96 



James Ley, Earl of Marlborough. 



standing as a culprit before him, as his presence was dispensed with 

 on account of serious illness. The sentence was a fine of £40,000, 

 and imprisonment during* the King's pleasure. He was, moreover, 

 pronounced incapable of ever again holding office or voting in the 

 House of Lords. 



Before the sentence was pronounced the great seal had been 

 sequestered and a new commission awarded to the Lord Chief 

 Justice " to execute the place of the Chancellor or Lord Keeper/'' 

 So says the author of the State Trials, but Lord Campbell says that 

 when the King received the great seal, three commissions were 

 ordered to be sealed with it in his presence, one to Sir Julius Csesar, 

 Master of the Rolls, and certain common law judges, to hear causes 

 in the Court of Chancery ; another to Sir James Ley, to preside as 

 Speaker in the House of Lords; and a third to Viscount Mandeville, 

 the Lord Treasurer, the Duke of Lennox, and the Earl of Arundell, 

 to keep the great seal, and to affix it to all writs and letters requiring 

 to be sealed. We can scarcely over-estimate the importance of 

 these transactions, in which the Lord Chief J ustice involuntarily 

 took the foremost part, as they purged the judicial bench for ever 

 after from all suspicion of corruption, and rendered it impossible for 

 a judge to take a bribe. If Sir James Ley's hands had not been, 

 as Milton says, u unstained with gold or fee" he could scarcely have 

 been placed in such a position as he was. 



And now came the question as to the person to whom the great 

 seal, now temporarily in commission, should be entrusted. There 

 was Sir Edward Coke, the greatest lawyer of the day ; but Sir James 

 Ley had so admirably performed the duties of Speaker of the House of 

 Lords, that all eyes were turned on him ; and there was also Hobert, 

 Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who was also by his reputation 

 duly qualified to be Chancellor; but all expectations were disappointed 

 when, through the interest of the Duke of Buckingham, it was 

 offered to Williams, Dean of Westminster, soon to be Bishop of 

 Lincoln, and by him accepted ; and this was the last time that a 

 clergyman has been Lord Chancellor. 



Sir James Ley was, however, rewarded for his integrity, and 

 compensated for his disappointment, when in 1624 he was made 



