herald was John Anstis, created Garter in 1718 (George I.), after being imprisoned as a Jacobite. He wrote learned works on the Orders of the Garter and the Bath, and left behind him valuable materials—his MS. for the "History of the College of Arms," now preserved in the library.
Francis Grose, that roundabout, jovial friend of Burns, was Richmond Herald for many years, but he resigned his appointment in 1763, to become Adjutant and Paymaster of the Hampshire Militia. Grose was the son of a Swiss jeweller, who had settled in London. His "Views of Antiquities in England and Wales" helped to restore a taste for Gothic art. He died in 1791.
Of Oldys, that eccentric antiquary, who was Norroy King at Arms in the reign of George II.—the Duke of Norfolk having appointed him from the pleasure he felt at the perusal of his "Life of Sir Walter Raleigh"—Grose gives an amusing account:—
"William Oldys, Norroy King at Arms," says Grose, "author of the 'Life of Sir Walter Raleigh,' and several others in the 'Biographia Britannica,' was natural son of a Dr. Oldys, in the Commons, who kept his mother very privately, and probably very meanly, as when he dined at a tavern he used to beg leave to send home part of the remains of any fish or fowl for hiscat, which cat was afterwards found out to be Mr. Oldys' mother. His parents dying when he was very young, he soonsquandered away his small patrimony, when he became first an attendant in Lord Oxford's library and afterwards librarian. He was a little mean-looking man, of a vulgar address, and, when I knew him, rarely sober in the afternoon, never after supper. His favourite liquor was porter, with a glass of gin between each pot. Dr. Ducarrel told me he used to stint Oldys to three pots of beer whenever he visited him. Oldys seemed to have little classical learning, and knew nothing of the sciences; but for index-reading, title-pages, and the knowledge of scarce English books and editions, he had no equal. This he had probably picked up in Lord Oxford's service, after whose death he was obliged to write for the booksellers for a subsistence. Amongst many other publications, chiefly in the biographical line, he wrote the 'Life of Sir Walter Raleigh,' which got him much reputation. The Duke of Norfolk, in particular, was so pleased with it that he resolved to provide for him, and accordingly gave him the patent of Norroy King at Arms, then vacant. The patronage of that duke occasioned a suspicion of his being a Papist, though I really think without reason; this for a while retarded his appointment. It was underhand propagated by the heralds, who were vexed at having a stranger put in upon them. He was a man of great good-nature, honour, and integrity, particularly in his character as an historian. Nothing, I firmly believe, would ever have biassed him to insert any fact in his writings he did not believe, or to suppress any he did. Of this delicacy he gave an instance at a time when he was in great distress. After the publication of his 'Life of Sir Walter Raleigh,' some booksellers, thinking his name would sell a piece they were publishing, offered him a considerable sum to father it, which he refused with the greatest indignation. He was much addicted to low company; most of his evenings he spent at the 'Bell' in the Old Bailey, a house within the liberties of the Fleet, frequented by persons whom he jocularly calledrulers, from their being confined to the rules or limits of that prison. From this house a watchman, whom he kept regularly in pay, used to lead him home before twelve o'clock, in order to save sixpence paid to the porter of the Heralds' office, by all those who came home after that time; sometimes, and not unfrequently, two were necessary. He could not resist the temptation of liquor, even when he was to officiate on solemn occasions; for at the burial of the Princess Caroline he was so intoxicated that he could scarcely walk, but reeled about with a crown 'coronet' on a cushion, to the great scandal of his brethren. His method of composing was somewhatsingular. He had a number of small parchment bags inscribed with the names of the persons whose lives he intended to write; into these bags he put every circumstance and anecdote he could collect, and from thence drew up his history. By his excesses he was kept poor, so that he was frequently in distress; and at his death, which happened about five on Wednesday morning, April 15th, 1761, he left little more than was sufficient to bury him. Dr. Taylor, the oculist, son of the famous doctor of that name and profession, claimed administration at the Commons, on account of his beingnullius filius—Anglicè, a bastard. He was buried the 19th following, in the north aisle of the Church of St. Benet, Paul's Wharf, towards the upper end of the aisle. He was about seventy-two years old. Amongst his works is a preface to Izaak Walton's 'Angler.'"
The following pretty anacreontic, on a fly drinking out of his cup of ale, which is doubtless well known, is from the pen of Oldys:—