armament against France, the king made over
the Temple to the Hospitallers. They handsomely endowed the church with
lands, and gave "a thousand fagots yearly from Lillerton Wood to nourish
the church fires."

The records of the Temple date back no further than the reign of Henry
VII., so that the history of the previous period; is more or less obscure
and traditional: the precise manner in which the Temple passed from the
control of the sword to that of the wig and gown is not certain. The
Hospitallers of St. John, who already possessed a priory at Clerkenwell,
in the north of London, after having vindicated the sanctity of the church
and cloisters, are believed to have leased the buildings and the demesne
to the lawyers for the rent of ten pounds, payable yearly. Another account
says that the latter purchased the property outright. However this may
have been, in the reign of Richard II. we find the legal fraternity of the
metropolis securely domiciled in the locality they have ever since
tenaciously clung to.

Even so early as the time of Henry VI. the brotherhood of lawyers had
attained to an unwieldy growth, and it separated into two halls, the
original two halls of the Knights Templar forming the nuclei around which
the frequenters of each grouped themselves. Thus arose the Middle and
Inner Temple. Under the eighth Henry the two societies became direct
tenants of the crown once more. In 1609 James I. granted "letters patent
to the mansion of the Inner Temple," at a yearly rent of ten sovereigns;
and a like sum was exacted for the Middle Temple. The societies have not
been disturbed in their holdings since that time.

The Temple to-day comprises two of the four great Inns of Court,
--Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, Inner Temple, Middle Temple,--which, taken
collectively, constitute the backbone of the legal polity of England. Ben
Jonson described them as "the noblest nurseries of humanity and liberty in
the kingdom." They are all of great age and the recipients of rich
revenues. The income of the Middle Temple alone (not the richest of the
four) from the single item of rents is about thirteen thousand pounds
yearly; but the affairs of the Inns are so shrouded in administrative
secrecy that exact information on this topic is not easily obtained.

Until recently there was a fifth,--Serjeants' Inn, the members of which
were lawyers who had risen to the rank of serjeant, or to the bench
itself. Formerly such promotions ter