ased to do so. If he
chanced to be a bishop, he was summoned regularly _qua_ bishop;
otherwise he attended without summons. When not a peer the chancellor
had no place in parliament except as chancellor, and the act of 31 Henry
VIII. cap. 10 (1539) laid down that, if not a peer, he had "no interest
to give any assent or dissent in the House." Yet Sir Robert Bourchier
(d. 1349), the first lay chancellor, had protested in 1341 against the
first statute of 15 Edward III. (on trial by peers, &c.), on the ground
that it had not received his assent and was contrary to the laws of the
realm. From the time, however, of William, Lord Cowper (first lord high
chancellor of Great Britain in 1705, created Baron Cowper in 1706), all
chancellors have been made peers on their elevation to the woolsack.
Sometimes the custody of the great seal has been transferred from the
chancellor to a special official, the lord keeper of the great seal (see
LORD KEEPER); this was notably the case under Queen Elizabeth (cf. the
French _garde des sceaux_, below). Sometimes it is put into commission,
being affixed by lords commissioners of the great seal. By the Catholic
Emancipation Act of 1829 it was enacted that none of these offices could
be held by a Roman Catholic (see further under LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR).
The office of lord chancellor of Ireland, and that of chancellor of
Scotland (who ceased to be appointed after the Act of Union of 1707)
followed the same lines of development.

Chancellor of the exchequer.

The title of chancellor, without the predicates "high" or "lord," is
also applied in the United Kingdom to a number of other officials and
functionaries of varying rank and importance. Of these the most
important is the chancellor of the exchequer, an office which originated
in the separation of the chancery from the exchequer in the reign of
Henry III. (1216-1272). His duties consisted originally in the custody
and employment of the seal of the exchequer, in the keeping of a
counter-roll to check the roll kept by the treasurer, and in the
discharge of certain judicial functions in the exchequer of account. So
long as the treasury board was in active working, the chancellorship of
the exchequer was an office of small importance, and even during a great
part of the 19th century was not necessarily a cabinet office, unless
held in conjunction with that of first lord of the treasury. At the
present time the chancellor of the exchequer is mi