LORD CHIEF JUSTICE HOLT.

THE UPRIGHT AND FEARLESS JUDGE.

For over six hundred years, since the reign of Edward I., justly styled "The English Justinian," the duties and status of the office of Chief Justice of England have undergone but slight change. From the time of the Norman Conquest, in 1066, to the commencement of the reign of Edward the First, in 1272, a period of over two hundred years, the high official, who superintended the administration of justice over all England, was called the Chief or Grand Justiciar. This office was created by the Conqueror preparatory to the introduction of the Feudal System in England; a position second in dignity only to that of the King, he wielded not only civil, but military power as well. The first Norman ruler decided to establish a grand central tribunal for the whole realm, and with this end in view created the famous Court, called the Curia Regis, sometimes called the Aula Regis. It consisted of the leading Peers of the realm and chief officers of state, the Constable, the Chamberlain, the Treasurer, the Marshal, and the Seneschal. It was not only to be a great Court of Appeal, but one in which all causes of importance should originate and be finally decided. The Curia Regis, at once the council of the King and the witenagemot of the nation, discharged judicial, administrative and legislative functions. The Grand Justiciar presided in the Curia Regis, and in the Exchequer, and acted as Regent, during the absence of the King. In fine he directed the whole financial and judicial arrangements of the kingdom. This great official was shorn of much of his power and dignity, when the Curia Regis was subsequently divided into the three great Courts or tribunals of the King's Bench, the Common Pleas, and the Exchequer. The Chief Justiciars were generally selected from such as had undergone clerical training and taken Holy Orders, since from their knowledge of civil and canon law, and from being versed in all the mysteries of the Feudal System, they seemed best fitted to discharge duties so important and diversified.

Odo, the half brother of the Conqueror, was the first Chief Justiciar of England. At an early age he had been created Bishop of Bayeaux. He accompanied his brother on the invasion of England. Donning a coat of mail, Bishop as

he was, carrying a Marshal's baton and charging at the head of the cavalry, he did yeoman's service, at Senlac, and by his valour and skill contributed largely to the victory of that fateful day. His knowledge of civil and ecclesiastical law, as well as his great ability, pointed him out as eminently fitted for the position of Chief Justiciar. He acted in a three-fold capacity; as prelate in celebrating mass in the King's Palace, as supreme Judge in the Aula Regis, and as Commander of the King's troops in times of war. In the list of Chief Justiciars are found the names of some of the ablest and most noted men in the annals of the times-Roger Bishop of Salisbury, Prince Henry (afterwards Henry II.); Glanville, distinguished as a soldier, stateman, and a lawyer. Glanville was considered the father of English jurisprudence. His treatise on the laws and customs of the kingdom of England is perused, even at this day, with advantage on many questions of civil rights. Coke, grateful for all he had "reaped out of the fair fields of his labours," quaintly remarks: "I will for the honour of him, and of his name, and posterity which remain to this day, impart and publish, to all future and succeeding ages, what I have found of great antiquity and of undoubted verity." Henry de Bracton, the famous law writer, was appointed Chief Justiciar, in the reign of Henry III. His great work, a complete view of the municipal law of England, in the reign of Henry II., was also highly commended by Coke. Lord Campbell says of it: "for systematic arrangement, for perspicuity, and for nervousness, it cannot be too much admired. He was rivalled by no English juridicial writer till Blackstone arose five hundred years after." On the death of Bracton, in 1268, Robert Bruce, a scion of the Scottish Noble House of Bruce, was appointed Chief Justiciar, and held the office until the death of Henry III., which marked the termination of the line of Chief Justiciars.

During the reign of Edward I., the Curia Regis was divided into distinct tribunals, to which were assigned different classes of cases, thus giving consistency and definiteness of powers within their respective spheres of activity. These Courts, the King's Bench, the Common Pleas, the Exchequer, and the Court, afterwards known as the Court of Chancery, vested with equitable powers, were shaped and moulded in the form and on the lines on which they remained, with very slight alteration, until the year 1875,

when remodelled by the Judicature Act. The Court of King's Bench, having criminal jurisdiction, and a general superintendence over inferior tribunals, was henceforth presided over by an official, a common law Judge, denominated the Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This great law reformer, our English Justinian, determined to select his Judges, not from the clergy, who had hitherto largely monopolized all important juridical offices, but from laymen trained in the Inns of Court, those excellent nurseries of education established for instruction in the municipal or common law. He appointed Henry de Hengham the first Chief Justice of the King's Bench. From this time forth we part company with the clerical, knightly, and judicial official, hitherto known, for two centuries, as the Grand Justiciar. The salary of the first Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench of England was a mere pittance of sixty marks, a sum barely sufficient to purchase his official robes. The Judges at the time were paid by fees on the causes they tried. Over four hundred years afterwards, the independence of the Judges was secured under the provisions of the Act of Settlement, 12 & 13 Wm. II., ch. 2 (1700 and 1701), entitled an Act for the further limitation of the Crown and better securing the rights and liberties of the subject. By this Act it was provided, Judges' commissions be made quamdiu se bene gesserint, and not as before during the pleasure of the Crown, and their salaries ascertained and established and made chargeable upon the whole public revenue; and further, that they could only be removed from office upon the address of both Houses of Parliament. The independence of the judicial bench was further increased by the fact, all Acts of Parliament are subject to judicial interpretation; and, also, the Bench interprets solely by reference to the words of the Act, regardless of anything said in debate, during its passage through Parliament; and the Judges, likewise, put such interpretation upon all Acts of Parliament as is in harmony with the common law principles.

The lawyers were not then subjected to the burdensome outlay incurred by the purchase of numberless reports, and expensive text books to be renewed every five years. The complete library of the practitioner of that age, consisted of the works of Glanville, Bracton and Fleta. During the reign of Edward was commenced the publication of the year

books, being notes of cases tried in the different leading Courts.

In the early part of his reign the King spent three years in the Duchy of Acquitaine. On his return he found the kingdom in a state of great disorder-open violence, robbery and judicial corruption everywhere rampant. The Chief Justice of the King's Bench and the other Judges were found to have been guilty of wholesale bribery, during his absence. The King caused them to be thrown into prison and immediately summoned a Parliament for their trial. All of the Judges, except two, were found guilty and heavily fined. The Chief Justice of the King's Bench was fined 7,000 marks. The Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. De Weyland refusing trial petitioned for leave to abjure the realm, which was granted upon condition he should be attainted and forfeit all his lands and chattels to the Crown. He was compelled to walk barefoot and bareheaded, with a crucifix in his hand, to the seaside, and to be deported to foreign parts. In 1347, Sir William de Thorpe was Chief Justice of the King's Bench. At first he was supposed to be an upright and exemplary Judge. He subsequently, however, lapsed into evil ways. He was detected in several gross acts of bribery, for which he was impeached and sentence of death passed upon him, according to common tradition, although no record of his trial was preserved. Thus did the great Plantagenat deal with those, who sold, denied or delayed, right or justice.

It presents an agreeable contrast to pass from these judicial lapses to a consideration of the career of one of the most fearless and upright Judges that ever wore the ermine and graced the seat of Justice.

Sir John Holt, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench for the long period of twenty-two years, during the reign of William III. and part of the reign of Queen Anne, stands second only to Coke as an expositor of the great underlying principles of the common law. For judicial fairness, clearness of thought and facility of expression, coupled with unbending integrity and fearless independence. as well as freedom from party bias, he ranks the equal of any of the great Judges who adorn the annals of English jurisprudence. He was the son of Sir Thomas Holt, a lawyer by profession, and was born at Thame Oxfordshire, on the 30th of December, 1642. He studied at Oriel College, Oxford, and entered Gray's Inn in 1660. He applied himself

with great diligence to the study of the law and was called to the Bar in 1663. His father was an unbending Tory; the son, however, allied himself with the Whig party and became an ardent advocate of Civil and Religious liberty. He at first travelled the Oxford Circuit and was not overburdened with business. He was advised to try his luck in the Court of Chancery, but would not listen to the suggestion, for he had great contempt for the equitable system, and expressed his determination to win success in the practice of the common law. Success beyond all reasonable expectation eventually crowned his efforts. He became noted for winning verdicts in doubtful cases, and what was of more importance, for having "the ear of the Court." He gradually worked his way into a lucrative practice and often appeared as counsel in state trials.

In 1666 he was appointed Recorder of London. and shortly afterwards was promoted to the dignified position of King's Sergeant and had the honor of knighthood conferred upon him. He could not conscientiously support James II. in the exercise of his dispensing power and so expressed himself, when sitting as recorder in the Old Bailey Sessions. In a matter that came before him he emphatically declared: "That although the dispensing power claimed by the Crown had been applied, from ancient times, to statutes imposing pecuniary penalties given to the King, it could not extend to a statute imposing a test to protect the religion of the nation; and that although the King by his prerogative might enlist soldiers, even in time of peace, still, if there was no statute passed to punish mutiny, and to subject them to a particular discipline, they could not be punished for any military offence, and they were only amenable to the same laws as the rest of the King's subjects."

The appointment of the city officials being then in the Crown, the King at once dismissed Holt from the recordership and appointed a servile parasite in his place.

After the flight of James II., and when the throne had been declared vacant by those who had been members of the last Parliament, Holt exerted himself to effect a settlement by the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under the Prince and Princess of Orange. He concurred in the proceedings which resulted in the Prince summoning the Convention Parliament (so-called) and was elected a member thereof. He proved a most valuable acquisition to

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