chivalry had no commercial aspect, and that mediæval wars were waged solely for honour and glory. They were very profitable concerns, in many ways, besides the thumping sums for ransom which a lucky capture ensured. A little later the younger son was to be the prime cause of those perpetual plantations which kept Ireland unsettled from generation to generation. Perhaps Mr Rogers was thinking of this when he said: "For generations he was a mischievous, and sometimes a hateful, adventurer." He was worked off on Ireland, just as later he was worked off on India.
CHAPTER VI.— THE RISE OF THE CHANCERY
THE history of landholding in England cannot be either complete or intelligible, without some slight account of the Court of Chancery.
In early Norman times, the Chancellor was the King's Secretary. He kept the Records, but he had no judicial powers. But with the rise of the House of Commons, the Chancellor became a very much more important person. He was usually an ecclesiastic—it was essential to have someone who could read and write with ease. When the Lords met in Council, the Chancellor represented the King, and so he was known as "the Keeper of the King's conscience." Gradually, he and his office became the focus of the interests of the King, the Lords, and the Church. Abuses crept in with increase of power. The Chancery officials seem to have done pretty much as they chose. In the reigns of Edward II. and Edward III. there are loud complaints that the Chancellor's clerks charge what they like for writs—but as these charges went into the King's treasury, he was not disposed to restrain the clerks. Besides this. Chancery was always usurping the rights of the people, by inventing new offices—of course, with new fees. Equally of course, the transfer of land was always the great point at issue. Little by little, out of the universal desire to evade feudal burdens and to obtain the power of bequeathing land, a most extraordinary system grew up, in which the Law of Chancery set itself
