the great leader of the Long Parliament. But the Commissioner on
whom the chief weight of business lay was Godolphin. This man,
taciturn, clearminded, laborious, inoffensive, zealous for no
government and useful to every government, had gradually become
an almost indispensable part of the machinery of the state.
Though a churchman, he had prospered in a Court governed by
Jesuits. Though he had voted for a Regency, he was the real head
of a treasury filled with Whigs. His abilities and knowledge,
which had in the late reign supplied the deficiencies of
Bellasyse and Dover, were now needed to supply the deficiencies
of Mordaunt and Delamere.20

There were some difficulties in disposing of the Great Seal. The
King at first wished to confide it to Nottingham, whose father
had borne it during several years with high reputation.21
Nottingham, however, declined the trust; and it was offered to
Halifax, but was again declined. Both these Lords doubtless felt
that it was a trust which they could not discharge with honour to
themselves or with advantage to the public. In old times, indeed,
the Seal had been generally held by persons who were not lawyers.
Even in the seventeenth century it had been confided to two
eminent men, who had never studied at any Inn of Court. Dean
Williams had been Lord Keeper to James the First. Shaftesbury had
been Lord Chancellor to Charles the Second. But such appointments
could no longer be made without serious inconvenience. Equity had
been gradually shaping itself into a refined science, which no
human faculties could master without long and intense
application. Even Shaftesbury, vigorous as was his intellect, had
painfully felt his want of technical knowledge;22 and, during the
fifteen years which had elapsed since Shaftesbury had resigned