Of him the London Times, said with a justice finer than eulogy, ‘Although he cannot be reckoned among the greatest in the long, brilliant roll of Lord High Chancellors of England, he must rank as a sound lawyer… None excelled him in… sanity of judgment.’
He was Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain from 1987 to 1997.
And hard by Temple Bar, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, at the very heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.
The design probably originated during the early seventeenth century and burses of nearly identical format appear in portraits of the Lord High Chancellors of England well into the nineteenth century.
He acted as an ambassador to England and France, and was finally made Lord High Chancellor of Scotland.