no one had enjoyed an existence nearly so long. Formerly there was a new parliament every session, and the session did not last many days. But as the power of the House of Commons increased, it was found of great importance to have a majority attached to the ruling faction, and disposed to grant liberal supplies. When such a House was elected there was a reluctance to part with it, and prorogations were gradually substituted for dissolutions; but the keeping of the same Parliament in existence above a year was considered a great innovation.

"The History of Croyland points it out as something very remarkable, that during this Parliament of Edward the Fourth no less than three several Lord Chancellors presided. The first,' adds that authority, was Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath, who did nothing but by the advice of his disciple, John Alcock, Bishop of Worcester; the next was Lawrence Booth, Bishop of Durham, who tired himself with doing just nothing at all; and the third was Thomas Rotherham, Bishop of Lincoln, who did all, and brought every thing to a happy conclusion."""

During a few months in 1476, the Great Seal was withdrawn from Rotherham; but it was restored to him before the end of that year, and he continued to be the Chancellor and principal adviser of King Edward during the remainder of his reign.

"Edward, immersed in pleasure and indulging in indolence, unless excited by some great peril, when he could display signal energy as well as courage,-threw upon his minister all the common cares of government.

"A Parliament met at Westminster in January, 1477, when Lord Chancellor Rotherham, in the presence of the King, Lords and Commons, in the Painted Chamber, declared the cause of the summons from this text, 'Dominus regit me et nihil mihi deerit ;' upon which he largely treated of the obedience which subjects owe to their Prince, and showed, by many examples out of the Old and New Testament, what grievous plagues had happened to the rebellious and disobedient; particularly that saying of St. Paul, Non sine causá Rex gladium portat. He added, that'the Majesty of the King was upheld by the hand and counsel of God, by which he was advanced to the throne of his ancestors.'

"Lord Chancellor Rotherham now found it convenient to pass an act repealing all the statutes, and nullifying all the proceedings of 9 Lord Campbell's" Lives of the Chancellors."

the Parliament which sat during the 100 days, 'alleged to have been held in the 49th year of Hen. VI., but which,' it was said, 'was truly the 9th of Ed. IV.' He then obtained great popularity by an act showing the dislike to Irishmen, which still lingers in England, and which, with little mitigation, was long handed down from generation to generation,-'to oblige all Irishmen born, or coming of Irish parents, who reside in England, either to repair to and remain in Ireland, or else to pay yearly a certain sum there rated for the defence of the same.' We fear this was not meant as an absentee tax for the benefit of Ireland, but was, in reality, an oppressive levy on obnoxious aliens, such as was imposed on the Jews till they were finally banished from the realm.

"Now began the fatal dissensions in the Royal family which led to the destruction of the House of York, and the extinction of the name of Plantagenet. There is reason to think that the Chancellor did all that was possible to heal the dispute between the King and his brother, the Duke of Clarence.

"On the 20th of January, 1482, the Chancellor opened Edward's last Parliament with a speech from the text, Dominus illuminatio mea et salus mea; but we are not told on what topics he enlarged; and nothing was brought forward during the session except a code or consolidation of the laws touching 'excess of apparel,' with a new enactment, that none under the degree of a Lord shall wear any mantle, unless it be of such a length that a man standing upright, il lui voilera la queue ;'-so that, instead of appearing in flowing robes, and with a long train, the privilege of the nobility now was to show the contour of their person to the multitude."

1

"Before Edward IV. was laid in his grave, disputes began between the Queen's family and the Duke of Gloucester, her brother-in-law, who from the first claimed the office of Protector, and soon resolved at all hazards to seize the crown. Lord Chancellor Rotherham sided with the Queen, and when with her daughters and her younger son she had taken sanctuary within the precincts of the Abbey at Westminster, where on a former distress during the short restoration of Henry the Sixth, she had been delivered of the Prince of Wales, he interfered in his sacred character of Archbishop to prevent her and the objects of her affection from being forcibly laid hold of by Richard, who contended that the ecclesiastical privilege of sanctuary did not apply

1 Lord Campbell's "Lives of the Chancellors."

to them, as it was originally intended only to give protection to unhappy men persecuted for their debts or crimes. A messenger came from Richard to Rotherham, to assure him, 'that there was no sort of danger to the Queen, the young King, or the royal issue, and that all should be well;' to which he replied,- Be it as well as it will, I assure him it will never be as well as we have seen it.' Being at a loss how to dispose of the Great Seal, which he no longer had a right to use, he went to the Queen and unadvisedly delivered it up to her, who certainly could have no right to receive it; but repenting his mistake, he soon sent for it back, and it was restored to him.

"Rotherham has escaped all suspicion of being knowingly implicated in the criminal projects of Richard; but he was unfortunately made the instrument of materially aiding them. The Queen still resisted all the importunities and threats used to get possession from her of the infant Duke of York, observing that, by living in sanctuary, he was not only secure himself, but gave security to his brother, the King, whose life no one would dare to aim at, while his successor and avenger remained in safety.""

Richard, with his usual art and deceit, applied himself to Rotherham and another ex-Chancellor, Archbishop Bourchier, and contrived to persuade them that his intentions were fair, and that his only object in obtaining the release of the young Prince was, that he might keep the King, his brother, company, and walk at his coronation. These holy men at last prevailed with the Queen to give a most reluctant assent. Taking the child by the hand, and addressing Rotherham, she said :-" My Lord Archbishop, here he is; for my own part I can never deliver him; but if you will needs have him, take him: I will require him at your hands." She was here struck with a kind of presage of his future fate; she tenderly embraced him, she bedewed him with her tears, and bade him an eternal adieu.

"Rotherham appears soon after to have surrendered the Great Seal into the hands of the Protector. There is no record of the transfer or delivery of it during the reign of Edward the Fifth. But we know that while the young King still lived and his name was used as sovereign, John Russell was appointed to the office, and must have sworn fidelity to that sovereign.'

92

When Richard the Third had made himself King, Rotherham

2 Lord Campbell's "Lives of the Chancellors."

was imprisoned and detained in custody for some time by the order of that sovereign, who regarded him with great suspicion. Either by compulsion or by persuasion, Richard soon acquired some ascendancy over Rotherham; and the Archbishop, on being released from imprisonment after the death of the Lady Anne, Richard's first wife, was not unwilling to employ his influence with King Edward's widow, in order to promote Richard's scheme. of marrying his niece Elizabeth, who afterwards, by the fate of war, became the Queen of Henry the Seventh; and Rotherham certainly identified himself so far as an adherent of Richard's, as to place the crown on his head at his second coronation at York, a little time before the battle of Bosworth, in which King Richard lost both crown and life. It is not to be wondered at that Henry the Seventh showed Rotherham no favour. But there is no reason to suppose that the ex-Chancellor of Edward the Fourth suffered any persecution from the restored Lancastrians. He seems to have passed the remainder of his days in quiet, and died in the year 1500 at the age of seventy-six. He was buried in his own cathedral in a vault which was opened in 1735. A bust, remarkably well sculptured in wood, was there found, which was justly believed to be a likeness of the Archbishop; and from it was taken the fine painting of Rotherham which is in King's College, Cambridge, and which has been so frequently engraved.

Among the Etonians of this century who attained high office in Church and State, there is one, the early part of whose history is rather more curious than creditable. NICHOLAS WEST, born at Putney in Surrey, was educated on the foundation at Eton, and succeeded thence to a scholarship at King's in 1484. The late Provost, Goodall, in his MS. notes to the "Alumni Etonenses," has thus epitomised West's biography

:

"Nicholas West, born at Putney in Surrey. Being factious and turbulent, while he was Scholar, he set the whole College (i. e. King's) together by the ears about the Proctorship; and when he could not obtain his desire, he set the Provost's lodge on fire, and, stealing away certain silver spoons, departed from the College: but shortly after became a new man, repaired to the University, and commenced D. D. He had a great faculty in opening the dark places in Scripture; was likewise well experienced in the canon and civil laws. Was often sent ambassador by

King Henry the Seventh to foreign princes. Was made Dean of Windsor, and Registrar of the Order of the Garter. Bishop of Ely in 1515. In lieu of the wrong he had done to the College, he gave it many rich gifts and plate, and built part of the Provost's lodge. Queen Catherine chose him and Fisher her advocates in the cause of divorce, wherein he incurred the king's displeasure. He kept daily in his house one hundred servants, to the meanest of which he gave 40 shillings per annum, and to some more; and to each of them 7 yards of cloth for their winter and summer liveries. He relieved daily two hundred poor folks at his gates with warm meat and drink. In time of dearth he distributed great sums of money among those of the Isle. He lived Bishop of Ely seventeen years and six months, and lyeth buried at Ely, under a tomb built by him before his death."

Fuller's account of Bishop West, in his "Worthies of England," is distinguished by more than an average spice of that writer's exquisite and most expressive quaintness. Fuller says that when West was a youth at King's College, Cambridge, he was "a Rakel in grain; for, something crossing him in the College he could find no other way to work his revenge than by secret setting on fire the master's lodgings, part whereof he burnt to the ground. Immediately after, this incendiary (and was it not high time for him?) left the College; and this little Herostratus lived for a time in the country debauched enough for his conversation.

"But they go far who turn not again;' and in him the old proverb was verified. 'Naughty boys sometimes make good men.' He seasonably retrenched his wildness; turned hard student, became an eminent scholar and most able statesman; and, after smaller promotions, was at last made Bishop of Ely, and often employed in foreign embassies. And now, had it been possible, he would have quenched the fire he kindled in the College, with his own tears and in expression of his penitence he became a worthy benefactor to the house, and rebuilt the master's lodgings firm and fair from the ground. No bishop of England was better attended with menial servants, or kept a more bountiful house; which made his death so much lamented: anno Domini, 1533."

Another eminent man was OLIVER KYNG, who left Eton for King's in 1449. He was made Canon of Windsor in 1483, Bishop of Exeter in 1492, and Bishop of Bath and Wells in 1495.