[Woolrych's Eminent Serjeants; Annual Biography, 1826; Gent. Mag. 1825; Bain's Catalogue of Portraits in Serjeants' Inn; Law Review, iii. 294; Criticisms on the Bar, by Amicus Curiæ, 1819; Scarlett's Life of Lord Abinger.]
LENTHALL, WILLIAM (1591–1662), speaker of the House of Commons, second son of William Lenthall of Lachford in Oxfordshire, by Frances, daughter of Sir Thomas Southwell of St. Faith's in Norfolk, was born ‘in Henley-upon-Thames, in a house near to the church there, in the latter end of June 1591’ (Wood, Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 603). The Lenthall family, originally of Herefordshire, acquired Lachford by marriage with the heiress of the Pyperds in the fifteenth century (ib.) William Lenthall matriculated at St. Alban Hall, Oxford, on 23 Jan. 1606–7, but left the university without taking a degree (Clarke, Oxford Register, ii. 292). He then entered Lincoln's Inn, was called to the bar in 1616, became a bencher in 1633, and was elected reader in 1638 (Foss, Dictionary of the Judges of England, p. 403; Foster, Alumni Oxon. iii. 902). He was appointed recorder of Woodstock, which he represented in the last parliament of James I, and became also in 1637 recorder of Gloucester (ib.; Names of Members returned to serve in Parliament, i. 458). Lenthall's professional success was rapid. In a later vindication of himself he writes: ‘When I was first called to be speaker, I think it is known to most, I had a plentiful fortune in land and ready money to a good sum, and if I had continued my way of practice I might well have doubled my fortune. … I received by the last years of my practice 2,500 pounds by the year’ (Notes and Queries, i. xii. 358). In 1630 he bought Besselsleigh in Berkshire from the Fettiplaces, and in 1634 paid Lord Falkland 7,000l. for Burford Priory (Wood, iii. 603). Lenthall represented Woodstock both in the Short parliament of April 1640 and in the Long parliament. In the first of the assemblies he was appointed one of the committee on ship-money (21 April), and acted as chairman of the committee of the whole house on grievances (23 April), and again when the house took into consideration the king's message on supply (Commons' Journals, ii. 8, 10, 19). At the opening of the Long parliament on 3 Nov. 1640 Lenthall was unanimously elected speaker. The selection was no doubt influenced by the fact that he had occupied the chair during two of the most important debates of the previous parliament, though Clarendon attributes it entirely to the absence of Sir Thomas Gardiner, whom the king originally intended to designate. He describes Lenthall in his earlier narrative as ‘a lawyer of good practice and no ill affections, but a very weak man and unequal to such a task.’ In his later narrative he adds that he was a man ‘of a very narrow and timorous nature,’ and that ‘not knowing how to preserve his own dignity, or to restrain the license and exorbitance of others, his weakness contributed as much to the growing mischief as the malice of the principal contrivers’ (Rebellion, iii. 1 n. 2, ed. Macray). The Long parliament was unruly and excitable, and the speaker's authority was not always treated with respect. D'Ewes describes in his ‘Diary’ an altercation between Lenthall and Hesilrige, and D'Ewes himself was fond of correcting the speaker on points of order. Lenthall seems to have been easy to irritate and easily appeased. On one occasion a member attacked Lenthall for rebuking another, declaring ‘that he had transgressed his duty in giving so disgraceful a speech to so noble a gentleman.’ The member finally made ‘a conditional apology, with which the house was not satisfied, but the speaker was.’ On 19 Nov. Lenthall complained to the house of the unusual length of their sittings (Forster, Grand Remonstrance, p. 279, ed. 1860; Five Members, p. 218, ed. 1860). The expenses of his position were also very heavy. For the first two years of his speakership Lenthall ‘kept a public table and every day entertained several eminent persons, as well belonging to the court as members of parliament’ (Somers Tracts, vii. 103, ed. Scott). He thought for a moment of resigning, and wrote to Sir Edward Nicholas on 3 Dec. 1641 begging the king's leave to do so. His fourteen months' speakership, he said, had so exhausted the labours of twenty-five years, that though he was willing ‘to offer himself and his fortune a sacrifice to the king's service,’ he must crave leave to retire, ‘that whilst I have some ability of body left I may endeavour that without which I cannot but expect a ruin and put a badge of extreme poverty upon my children.’ He suggested, however, to Nicholas, as an alternative, that the king should recommend him to the house for a grant of money (Nalson, Historical Collections, ii. 713, 714). A month later (4 Jan. 1642) took place the king's attempt to arrest the five members. Charles entered the house, borrowed the speaker's chair, and failing to perceive the accused members asked the speaker if he saw any of them present. Lenthall fell on his knees and replied, ‘May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the house is pleased to
