22

HISTOEY OS' ENGLAND.

chap, want of technical knowledge*; and, during the fifteen years—— which had elapsed since Shaftesbury had resigned the Seal,technical knowledge had constantly been becoming more andmore necessary to his successors. Neither Nottingham there-fore, though he had a stock of legal learning such as is rarelyfound in any person who has not received a legal education, norHalifax, though, in the judicial sittings of the House of Lords,the quickness of his apprehension and the subtlety of his rea-soning had often astonished the bar, ventured to accept thehighest office which an English layman can fill. After somedelay the Seal was confided to a commission of eminentlawyers, with Maynard at their head.**

The The choice of Judges did honour to the new government.

Judges. ° °

Every Privy Councillor was directed to bring a list. The listswere compared; and twelve men of conspicuous meritselected.*** The professional attainments and Whig principlesof Pollexfen gave him pretensions to the highest place. Butit was remembered that he had held briefs for the Crown, in theWestern counties, at the assizes which followed the battle ofSedgemoor. It seems indeed from the reports of the trials thathe did as little as he could do if he held the briefs at all, andthat he left to the Judges the business of browbeating witnessesand prisoners. Nevertheless his name w'as inseparably asso-ciated in the public mind with the Bloody Circuit. He, there-fore , could not with propriety be put at the head of the firstcriminal court in the realm.f After acting during a few weeksas Attorney General, he was made Chief Justice of the CommonPleas. Sir John Holt, a young man, but distinguished bylearning, integrity, and courage, became Chief Justice of the

* Roger North relates an amusing story about Shaftesbury's embar-rassments.

** London Gazette, March 4; 168$.

*** Burnet, ii. 5.

•f- The Protestant Mask taken off from the Jesuited Englishman, 1692.