trast to the excessive zeal characteristic of the previous régime. The judges, Sir John Holt [q. v.] and his colleagues, Pollexfen and Atkyns, were equally considerate, and when, the case being proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, the jury convicted the prisoners, the king, on the recommendation of Somers, exercised his prerogative of mercy.
On 2 May 1692 Somers succeeded Sir George Treby as attorney-general. In the autumn, parliament was occupied with a much-needed measure for regulating the procedure in cases of treason, which occasioned a prolonged struggle between the two houses. The bill was eventually abandoned owing to the refusal of the lower house to accept the lords' amendments, and the attorney-general's speeches materially contributed to this result. His action has been censured by Lord Campbell, but on inadequate grounds. The chief point to which he took exception in the amendments was a limitation of ten days for the presentment of the indictment, to run not from the discovery but from the commission of the offence. Such a rule would have rendered it in many cases impossible to lay an indictment at all; and the measure as eventually passed (7 Will. III, c. 3) justified Somers's opposition by fixing the period of limitation at three years.
As attorney-general Somers conducted before the high steward's court, 31 Jan. to 4 Feb. 1692–3, the prosecution of Charles Mohun, fifth baron Mohun [q. v.], for the murder of his rival in the good graces of Mrs. Bracegirdle, a case in which, the fact being proved, the prisoner owed his acquittal to the uncertainty which then reigned as to the precise degree of complicity necessary to support a charge of murder. In his private capacity the attorney-general also appeared for the Duke of Norfolk in his action for criminal conversation against Sir John Germaine. He stated the evidence with as much decency as the nature of the case permitted, and obtained a verdict.
On 23 March 1692–3 Somers was made lord keeper of the great seal, which had been in commission since the accession of William III, and was sworn of the privy council. On 2 May following he took his seat on the woolsack as speaker of the House of Lords. On 22 April 1697 he was advanced to the dignity of lord high chancellor of England, and on 2 Dec. following he was raised to the peerage—an honour which he had declined in 1695—by the title of Baron Sommers of Evesham, Worcestershire. On the 14th of the same month he took his seat in the House of Lords. About the same time he was provided with the means of supporting his dignities by grants of the two royal manors of Reigate and Howlegh, Surrey, and a pension of 2,100l.
Amid his official cares Somers by no means lost his taste for liberal pursuits and the society of men of learning and letters. He kept up his Italian to such purpose that his letter of condolence to Count Lorenzo Magalotti on Filicaia's death could hardly offend the ear of the most fastidious member of the Accademia della Crusca (Magalotti, Lett. Fam. ii. 166). He corresponded with Le Clerc; he offered Bayle a handsome contribution towards the cost of producing his dictionary, which that sturdy savant declined rather than be beholden to the minister of a prince by whom he deemed himself ill-used. He was a connoisseur in art, and brought Vertue into vogue by commissioning him to engrave a portrait of his friend, Archbishop Tillotson, for whose widow he afterwards helped to provide. He was intimate with Bishop Burnet, whose scheme for the augmentation of livings, known as Queen Anne's Bounty, he cordially promoted; and friendly with George Hickes [q. v.], the nonjuror; nor did he altogether disdain the society of Matthew Tindal, the deist, for whose ‘Rights of the Christian Church’ he is said to have written the preface; nor even that of the yet more adventurous freethinker, Janus Junius Toland. Addison, Congreve, Steele, Kneller, Garth, were members with him of the Kit-Cat Club, and must have often shared the hospitality which he dispensed at Powis House. Addison owed to him his pension. Swift, who made his acquaintance in 1702, was initiated by him in the true principles of whiggism, and dedicated to him the ‘Tale of a Tub’ (1704), in a style of profuse adulation, but, looking to him for preferment which he did not get, deserted to the tories, and became his mortal enemy. Even then he admitted that Somers had ‘all excellent qualifications’ for office ‘except virtue’ (Works, ed. Scott, iii. 187, xii. 237). The great historical antiquaries Thomas Rymer [q. v.] and Thomas Madox [q. v.] owed much to Somers's encouragement.
Graver interests brought him into close relations with Charles Montagu (afterwards Earl of Halifax), John Locke, and Sir Isaac Newton. In concert with Montagu, chancellor of the exchequer, and in consultation with Locke, who owed to him a place in the council of trade, and with Sir Isaac Newton, whose appointment as master of the mint he supported, Somers applied his mind to the serious problem presented by the deprecia-
