n of the King.
Macclesfield was a justly distinguished judge. He had had the highest
standing at the bar; had risen, step by step, until from plain Thomas
Parker, the son of an attorney, he became Chief Justice of the Court of
King's Bench, then one of the Lords Justices of the kingdom in the
interval between Anne's death and the arrival of George the First, and
finally Lord Chancellor. George made him Baron, and subsequently Earl,
of Macclesfield. He had always borne a high reputation for probity as
well as for generosity until the charge was made against him on which
he was impeached. He was accused of having, while Lord Chancellor,
sold the offices of Masters in Chancery to incompetent persons and men
of straw, unfit to be intrusted with the money of suitors, but whom he
had publicly represented to be "persons of great fortunes, and in every
respect qualified for that trust;" with having extorted money from
several of the masters, and with having embezzled the estates of widows
and orphans. On May 6, 1725, the managers of the House of Commons
appeared at the bar of the House of Lords and presented their articles
of impeachment against Macclesfield. The trial took place at the bar
of the House, and not in Westminster Hall, where impeachments were
usually carried on, and it lasted until May 26th. There was nothing
that could be called a defence to some of the charges, and as {263} to
others Lord Macclesfield simply insisted that he had followed the
example of some of his most illustrious predecessors, and that the
moneys he received as presents were reckoned among the known
perquisites of the Great Seal, and were not declared unlawful by any
Act of Parliament. The Lords were unanimous in finding Macclesfield
guilty, and condemned him to be fined thirty thousand pounds, and to be
imprisoned in the Tower until the fine had been paid. The motion that
he be declared forever incapable of any office, place, or employment in
the State was, however, rejected, as was also a motion to prohibit him
from ever sitting in Parliament or coming within the verge of the
court. It would certainly seem as if these motions ought to have been
the natural and necessary consequence of the impeachment and the
conviction. If the conviction were just--and it was obviously
just--then Lord Macclesfield had disgraced the highest bench of
justice, and merely to condemn him to disgorge a part of his plunder
was a singularly inadequate sort