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 Military Lawyers. English nation was very deficient, not " that any of the students of our Lawes should by this occasion neglect their studies, but that they should change their former exercise in time of vacancie and recreation." As the result of this appeal, the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, on February 3, 1633, rode "in solemn triumph" before his majesty, properly armed and equipped. On the arrest of the " Five Members," in 1 64 1, great riots took place. The gentle men of the Inns of Court seem to have con sidered that the time had come for action, and accordingly they marched down, five hundred strong, to offer their services to the king as body-guard, which offer was ac cepted, and they remained at Westminster as his body-guard for some days. This deter mined action on their part, and in addition a threat used by one of them that, if necessary, they would send down to the country and fetch up their tenants — produced an effect in the Parliament which was evidently very great, and after a hasty deliberation four members were sent off to ascertain from the different Inns what their intentions were. In reply to them, the four Inns returned the extremely proper answer, " that they had only an intent to defend the King's person, and would likewise to their utmost also de fend the Parliament, being not able to make any distinction between King and Parlia ment, and that they would ever express all true affection to the House of Commons in particular." At the beginning of the Civil War, when the king was at Oxford, he granted to Lord Lyttleton, keeper of the great seal, a com mission to raise a regiment of infantry from the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, for the defense of the city and the University of Oxford. All the Inns of Court men were not, however, Royalists, for General Lam bert, and many others of Lincoln's Inn, took the side of Cromwell. At the period of the French Revolution the Inns of Court were most active in pro I

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moting the volunteer movement, which then first became general all over the country. One of the corps formed by Lincoln's Inn was commanded by Sir William Grant, the master of the rolls, who had rendered mili tary service by commanding a body of volunteers at the siege of Quebec by the Americans, first under General Montgomery, and afterwards under Colonel Arnold. He is said to have been the only lawyer who has ever, in active service, discharged mili tary and legal duties on the same day. It is said that the court used to adjourn at three o'clock, " to allow Mr. Grant to at tend his battery." Lord Erskine had seen service both in the army and the navy, hav ing, in 1764, joined the "Tartar" as a mid shipman. In 1768 he retired from the navy and entered the army as an ensign in the Royals or First Regiment of Foot, and in 1775 he retired from the army and joined the bar. Speaking of two reviews of volunteers con nected with London or the neighborhood, held on the 26th and 28th of October, 1803, in Hyde Park, by King George III, in per son, Earl Stanhope says: " Reckoning both days, upwards of 27,000 men were present under arms. When the ' Temple com panies ' had defiled before the king, his majesty asked Erskine, who commanded them as lieutenant-colonel, what was the composition of that corps? 'They are all lawyers, sire,' replied Erskine. ' What! what!' exclaimed the King, ' all lawyers? Why, then, call them The Devil's Own.'" Although Erskine had been a lieutenant in the army, and used to eat his obligatory law dinners in his scarlet regimentals, Lord Campbell says: "I did once, and only once, see him putting his men through their manoeuvres, on a summer's evening, in the Temple gardens; and I well recollect that he gave the word of command from a paper which he held before him, and in which, I conjectured, that his 'instructions' were written out as in a brief."