FIRST CHAPTER LXIX. LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF THE GREAT SEAL FROM THE APPOINTMENT OF WHITELOCK TILL THE ADOPTION OF A NEW GREAT SEAL BEARING THE INSIGNIA OF THE REPUBLIC. A MIDST the stirring political events which for some time occupied the public,-the negotiations with the King at Holmby,-his being violently carried off by Joyce, his flight from Hampton Court,-his imprisonment in Carisbrook Castle, and the attempts of the army to overpower the parliament,-the custody of the Great Seal, and the administration of justice in the Court of Chancery, excited little attention. But in an interval of comparative quiet which occurred in the spring of 1648, loud complaints were heard of the absurdity of having for the two supreme Equity Judges a lay Peer, because he happened to be Speaker of the House of Lords and the Speaker of the House of Commons, who, though he had been bred to the law, was now completely absorbed in his parliamentary duties. In the hope of satisfying the people and reconciling the clashing pretensions of the two Houses, an ordinance was introduced into the Commons, and immediately passed, for the appointment of three new Lords Commissioners, -the Earl of Kent, Bulstrode Whitelock, Esq., and Sir Thomas Widdrington, Sergeant-at-law. When the ordinance came up to the Lords, they insisted that there should be an equal number of their body appointed Commissioners, and added the name of Lord Grey de Werke, -with a proviso that no act should be done by the Commoners, unless with the concurrence of one Peer and one Commoner. To these amendments the Commons reluctantly assented, and the ordinance was law. Three of the new Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal were mere ciphers, and there would be no amusement or instruction in trying to trace their origin or their career; but WHITELOCK is one of the most interesting as well as amiable characters of the age in which he lived,— and as afterwards, on the deposition of His Highness, the Lord Protector Richard, he was for a time sole Lord |