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

INTRODUCTION. lvii
pecuniary advantage in entering an inn of court from an inn of
chancery, and for many years it was the course usually followed.'
Several causes probably led to the change. The inns of court had of
late years become more than usually popular among the young nobility
and the sons of country gentlemen. Lavish hospitality and numerous
entertainments gave them great renown, and men of all classes,
including many of the bishops,2 thought it an honour to be inscribed
on their rolls. And it is probable that the discipline and administration
of the inns of chancery left much to be desired. A conspicuous
instance of this is to be seen in a petition presented to our benchers
in May, 1615, from the fellows of the society of Clifford's Inn. p. 89
Those gentlemen, to the number of fifty-six, prayed that the principal
of their inn, who had occupied that post for over forty years, but had
never rendered a satisfactory account of the funds, although, according
to his own confession, he had held in his own hands for some fifteen
years between ,4'300 and Aoo monies of the society, might be ordered
to come in person before the bench to explain his conduct, to produce
his accounts, and to allow the members of Clifford's Inn to have
access to them. This petition was granted, and the principal was p. 90
ordered to attend the bench table and answer the complaints
made against him. How this matter ended I have not been
able to ascertain. There is no further entry relating to it in the
records. Otherwise it would have been interesting to have learnt
what jurisdiction the inn of court actually exercised over the inns of
chancery affiliated to it, and how its mandate was enforced. In May, p. 113
6 19, a complaint came to the bench from the principals and governors
of the inns of chancery which put their position in plain language.
Their houses, they said, were almost grown so scarce of students that
their ordinary exercises were in decay and could not be performed,
so that the overthrow of the inns would be likely to result if some
remedy could not be speedily applied. The only remedy then applied
was to appoint a committee to " consider as well of the cause and
reason of the want of students in the said inns of chancery as of some
1 Coke and Selden both entered the Inner Temple from Clifford's Inn.
Richard Vaughan, Bishop of London (p. o) ; Gervase Babington, Bishop of
Worcester ; Martin Heton, Bishop of Ely ; John Jegon, Bishop of Norwich (p. 14) ;
Richard Parry, Bishop of S. Asaph (p. 29) ; George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury
(p. 57), were of the Inner Temple.
11. Ii