364 WRITS OF ASSISTANCE, 1 558-1700 July (6) The master of the rolls has been fairly regularly l sum- moned down to the present day, though the Judicature Act of 1873 abolished the one important feature in this connexion that distinguished him from the other judges, 2 his eligibility for a seat in the house of commons. 3 (c) Throughout the whole of this period and, indeed, down to the present time writs of assistance have been sent with the greatest regularity to the attorney and solicitor general. 4 Like the judges, they sometimes gave advice on legal questions, occasionally sat on committees with members of the upper house, 5 and very frequently carried bills and messages from the lords to the commons ; 6 in fact this last function seems to become in the seventeenth century the main reason for their attendance on the upper house ; like the judges, too, the attorney- general was supposed to ask leave of the house if he desired to absent himself, even though it were but to go down to the house Bristowe, being Attendants as Judges in the Higher House, whether they shall be recalled. Resolved, They shall not ' {Commons' Journals, i. 257, 9 November 1605). There is no new writ for Southampton (for which borough Sir Thomas Fleming sat) given in the parliamentary returns, but this proves very little, as these returns are by no means complete ; but in the case of Baron Snigg, to whom the commons' ambiguous resolution equally applied, there is a fresh return for his seat at Bristol, proving that he vacated it on his appointment. This looks as though the resolution meant that both Fleming and Snigg were disqualified from sitting in the commons. 1 e. g. in December 1690 Powle, master of the rolls, petitioned the lords for a writ of assistance (Lords' Journals, xiv. 578) ; the petition was referred to the committee for privileges, who reported that according to the Pawns in the Petty Bag Office the master of the rolls had been summoned to most of the parliaments since 36 Henry VIII (ibid. 583). 2 e. g. bills were sometimes committed to the master of the rolls just as they were to the judges. Cf. Hist. MSS. Comm., Report on Records of City of Exeter, p. 51. 3 May, Law and Usage of Parliament, p. 29. This eligibility had not been a dead letter ; for example, Sir Julius Caesar sat in the commons after his appointment as master of the rolls, while Sir William Cordell, master of the rolls, was elected Speaker in the parliament of 1558 (4 & 5 Philip and Mary) and Sir Harbottle Grimstone was appointed master of the rolls in November 1660 during his tenure of the office of Speaker. 4 The attorney-general was summoned in 1529 and 1539, the solicitor-general being omitted, but after that they are both summoned regularly till 1702 (with the exception of the parliament of 1661-79, when the solicitor is omitted from the list) ; neither appears in the Pawns for 1702 and 1708, but thence onwards they are once more regularly summoned. 6 See above, p. 360, n. 5. 6 e.g. Lords' Journals, i. 118, 14 June 1539; i. 548, 11 February 1559; i. 693, 22 May 1571 ; iii. 74, 27 March 1621 ; iii. 130, 24 May 1621 ; iii. 327, 29 April 1624. Bills or messages were always borne by two attendants from the lords to the com- mons ; sometimes it was the attorney and solicitor general who took them, sometimes the attorney or solicitor and a serjeant-at-law or a master in chancery ; sometimes two Serjeants, two masters, or a Serjeant and a master ; and once as late as 26 June 1685 the clerk of the Crown was pressed into service (Lords Journals, xiv. 61). On one occasion (31 August 1641) the lords sent a message by a single bearer, a master in chancery called Dr. Bennett. The commons were properly indignant at this breach of etiquette, but the lords explained the matter by alleging that there were no more attendants present in the house (Lords' Journals, iv. 387).
