Volume II 1603-1660 - The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

INTRODUCTION. cxvii
As the fellows began to return to the inn and new members
joined, a difficulty was felt in supplying them with chambers. Many
of these were occupied by persons who having come in during the
time of the wars, when the inn was nearly deserted, would not obey
any order to quit. A peremptory notice was accordingly issued in
June, 1653, that, with a view to the house being restored to its p. 306
primary institution and condition, all families and persons whatsoever
should quit before Michaelmas next, and that the clerk
of the church should not, after the next Lord's day, permit any
women to sit in any of the benchers' seats, which they seem to
have invaded, but that such seats be kept solely for the benchers as
heretofore.
In February, 1650-51, the first order was promulgated requiring
the taking of the engagement.' This was rendered necessary by the
Act of 2nd January, 1649-50. From this date to January, 1653-4, p. 297
when the engagement was withdrawn by the protector, who shared
in the modern objection to promissory oaths, every student wishing
to be called to the bar came to the end of the bench table in the hall
at dinner time, and there publicly took the engagement by signing P. 313
the long roll of parchment, before being admitted to the degree of
an utter barrister of the house. This engagement was taken by
every barrister and bencher before he could open his lips in court ;
and it will be remembered that at the trial of Christopher Love, the
presbyterian minister, in May, 1651, Mr. Archer and Mr. Waller,
who were assigned to be counsel for him, were refused audience,
by reason of their not having taken the engagement, and that his
defence was undertaken by Matthew Hale, who, in answer to the
president, said, " My Lord, I have done it."
Two buildings, one in Inner Temple Lane and one in Parson's
Court, were undertaken by the society during this period ; and
considerable sums, notwithstanding the poverty of the inn, were
spent upon the church and upon the garden. The building in p. 325
the Inner Temple Lane is charged altogether at ,4.2,058, and
that in Parson's Court at ‘1,430. The increasing values of
1 The form of the engagement was : " I do declare and promise that I will be
true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England as it is now established without a
king or a house of lords."
Cobbett's " State Trials." London, 8vo, 181 o, vol. v., p. 211.