BRACKLEY, THOMAS EGERTON, VISCOUNT (c. 154o-1617), better known as Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, British statesman and lawyer, was a natural son of Sir Richard Egerton of Ridley, Cheshire. Educated at Brasenose college, Oxford, he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1572. In 1581 he became solicitor-general. In the indictment of Mary, queen of Scots, he advised that she should be styled "Mary, commonly called queen of Scots," to obviate scruples about judging a sovereign. After this Egerton's promotion was rapid ; he became attorney-general (1592) , master of the rolls (1594), lord keeper of the great seal (1596).
He was a firm friend of Essex, but endeavoured in vain to effect his reconciliation with Elizabeth. When the earl was committed to his custody at York house (Oct. r, 1S99—June 5, r600), he made another attempt, and presided over the court held at his house with the greatest moderation. He went to Essex's house on Feb. 8, I 6o I . and sought, to dissuade Essex from rebellion and to induce him to dismiss his followers. His appeal was disregarded, and Essex held him prisoner for six hours. After this he abandoned the effort to save him, and delivered a speech against him in the Star Chamber. After the accession of James I., Egerton was created Lord Ellesmere, and became lord chancellor. He gave undiscrim inating support to James's conception of the royal prerogative, and by his approval of the harsh sentences passed against those who withstood it came into collision with the House of Commons. He was equally undiscriminating in his support of James's ecclesi astical policy; indeed, the only occasion on which he seems to have withstood the king was in the matter of his Spanish policy, and in 1615 he refused, in spite of commands and threats, to affix the great seal to the pardon of Somerset.
His career closed with a victory gained over the common law and his formidable antagonist, Sir Edward Coke. The chancellor's court of equity began as a tribunal to decide cases not served by the common law to relax and correct its rigidity and insufficiency. The two jurisdictions had remained rivals, the common-law bar often complaining of the arbitrary powers of the chancellor, and the equity lawyers censuring the failures of justice at common law. The disputes concerning which the king had already in 1615 remonstrated with the chancellor and Sir Edward Coke, the lord chief justice, came to a crisis in 1616, when the court of chancery granted relief against judgments at common law in the cases of Heath v. Rydley and Courtney v. Granvil. This relief Coke and other judges declared to be illegal, and a praemunire was brought against the parties concerned in the suit in chancery. The grand jury, however, refused to bring in a true bill, in spite of Coke's threats and assurances that the chancellor was dead, and the dis pute was referred to the king, who after consulting his counsel and on Bacon's advice decided for equity. The chancellor's tri umph was great, and from this time the equitable jurisdiction of the court of chancery was unquestioned. In June 1616 he sup ported the king in his dismissal of Coke in the case of the com mendams, agreeing with Bacon that it was the judge's duty to communicate with the king, before giving judgments in which his interests were concerned, and in November warned the new lord chief justice against imitating the errors of his predecessor and especially his love of "popularity." On Mar. 3, 1617 he delivered up to James the great seal, which he had held for the unprec edented term of nearly 21 years. In 1616 he had been created Viscount Brackley, and he declined an earldom on his deathbed.
Lord Chancellor Ellesmere is a striking figure in the long line of illustrious English judges. He ignored all communications from suitors, and it was doubtless to Ellesmere (as weeding out the "enormous sin" of judicial corruption) that John Donne, who was his secretary, addressed his fifth satire. He gained Camden's admiration. Bacon, whose merit he recognized, and whose claim to be solicitor-general he had supported in 5594 and 1606, calls him "a true sage, a salvia in the garden of the State," and speaks of his "fatherly kindness." Ben Jonson extolled in an epi gram his "wing'd -judgments," "purest hands" and constancy. Endowed with oratorical gifts, he yet followed the true judicial tradition and despised eloquence as "not decorum for judges, that ought to respect the Matter and not the Humours of the Hearers." He hoped to see a codification of the laws, and had greater faith in judge-made law than in statutes, advising the parliament (Oct. 27, 16o 1) "that laws in force might be revised and explained and no new laws made." He drew up rules for the Star Chamber, restricting fees, and in the reign of James I. issued ordinances for remedying abuses in chancery. In 1609 he published his judg ment in the case of the Post Nati, which appears to be his only certain work. The following have been ascribed to him : The Priv ileges and Prerogatives of the High Court of Chancery (1641) ; Certain Observations concerning the Office of the Lord Chancellor (1651)—denied by Lord Chancellor Hardwicke in A Discourse of the Judicial Authority of the Master of the Rolls (1728) to be Lord Ellesmere's work; Observations on Lord Coke's Reports, ed. by G. Paul (about 1710), the evidence of his authorship being that the ms. was in his handwriting; four mss. bequeathed to his chaplain, Bisnop Williams, viz., The Prerogative Royal, Privileges of Parliament, Proceedings in Chancery and The Power of the Star Chamber; Notes and Observations on Magna Charta, etc., Sept. 1615 (Hari. 4265, f. 35), and An Abridgement of Lord Coke's Reports. (See ms. note by F. Hargrave in his copy of Certain Observations concerning the Office of Lord Chancellor, Brit. Mus. 510 a 5, also Life of Egerton, p. 8o, note T, catalogue of Harleian collection, and Wa1pole's Royal and Noble Authors, 18o6, ii. 170.) No adequate life of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere has been written, for which, however, materials exist in the Bridgewater mss., very scantily calendared in Hist. MSS. Comm. 11 th Rep. p. 24, and app. pt. vii. p. 126. A small selection, with the omission, however, of personal and family matters intended for a separate projected Life which was never published, was edited by J. P. Collier for the Camden Society in 1840.