Catalogue description Records of the Clerk of the Crown and the Crown Office

As the work of Chancery developed rapidly in complexity during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, one of the original and primary functions, the use of the great seal, gradually acquired its own specialised staff within the Chancery. While the routine use of the seal was carried out by the cursitors, its application in special cases (and, according to a sixteenth-century tradition, any use of the seal 'that toucheth either life or member') was supervised by the principal of the twelve clerks of the second rank (collectively known as 'bougiers' or 'bouchiers').

This chief clerk was already known by the late fourteenth century as a 'clerk of the Crown', and, with the gradual separation of the judicial from the administrative functions, he became the chancellor's most senior executive assistant; in theory he had to attend the lord chancellor continually, in person or by deputy. This seniority has continued to the present day; since 1885, the clerk of the Crown has been, in addition, permanent secretary of the Lord Chancellor's Office (later, Department). This clerk's department within Chancery came to be known as the Crown Office.

The clerk of the Crown in Chancery had a wide range of duties arising from his responsibility, under the chancellor, for use of the great seal, of which the principal were as follows:

• Drafting and processing all commissions for service under the Crown. These commissions included the routine appointment of lords lieutenant of counties, justices of assize, justices of gaol delivery, justices of oyer and terminer, and justices of the peace; and the appointment of special commissions of various kinds, such as commissioners in lunacy and commissioners for the purchase of land for military use. In all these cases the clerk of the Crown's duties included not merely the administrative and formal aspects of the appointments, but an advisory role to the lord chancellor on the selection of appointees and a record-keeping function in respect of the commissions issued. The commissions were normally enrolled on the patent rolls.
• Drafting and issuing pardons, both general pardons (arising from royal declarations of indemnity for which individuals could apply) and special pardons (granted under special circumstances for individual supplicants). Pardons were often, but by no means always, enrolled on the patent rolls.
• Drafting, issuing, and reporting upon parliamentary writs. These include writs for summoning peers to Parliament on their creation or succession, and writs for the election of members of the House of Commons, both at general elections and, acting on warrants from the speaker of the House of Commons issued in respect of vacated seats, bye-elections. On completion of the electoral process the clerk of the Crown filed the election returns received from the sheriffs or other returning officers and certified them to the house. He also received, filed, and certified the returns of the sixteen peers elected to represent Scotland; and on the first day of every Parliament he attended the House with the return book of the members of the new Parliament.
• Administering the requisite oaths to various officers on their appointment; these officers included the chancellor, the master of the rolls, and various holders of offices in Chancery, together with justices, special commissioners, and others.
• Convening, and recording proceedings before, the Court of Claims. This court is convened ad hoc prior to a coronation, to determine claims by individuals to participate in, or perform services at, the ceremony, arising from hereditary or ex officio entitlements.
• Receiving, and acting upon, recognisances for commercial debts which had expired. A writ could be sued out of Chancery under the authority of the clerk of the Crown for distraint of the goods of the debtor, the ensuing process being returnable to the Petty Bag Office. Profits from the issue of writs of execution were assigned to the clerk of the Crown in the reign of Mary. The procedure lapsed into desuetude in 1775.

Many of these functions, once initiated by the clerk of the Crown, were processed subsequently by the clerks of the Petty Bag, and relevant records came to be deposited in the Petty Bag Office rather than in the Crown Office.

The origins of the Crown Office in the House of Lords are to be found in Chancery and in a number of offices which, in the course of the nineteenth century, were absorbed by or brought under the direction of the clerk of the Crown in Chancery. Moreover, when in 1885 the clerk of the Crown in Chancery came to retire the opportunity was taken to amalgamate his post with that of the permanent secretary to the lord chancellor. Since that time the Crown Office, otherwise the Office of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, has formed part of the Lord Chancellor's Office taking over responsibility for ecclesiastical patronage work in 1890 and for funds held in the Pay Office of the Supreme Court of Judicature in 1926.

The formal duties of the clerk of the Crown in Chancery may be divided into two categories: those which are parliamentary in character and those associated with the authentication of royal acts. In the House of Lords he issues writs of attendance and summonses addressed to peers, commissions to summon and prorogue Parliament, and commissions for giving the royal assent to bills; he receives and certifies to Parliament the returns of election of Scottish representative peers; reads the titles of bills prior to the royal assent; acts as registrar to the lord chancellor acting as lord high steward; and is registrar to the coronation Court of Claims. In the House of Commons he makes out and issues parliamentary election writs and receives and certifies to the House election returns. His duties in the second category comprise the issue of warrants and patents of appointment and honour, licences in mortmain, commissions of service, pardons and proclamations under the great seal.