Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/210

 by knight's service into free and common socage, together with the abolition of wardships and other incidents of the royal prerogative in connection with the great contract of 1610, and a dialogue is extant ascribed to him advocating the acceptance of the king's offer by the commons, and hinting that in case of its rejection means of raising money without the consent of parliament would be found (Parl. Deb. 1610, App. D). In 1610 the king granted him the reversion of the office of master of the rolls, expectant on the death of Sir E. Philips. In 1613 he was among the commissioners appointed by the king at the suit of the Countess of Essex to determine the question of the validity of her marriage. He seems to have formed a very decided opinion in favour of the countess's contention at an early period of the inquiry, and to have been by no means sparing in the expression of it during the argument, to Archbishop Abbott's intense disgust. At this time he occupied a house on the north side of the Strand, nearly opposite the Savoy. Here (i.e. on the north side) he laid (10 Aug. 1613) the foundation-stone of a chapel, which was consecrated by the bishop of London (John King) on 8 May 1614, and called the Cecil Chapel. In the spring of 1614 he was returned to parliament as senior member for Middlesex; in the autumn, Sir E. Philips, the master of the rolls, having died, Cæsar succeeded him, receiving the usual patent granting him the office for life on 1 Oct., and taking his seat on the 10th of the same month. On his appointment he surrendered the offices of chancellor and under-treasurer of the exchequer. Chamberlain informs us that four judges were appointed to assist and act with him. With his connection with the exchequer he entirely abandoned the idea that the king could raise supplies without the consent of parliament; we find him earnestly advising in council (24 Sept. 1615) the summoning of a new parliament for the final settlement of the financial difficulty. He was one of the commissioners who examined (19 Jan. 1615) the puritan clergyman Peacham ‘before torture, in torture, between tortures, and after torture,’ with a view to discover his supposed accomplices in the conspiracy against the king's life, in which he was suspected of being principally concerned. At the end of this year he concluded a bargain with the Earl of Essex, who was embarrassed by the necessity of repaying the countess's marriage portion for the purchase of the estate of Bennington in Hertfordshire for the sum of 14,000l. In 1616 he followed the lead of Lord-chancellor Ellesmere in censuring the judges of the king's bench and common pleas for their resistance to the king in the matter of the commendam case. In August 1618 he was associated with Sir Edward Coke in the trial of the persons indicted for the attack on the Spanish ambassador's house. He was a member of the court of Star-chamber that tried the Earl and Countess of Suffolk for peculation in the following year, and took the milder view of their offence. In 1620 he was returned to parliament as senior member for Malden, Essex. Between 21 May and 10 July of this year he was commissioned to hear causes in chancery, the period coinciding with the interval between the disgrace of Bacon and the delivery of the great seal to Lord-keeper Williams. He was one of the three liquidators appointed by the king to arrange a composition with the late chancellor's creditors, and in 1625 Bacon nominated him one of the supervisors of his will, describing him as ‘my good friend and near ally, the master of the rolls.’ In 1631 we find him named, with Archbishop Abbot and others, in a commission of inquiry into the operation and administration of the poor law. His last important public act was to assist Lord-keeper Coventry in drawing up thirty-one ordinances of procedure, intended to correct abuses which had grown up in the court of chancery, and in particular to restore the ancient brevity of the pleadings and documents generally. He died on 18 April 1636, being then seventy-nine years old, and was buried in the church of Great St. Helen's, where his monument, with an inscription wrought in the device of a deed poll, with pendant seal (the attaching cord severed), is still to be seen. His reputation for legal acumen does not stand high. Chamberlain thought that he had more of ‘confidence in his own sufficiency’ than his abilities warranted. The same person writing to Sir Dudley Carleton, under date 4 April 1624, remarks incidentally that ‘Sir Julius Cæsar is reflected on for his want of law.’ He seems, however, to have had the rare merit of being superior to corruption. Fuller gives the following account of his character: ‘A person of prodigious bounty to all of worth or want, so that he might seem to be almoner-general of the nation. The story is well known of a gentleman who once borrowing his coach (which was as well known to poor people as any hospital in England) was so rendezvoused about with beggars in London that it cost him all the money in his purse to satisfy their importunity, so that he might have hired twenty coaches on the same terms. Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, was judicious in his election when perceiving his dissolution to approach he made his last bed in effect in the house of Sir Julius.’ Aubrey,