The Court of Chancery

Abstract

Abstract The extraordinary jurisdiction of the Chancery to give remedies in conscience was a source of complaint in parliament in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It withstood those attacks, but it remained controversial whether the ‘English side’ (equitable jurisdiction) of the Chancery was a court of record, what coercive powers it possessed, and in particular how far it could restrain proceedings at law by injunction. Complaints of injunctions were made against Cardinal Wolsey as chancellor (1529), but they were defended by his successor Sir Thomas More (who had signed the complaints) at a dinner with the judges. Further complaints were made against Chancellor Wriothesley (1547) for subverting the common law and introducing Roman law. Much of the chapter is devoted to the dispute whether the Chancery could grant injunctions after judgment given at common law. The judges ruled against it in 1597, but the decision was suppressed and the matter came to a head in 1615–16 in a conflict between Chief Justice Coke and Lord Chancellor Ellesmere. James I settled the dispute in favour of the Chancery by an announcement in the Star Chamber in 1616.