In the year 1280, a single man held the power to decide whether justice would be served or denied to the poorest subject in the realm, acting as the sole arbiter of fairness when the rigid laws of the common courts failed. This man was the Lord Chancellor, an office that began as the King's conscience and evolved into the most powerful legal position in England. The role traces its origins back to the Carolingian monarchy, where a chancellor served as the keeper of the royal seal, but in England, the office dates at least as far back as the Norman Conquest of 1066. Some historical records suggest the first chancellor was Angmendus in 605, while others credit Edward the Confessor with adopting the practice of sealing documents instead of signing them personally, appointing a clerk named Regenbald to the title. By the 14th century, the staff of this growing office had separated from the King's household and established itself in Chancery Lane, creating a distinct bureaucratic entity that would eventually become the heart of the English legal system. For centuries, the Lord Chancellor was almost always a member of the clergy, as the church was one of the few institutions with literate men capable of managing the complex affairs of state. These churchmen performed multiple functions simultaneously, serving as the Keeper of the Great Seal, the chief royal chaplain, and an adviser in both spiritual and temporal matters, making the position one of the most important in government, outranked only by the Justiciar. The office was so critical that the Treason Act of 1351 made it high treason to slay the Lord Chancellor, a protection that extended to judges while they were actually in court determining a case. The Lord Chancellor was the Keeper of the King's Conscience, a title that reflected his duty to dispense equity to soften the harshness of the common law, a role that would eventually lead to the creation of the High Court of Chancery. As the workload of the court grew, the Lord Chancellor delegated authority to the Master of the Rolls, who remains the second-highest-ranking official in the English judiciary, and eventually to other members of his staff. In this body, the Lord Chancellor determined cases according to fairness instead of strict principles, becoming known as the keeper of the king's conscience. The office remained dominated by churchmen until the 16th century, when Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who was Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York, was dismissed for failing to procure the annulment of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Following Wolsey's fall, laymen tended to be more favored for appointment to the office, though ecclesiastics made a brief return during the reign of Mary I. Thereafter, almost all Lord Chancellors have been laymen, with Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, serving as the last Lord Chancellor who was not a lawyer until the appointment of Chris Grayling in 2012. The three subsequent holders of the position, Michael Gove, Liz Truss, and David Lidington, were also not lawyers, but the appointment of David Gauke in January 2018 meant that once again the Lord Chancellor was a lawyer. The office of Lord Chancellor of Scotland continued until 1708, and Lord Seafield was re-appointed in 1713, sitting as an extraordinary lord of session in that capacity until his death in 1730, since which time the office of Lord Chancellor of Scotland has been in abeyance. The office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland was abolished, and its duties transferred to the governor of Northern Ireland, and later the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, when the Irish Free State was formed in 1922. Thus, the Lord Chancellor remains Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain and not Lord High Chancellor of the United Kingdom. The Lord Chancellor is a member of the Privy Council and of the Cabinet, and the ministerial department the Lord Chancellor heads was known as the Lord Chancellor's Office between 1885 and 1971, and the Lord Chancellor's Department between 1971 and 2003. In 2003 the department was renamed the Department for Constitutional Affairs, and the Lord Chancellor was appointed Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. In 2007 this post was renamed Secretary of State for Justice, and the department became the Ministry of Justice. By law, the Lord Chancellor is the minister of the Crown responsible for the administration of the courts and tribunals, legal aid, and matters of public guardianship and mental incapacity in England and Wales. The Lord Chancellor appoints the Official Solicitor and Public Trustee, supervises the Judicial Appointment and Conduct Ombudsman, regulates legal services through the Legal Services Board and the Office for Legal Complaints, and undertakes continuous law reform with the assistance of the Law Commission. In their capacity as secretary of state for justice, the Lord Chancellor also administers the prison system and probation services in England and Wales. It is for the Lord Chancellor to recommend the appointment of judges to English, Welsh, and UK-wide courts of law and tribunals. Since 2005, senior judges are appointed by the sovereign on the advice of the Lord Chancellor, who in turn consults an independent Judicial Appointments Commission. Since 2013, all other English and Welsh judges employed by His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service are also appointed by the sovereign on the advice of the Lord Chancellor after consultation with the Judicial Appointments Commission. The Lord Chancellor's discretion over these judicial appointments is limited by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and the Crime and Courts Act 2013. Nevertheless, when consulting the Judicial Appointments Commission, the Lord Chancellor may prescribe the scope for judicial nominations and choose to either accept or reject its recommendations. As it concerns judges of local courts, the Lord Chancellor is required to consult the Advisory Committee on Justices of the Peace in the English and Welsh local authorities of competent jurisdiction before appointing justices of the peace, but is not otherwise circumscribed in terms of their discretion. By virtue of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, which reaffirms local authorities' longstanding authority to appoint coroners, the Lord Chancellor must nevertheless approve the appointments; said approval extends to the Lord Chief Justice's appointment of the Chief Coroner of England and Wales. Judicial administration aside, the Lord Chancellor performs other executive functions. For example, the Lord Chancellor officiates a ceremony in Westminster Abbey at the beginning of the legal year in front of all the judges. The ceremony is followed by a reception known as the Lord Chancellor's breakfast which is held in Westminster Hall. Separately, the Lord Chancellor is involved in the appointment of senior counsel learned in the law known as King's Counsel. Prior to 2005, the Lord Chancellor personally determined which barristers were to be raised to said rank. This is no longer the case. Instead, the responsibility of evaluating applicants and recommending nominees rests with an independent panel. The Lord Chancellor's role in this reformed selection process is now one of appointing the panel's members and assuring their recommendations comply with the principles of due process, fairness, and efficiency. The Lord Chancellor invariably advises the sovereign to appoint the resulting nominees so long as the appointments meet this benchmark. Perhaps most notably, custody of the Great Seal of the Realm is entrusted to the Lord Chancellor, as has been the case for nearly a thousand years; this was confirmed by the Great Seal Act 1884 and reaffirmed by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. Documents to which the Great Seal is affixed include letters patent, writs of summons, writs of election, royal warrants, royal charters and royal proclamations, among many other instruments. The actual sealing of documents is performed by order of the Lord Chancellor under the supervision of the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice, who holds the separate statutory post of Clerk of the Crown in Chancery and is thus head of the Crown Office. The Lord Chancellor is not keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland, the Great Seal of Northern Ireland, or the Welsh Seal. Rather, the First Minister of Scotland, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and the First Minister of Wales are the lawful custodians. The Lord Chancellor facilitates the enactment of primary legislation, whereby bills duly passed by the House of Lords and the House of Commons receive royal assent and become Acts of Parliament, that is statute law. When royal assent is requested by Parliament, the Lord Chancellor submits to the sovereign a list of those bills which are ready for enactment or which are likely to have passed by the time royal assent is to be signified. The list is prepared by the Clerk of the Parliaments, who transmits an advance copy to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery for inclusion in the letters patent by which the sovereign signifies their assent. Bills for granting aids and supplies to the Crown are placed first, followed thereafter by other public bills, provisional order bills, private bills, personal bills and Church Measures. Whenever the sovereign appoints lords commissioners to perform certain actions on his or her behalf, the Lord Chancellor usually serves as the principal or senior lord commissioner. The other lords commissioners, by convention, are members of the House of Lords who are privy counsellors. In this role the Lord Chancellor wears parliamentary robes, a full-length scarlet wool gown decorated with miniver fur. The Lord Chancellor wears a tricorne hat, but the other lords commissioners wear bicorne hats. During the period that Jack Straw, an MP, was Lord Chancellor, he was officially named as one of the lords commissioners, but did not take part in the formal ceremonies of granting royal assent and proroguing Parliament. The Lord Speaker has been appointed a lord commissioner and does take part in the ceremonies. The role of principal lord commissioner during this period has been taken by the leader of the House of Lords. There is an exception: when John Bercow was presented for royal approbation for the office of speaker of the House of Commons in 2009, and again when Bercow's successor Sir Lindsay Hoyle was presented for approbation in 2019, the Lord Chancellor were the principal lord commissioner, and the Lord Speaker was not in the commission. This precedent has continued since then. It is unclear how these arrangements would change if a future Lord Chancellor were appointed from the House of Lords. The Lord Chancellor performs various functions relating to the established Church of England. By law, the Lord Chancellor must be consulted before appointments may be made to ecclesiastical courts. Indeed, judges of Consistory Courts, the Arches Court of Canterbury, the Chancery Court of York and the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved are appointed only after consultation with the Lord Chancellor. Additionally the Lord Chancellor is, ex officio, one of the thirty-three Church Commissioners, who manage the assets of the Church of England. Moreover, the Lord Chancellor appoints clergy in such of the ecclesiastical livings under the patronage of the Crown as are officially listed as being worth less than £20 per annum. Lord Chancellors exercise the same prerogative in regard to the less valuable livings in the Duchy of Cornwall when there is no duke of Cornwall, or when the duke of Cornwall is a minor. The heir-apparent to the Crown, if he is the sovereign's eldest son, is automatically duke of Cornwall. Finally, the Lord Chancellor is in some cases the patron of an ecclesiastical living in his own right. In total, the Lord Chancellor appoints clergymen in over four hundred parishes and ten cathedral canonries. Historically, Catholics were thought to be ineligible for the office of Lord Chancellor, as the office entailed functions relating to the Church of England. Most legal restrictions on Catholics were lifted by the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, which, however, provides: nothing herein contained shall enable any Person, otherwise than as he is now by Law enabled, to hold or enjoy the Office of Lord High Chancellor, Lord Keeper or Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal. The words as he is now by Law enabled, however, caused considerable doubt, as it was unclear if Catholics were disqualified from holding the office in the first place. For the removal of all doubt, Parliament passed the Lord Chancellor (Tenure of Office and Discharge of Ecclesiastical Functions) Act 1974, declaring that there was never any impediment to the appointment of a Catholic. The act nevertheless provides that, if a Catholic were to be appointed to the office, then the sovereign may temporarily transfer the Lord Chancellor's ecclesiastical functions to the prime minister or another minister of the Crown. No Catholic has served as Lord Chancellor since the passage of the Act, although several non-Anglican Protestants and one Muslim have done. Under the Regency Act 1937, the Lord Chancellor is one of the five persons who participate in determining the capacity of the sovereign to discharge his or her functions, the other individuals so empowered are the sovereign's spouse, the speaker of the House of Commons, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and the master of the rolls. If any three or more of these individuals, based on evidence that, as required by statute, shall include evidence provided by physicians, determine and declare by an instrument in writing, lodged with the Privy Council, that the sovereign suffers from a mental or physical infirmity that prevents him or her from personally discharging the duties of head of state, the royal functions are transferred to a regent, who discharges them in the name and on behalf of the monarch. The Lord Chancellor is responsible for making a speech and raising the toast to the Lord Mayor at the Lord Mayor's Dinner to His Majesty's Judges in July each year. The Lord Chancellor was initially considered Keeper of the King's Conscience. As such, the Lord Chancellor was once also the chief judge of the Court of Chancery in London, dispensing equity to soften the harshness of the common law. The growing workload of the Court of Chancery over ensuing centuries led the Lord Chancellor to become the recognised head of the English and Welsh judiciary. Immediately prior to the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the Lord Chancellor performed several different roles as head of the English and Welsh courts. He sat as a judge in the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, the highest domestic court in the United Kingdom, and was a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the senior tribunal of the British Empire. He was the president of the Supreme Court of England and Wales, and therefore supervised the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, the High Court of Justice of England and Wales and the Crown Court of England and Wales. He was also, ex officio, a judge in the Court of Appeal and the president of the Chancery Division. In modern times, these judicial functions were exercised very sparingly. The functions in relation to the House of Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council were usually delegated to the senior lord of appeal in ordinary. The task of presiding over the Chancery Division was delegated to the vice-chancellor, a senior judge. Most Lord Chancellors by the end of the twentieth century gave judgments only in cases reaching the House of Lords. The last Lord Chancellor to preside as a judge was Lord Irvine of Lairg, in office 1997, 2003, who did so as a member of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords. However, concerns were already being expressed, including by the judiciary, at the propriety of a cabinet minister sitting as a professional judge, and his successor, Lord Falconer, never performed such a role, even before his right to do so was abolished. When peers had the right to be tried for felonies or for high treason by other peers in the House of Lords, the Lord High Steward, instead of the Lord Chancellor, would preside. This also occurred in impeachment trials. The office of Lord High Steward has generally remained vacant since 1421. Whenever a peer was to be tried in the House of Lords, a Lord High Steward would be appointed pro hac vice. In many cases, the Lord Chancellor would merely be elevated to the office of Lord High Steward temporarily. Trials of peers in the House of Lords were abolished in 1948, and impeachment is considered obsolete, so this is unlikely to occur again. The judicial functions of the Lord Chancellor were removed by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. The Lord Chancellor used to be the presiding officer of the House of Lords by right of prescription. The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 removed this function, leaving the choice of a presiding officer to the House of Lords itself. Ultimately, the Lords chose to elect a Lord Speaker of the House of Lords, which title was already used in the Standing Orders. The Lord Chancellor acted as the visitor of many universities, colleges, schools, hospitals and other charitable organisations throughout the United Kingdom. When the rules of the organisation do not designate a visitor or, when a vacancy in the office arises, the sovereign serves as visitor, but delegated the functions to the Lord Chancellor. Furthermore, some organisations explicitly provided that the Lord Chancellor was to act as visitor; these bodies included St. George's Chapel, Windsor, the Royal Institution, Newcastle University and three colleges of the University of Oxford. Likewise, the statutes of Harrow School, Rugby School and Charterhouse School conferred on the Lord Chancellor the authority to make appointments to their governing bodies. All of the aforementioned visitorial functions were abolished, vested in the Crown or transferred to another suitable office by The Lord Chancellor (Transfer of Functions and Supplementary Provisions) Order 2007 made under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. The Lord High Chancellor outranks all other great officers of state with the exception of the Lord High Steward, which has generally been vacant since the 15th century. Under modern conventions, the office of Lord High Steward is only filled on the day of a new monarch's coronation; thus, at all other times, the Lord Chancellor remains the highest ranking great officer. The importance of the office is reflected by the Treason Act 1351, which makes it high treason to slay the Lord Chancellor. A Lord High Treasurer would be entitled to the same protection, but the office is now held in commission, as would a judge whilst actually in court, determining a case. The Lord Chancellor's position in the modern order of precedence is an extremely high one, generally being outranked only by the royal family and high ecclesiastics. In England, the Lord Chancellor precedes all non-royal individuals except the Archbishop of Canterbury. In Scotland, they precede all non-royal individuals except the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Although Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, they maintain a position in the order of precedence in Northern Ireland; there, they outrank all non-royal individuals with the exception of the Anglican and Roman Catholic archbishops of Armagh, the Anglican and Roman Catholic archbishops of Dublin and the moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Throughout the United Kingdom, the Lord Chancellor technically outranks the Prime Minister, although the latter generally possesses more power. The precedence of a Lord Keeper of the Great Seal is equivalent to that of a Lord Chancellor. The precedence of lords commissioners of the Great Seal is much lower. The Lord Chancellor is entitled to an annual emolument of £227,736 and to an annual pension of £106,868. The Lord Chancellor's salary is higher than that of any other public official, including even the Prime Minister, although sometimes the officeholder may voluntarily decide to receive a reduced salary. The Lord Chancellor, on formal state occasions such as the State Opening of Parliament, wears legal court dress consisting of a black silk velvet cutaway tailcoat with cloth covered buttons, waistcoat and breeches worn with white shirt, lace stock and cuffs, black silk stockings and cut-steel buckled patent court shoes. Over this is worn a black silk damask robe of state with a long train trimmed with gold lace and frogging, with a black silk wig bag attached to the flap collar at the back. A full-bottomed wig is worn and, in the past, a black tricorne hat was carried. When the Lord Chancellor sat in the Lords, they wore an undress version of court dress, consisting of the court dress but made of black superfine cloth rather than silk velvet, and over that a black silk robe with a train with the wig bag attached. The full-bottomed wig was also worn, and the tricorne carried. Now that the Lord Chancellor is appointed from the Commons rather than the Lords, they normally wear a business suit and only wear full ceremonial dress for state occasions. There is an unofficial precedent that Lord Chancellors that do not have a legal background do not wear the wig. Jack Straw, a qualified barrister, initially did not wear one but did so afterwards, as did his immediate successor, Kenneth Clarke. Chris Grayling, Michael Gove, Liz Truss and David Lidington, none of whom had a legal background, did not do so, nor did David Gauke or Dominic Raab, but Robert Buckland, Brandon Lewis, Alex Chalk and Shabana Mahmood, all of whom were barristers, did wear the customary wig when in full ceremonial dress, as does David Lammy. In 2019, when serving as one of the Lords Commissioners at the Approbation of the new speaker of the Commons, the Lord Chancellor Robert Buckland wore the full court dress and robe of state, the full bottomed wig and a tricorne hat. The historic insignia of the Lord Chancellor is a purse containing the Great Seal and a mace. The Elizabethan play Sir Thomas More opens Scene II as follows: Chelsea. A Room in More's House. A table being covered with a green carpet, a state cushion on it, and the Purse and Mace lying thereon, enter Sir Thomas More. In the early 21st century, the Labour government viewed it as untenable that all three political functions, executive, legislative and judicial, should be continued in the historical office of Lord Chancellor. In the Government's view, this infringed Montesquieu's principle of separation of powers which declared that no person should have access to all of the three political functions. The Lord Chancellor could exercise all three powers, and some, such as Quintin, Lord Hailsham, often did so. The Labour Government also took the view that these powers were inconsistent with the European Convention on Human Rights. However, proposals by the Blair government simply to abolish the office met with opposition from those who felt that such an official was necessary to speak on the judiciary's behalf in Cabinet, as well as from many who opposed the sudden abolition of such an ancient office. In 2003, Tony Blair chose his close friend and former flatmate Lord Falconer to be Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. At the same time, he announced his intention to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor and to make many other constitutional reforms. After much surprise and confusion, it became clear that the ancient office of Lord Chancellor could not be abolished without an Act of Parliament. Thus Lord Falconer duly appeared the following day in the House of Lords to carry out his duties from the Woolsack. The Lord Chancellor's Department was, however, renamed the Department for Constitutional Affairs. In January 2004, the Department of Constitutional Affairs published a concordat, outlining the division of authority between Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice and which was intended as the basis of reform. The Government introduced the Constitutional Reform Bill in the House of Lords in February 2004. The bill sought to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor, and to transfer its functions to other officials: legislative functions to a speaker of the House of Lords, executive functions to the secretary of state for constitutional affairs and judicial functions to the Lord Chief Justice. The bill also made other constitutional reforms, such as transferring the judicial duties of the House of Lords to a supreme court. However, unlike the responsibilities of other secretaries of state, which can be transferred from one department to another by an order-in-council, several functions of the Lord Chancellor are linked to the office of Lord Chancellor as a matter of statute law. Those protected functions of the Lord Chancellor can only be transferred to other ministers by Act of Parliament. As a consequence, it became clear that it was extremely difficult to simply abolish the office of Lord Chancellor. In March 2004, however, the Lords upset the Government's plans by sending the bill to a Select committee. Although initially seen as a move to kill the bill, the Government and HM Opposition agreed to permit the bill to proceed through the parliamentary process, subject to any amendments made by the committee. On the 13th of July 2004, the House amended the Constitutional Reform Bill such that the title of Lord Chancellor would be retained, although the Government's other proposed reforms were left intact. Then, in November 2004, the Government introduced an amendment in the Lords which wholly removed references to the secretary of state for constitutional affairs, changing them to ones about the Lord Chancellor, with the positions of secretary of state and Lord Chancellor envisaged as being held by the same person. The final Constitutional Reform Act received royal assent on the 24th of March 2005 and the major transfers of the historical functions of the Lord Chancellor to others were complete by mid-2006. However the Lord Chancellor and secretary of state for constitutional affairs remained a member of the Prime Minister's Cabinet, retaining most of the office's original statutory functions. In May 2007, the Department of Constitutional Affairs was abolished and its functions were transferred to a newly created Ministry of Justice which also took charge of certain responsibilities transferred from the Home Office. Lord Falconer retained the title, salary and office of Lord Chancellor, as well as being created the inaugural Secretary of State for Justice. Prior to Tony Blair's premiership, were a person not a peer to be appointed to the office of Lord Chancellor, he would be raised to the peerage upon appointment, though provision was made in 1539 for non-peers who are great officers of state to sit in between the benches in the House. The House of Lords Precedence Act 1539, section 8. With the enactment of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and the subsequent separation of the roles of Lord Chancellor and speaker of the House of Lords, it is no longer necessary for the Lord Chancellor to be a peer or to have a legal background. In June 2007, Jack Straw MP was appointed Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, thus becoming the first Lord Chancellor to be a member of the Commons, rather than the House of Lords or its predecessor, the Curia Regis, since Christopher Hatton in 1587. Both Straw and his immediate successor, Ken Clarke, were barristers. In 2012 Chris Grayling became the first justice secretary without a legal background, in which he was followed by his three immediate successors. One of these, Liz Truss in 2016, became the first woman to serve as Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom. Queen Eleanor of Provence was keeper of the great seal, and so arguably Lord Chancellor, of England in 1253, 54. Subsequently, the post was for the first time held by solicitors, David Gauke and Dominic Raab. A fictional depiction of a Lord Chancellor occurs in Iolanthe, the frequently-revived comic opera by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. The Lord Chancellor is the central character in the work but is identified only by his title. William Rehnquist, late Chief Justice of the United States, was inspired to add four golden stripes to the sleeves of his judicial robes after seeing the costume of the Lord Chancellor in a production of Iolanthe. The current Chief Justice, John Roberts, has not continued the practice. A fictional Lord Chancellor also appears in Charles Dickens' novel Bleak House, presiding over the interminable chancery case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels feature a number of references to fictitious Lord Chancellors. The Liberal Lord Weazeling holds the office in the Liberal governments of Mildmay and Gresham in Phineas Finn and Phineas Redux; the Conservative Lord Ramsden holds the position in the Duke of Omnium's coalition government in The Prime Minister. In Gresham's final government at the end of The Prime Minister, the former Liberal Attorney General, Sir Gregory Grogram, is finally given the position, which he had desired for some time. King Hilary and the Beggarman, a children's poem by A. A. Milne, relates the story of a fictional Lord High Chancellor, Proud Lord Willoughby, who is dismissed for refusing to obey his king. In David Gurr's thriller A Woman Called Scylla, set in 1977, the main villain is an utterly ruthless and unscrupulous Lord Chancellor, who grossly abuses his many functions and powers in order to cover up his treason during the Second World War and as a stepping stone towards becoming Prime Minister. As the writer clearly states, this was not intended to refer to the actual holder of the office at the time of writing or at any other time. The Lord Chancellor is portrayed by Preston Lockwood in Rumpole and the Tap End episode of the Rumpole of the Bailey TV series. He is shown making himself a necklace/chain of office from coloured paper clips, whilst reprimanding Judge Featherstone.