TONY BLAIR’S decision to scrap the role of Lord Chancellor consigns to history a position that has existed for almost 1,400 years.

Ever since Angmendus became the first Lord High Chancellor in 605, the job has been a key part of government and often a road to riches.

The names of those who have held the post, once the most important non-royal position in the land, leap straight from the pages of British history. From Baldrick, in 1075, to Thomas à Becket, Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas More, the office has been the most historic under the Crown.

The Lord High Chancellor, as the occupant was known, was the keeper of the king’s conscience, his closest political confidant and the Keeper of the Seal.

The office is older than any other except the Crown. In precedence, the Lord Chancellor is the second subject outside the Royal Family, ranking only after the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Until the 14th century he was invariably a priest and he undertook all the secretarial work of the royal housheold, including dealing with the accounts, writs and royal correspondence.

All petitions to the monarch went through the chancellor’s hands and, by the reign of Henry II, the majority of the chancellor’s time was spent on judicial work.

By the reign of Edward III, the Lord Chancellor’s court had ceased to follow the king around the country and acquired its judicial role.

But even today the links with the Crown remain. The Lord Chancellor is the formal medium of communication between the Queen and Parliament and in the absence of the monarch from the state opening of Parliament, the Lord Chancellor reads the Speech from the Throne, and all other messages from the Sovereign to Parliament.

The job has provided a road to power and riches for men from both humble and privileged backgrounds. Cardinal Wolsey, to whom Lord Irvine of Lairg famously compared himself, was the son of a butcher. Lord Irvine was the son of a roof tiler.

The current Lord Chancellor’s Department was founded in 1885 and took on its current role in 1971.

In modern times the most famous men to hold the job have been Lord Hailsham, who was followed years later by his son, Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, the Conservative politican Quentin Hogg.

Others have included F.E. Smith, later Lord Birkenhead, Lord Halsbury and Lord Mackay of Clashfern, who held the post for ten years under the Conservatives.

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