240 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

Lord Chancellor, or the Master of the Rolls acting in his place,

and containing six puisne judges, (iii) Probate, Divorce and

Admiralty Division, with a President and four puisne judges.

For a proper understanding of the duties of each division, it is

necessary to look back into history. The King has been described

as the fountain of justice, and the phrase records the fact that

it was-eourts established by the King which spread uniform

rules of justice throughout his realm. These courts had to win

their powers step by step, and this they did by means of writs,

which were commands to persons or local courts, requiring them

to do justice or refrain from injustice. The number of matters,

however, with which tKe writs dealt was limited; further, it is

the natural tendency of lawyers to proceed by rigid rules and

according to precedent, since the danger of favouritism can thus

be lessened. So the law administered by the King's Courts was

both defective and excessively rigid; such an evil was dearly a

reproach to the King, and it lay ^rith the Lord Chancellor as

Keeper of the King's Conscience, to remove it. Thus arose the

Court of Chancery, which at first was* not so much a court as an

administrative department of State, charged with reconciling law

and justice. In effect, the plaintiff who could not 'get justice

from the law in a civil suit, appealed to the King's most intimate

adviser to put the matter right in accordance with accepted ideas

of fairness and common sense. From the decisions of successive

Lord Chancellors, was framed a body of rules known as Equity,

not in opposition to the law, but as an addition to it. Since Equity

could recognise the existence of new problems to which the law

bad not been adapted, much business came to the Lord

Chancellor's court; in particular, cases arising from property

managed by people who were not its owners, but held it in trust

for some other person or institution. Since the Court of Chancery

was so closely connected with the King, it was suspect to the

partisans of Parliament in the iyth century, and there was talk

of abolishing -Equity. No doubt it was convenient to have a royal

official tp remedy the defects ia the law,, but might not his power$