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

en proved ineffectual, as in 1631 the matter
lviii INTRODUCTION.
good cause and order for the amendment thereof and preventing of
the like inconvenience in time to come." I have not found any
report of this committee, but the condition of the inns of chancery
seems to have been admitted to be accurately described by the
complaint. It is probable that the bench endeavoured to recruit
students for these small inns by appointing as readers those fellows
of the society whose lectures might be supposed to have an attractive
45 effect. With this view, in October, 1624, Selden, then an utter
barrister, was chosen by the members of Lyons Inn to be their reader
for the ensuing year. For some reason not stated, but probably on
account of the paucity of students in this otherwise very small society,
he refused to read, and was accordingly on the 21st October ordered
P. 146 to attend the bench. He attended on the 3rd November, 1624, and
still persisting in his refusal, " notwithstanding many courteous and
fair persuasions and admonitions," he was fined ,4.20 and disabled for
ever from being a reader or bcncher of the society of the Inner
Temple. The order was confirmed at the next parliament, but Selden
p. 151 did not read, though he paid his £20. He was readmitted into
P.
208 commons in June, 1625, and elected to the bench in November, 1633.
was again under the consideration of our bench, who appointed a
committee to ascertain " the causes that the exercises of learning at
the inns of chancery do so often fail there, as lately they have done,
through default of the gentlemen of those houses."
Among the miscellaneous entries the following may be noted :
P. 3 The plague is referred to in July 1603, and in February 1603-4,
when there were several deaths, and commons were broken up.
I I I n June, 1605, an order was made to deal with certain " gazements "
made by inhabitants of Fleet Street, through which they looked at the
benchers and others walking " in Mr. Hare's Court," and threw
P. 69 noisome things into the court. Also as to nuisances from the " Cat
p. 14 and Fiddle," and the " Mitre." A description is given of the procession
which accompanied Mr. Justice Coventry from the Inner
Temple when he took his seat in the Common Pleas, the new judge
going first and the benchers and others following. This was wrong,
and the error was corrected the following day when Mr. Justice
Tanfield took his seat as a judge of the King's Bench. It is also noted
p. 51 that when Sir Thomas Csar was appointed cursitor baron, he was