WILLIAM AND MAET.

21

of business lay was Godolphin. This man, taciturn, clear- chap.minded, laborious, inoffensive, zealous for no government and ——useful to every government, had gradually become an almostindispensable part of the machinery of the state. Though achurchman, he had prospered in a Court governed by Jesuits.Though he had voted for a Regency, he was the real head of atreasury filled with Whigs. His abilities and knowledge, whichhad in the late reign supplied the deficiencies of Bellasyse andDover, were now needed to supply the deficiencies of Mordauntand Delamere.*

There were some difficulties in disposing of the Great Seal. The GreatThe King at first wished to confide it to Nottingham, whosefather had home it during several years with high reputation.**Nottingham, however, declined the trust; and it was offered toHalifax, but w r as again declined. Both these Lords doubtlessfelt that it was a trust which they could not discharge withhonour to themselves or with advantage to the public. In oldtimes, indeed, the Seal had been generally held by personswho w'ere not lawyers. Even in the seventeenth century it hadbeen confided to two eminent men, who had never studied atany Inn of Court. Dean Williams had been Lord Keeper toJames the First. Shaftesbury had been Lord Chancellor toCharles the Second. But such appointments could no longer bemade without serious inconvenience. Equity had been graduallyshaping itself into a refined science, which no human facultiescould master without long and intense application. EvenShaftesbury, vigorous as was his intellect, had painfully felt his

* London Gazette, March 11. 1G8§.

** I have followed what seems to mo the most probable story. But ithas been doubted whether Nottingham was invited to bo Chancellor, oronly to be First Commissioner of the Great Seal. Compare Burnet, ii. 3.*and Boyer’s History of William, 1702. Narcissus Luttrell repeatedly, andeven as late as the close of 1G92, speaks of Nottingham as likely to beChancellor*