Catalogue description Chancery: Crown Office: Miscellanea

The records in this series relate to the office and profits of the clerk of the Crown.

There are minutes and draft bills concerning parliamentary procedure because the clerk of the Crown was responsible for preparing writs for the election of members of the House of Commons and filing the election returns that were received. There also survive forms of writ for electing the representative peers of Scotland, for whom the clerk of the Crown received, filed and certified the returns.

The clerk of the Crown administered the oath of office to a range of legal officers, and examples of forms of their oaths are included. One of the most important duties of the clerk was to write and prepare for the great seal all commissions for the king's service, reflected in a selection of draft commissions of assize, of oyer and terminer, of gaol delivery, of sewers, and of the peace. There are some returns of commissions, with the names of persons to be appointed as magistrates. Also extant are draft warrants of commissions and draft revocations of letters patent.

Among the examples of draft writs are writs of certiorari, extent, habeas corpus, si non omnes, and association. There are also copies of acts returned on writs of certiorari, mostly concerning naturalization, because the clerk of the Crown administered the oath to persons naturalized when sworn in the House of Lords.

The clerk of the Crown made out patents of honour on the creation of a peer. No doubt the explanation for the retention amongst the office miscellanea of the 1815 king's bill for the creation of Baron Gardner of Uttoxeter as Viscount Gardner was the death of the proposed recipient before the patent could be completed. There are, in addition, papers from 1885 relating to the revival of the Mar peerage.

There are also papers relating to a number of commissions of inquiry into the fees and duties of the office of the clerk of the Crown; correspondence from government departments requesting the preparation of warrants for letters patent, 1891 and 1895; and docquets of letters patent sealed in 1914.