that he might be installed in some lucrative and honorary post, such as ‘the first deanery that shall fall void either of York or of Durham, or of Bath and Wells or of Winchester,’ ‘or the first hospital that shall become void of these three, St. Katharine's, near the Tower of London, St. Crosse's, near Winton, and the hospital of Sherborne, in the bishoprick of Durham,’ or else that he might be made a ‘master of requests extraordinary.’ This petition was read and duly noted by Cecil, and there the matter rested. In October 1588 Cæsar was admitted master of the chancery in ordinary. This year, too, he was returned to parliament as senior member for Reigate. The council assumed to itself the right of reviewing his judgments. This he resented keenly in a letter dated 1 March 1588. The idea of an annual circuit round the coasts of the kingdom for the despatch of admiralty business, which had often been mooted, met with his hearty approval; and as Elizabeth ‘misliked to enter into the charge,’ he offered to travel at his own expense, adding only the proviso, ‘if I may be encouraged by so much, either commodity or credit, as will provide me an honest burial when I die, and keep my poor wife and children from open beggary.’ In the spring of the following year he was actually threatened with legal process upon a bond which he had given by way of guarantee for the payment of a sum of 420l. due from Sir Walter Leveson to a Dane, probably a suitor in the admiralty court. At length, however, the queen saw fit to confer upon him the post of master of requests. He was sworn on 10 June 1591, and admitted to the office on 7 March, having in the meanwhile (24 Jan.) been elected a bencher of his inn. The court of requests offered special facilities to poor suitors who might with advantage be transferred thither from the admiralty court. The same year, through the influence of the Scottish ambassador, Archibald Douglas, which he had bought for 500l., he obtained from the queen a grant of the reversion of the mastership of St. Catherine's Hospital. At this time he was one of the commissioners of sewers. In 1592 he was entrusted with the commission of the peace for Middlesex, and returned to parliament as senior member for Bletchingley, Surrey. In November of the following year he was elected treasurer of the Inner Temple, and on 6 Dec. governor of the mineral and battery works throughout the kingdom, and was re-elected treasurer of the Inner Temple next year. He was at this time a member of the high commission and a close friend of Whitgift (Strype, Annals (fol.), iii. 609). On 17 Aug. 1595 he was appointed master of requests in ordinary in attendance upon the person of the queen, with a salary of 100l. per annum, not, however, granted by the queen until she had forced him to disclose the precise amount which he had paid to Archibald Douglas for his interest in the matter of the St. Catherine's appointment. In this or the next year he contributed 300l. towards the erection of chambers between the Inner Temple Hall and the church, in consideration whereof he was invested with the privilege of granting admittances to the society at his discretion during his life. The chambers were known as late as Dugdale's time as Cæsar's Buildings. In 1596 the mastership of St. Catherine's Hospital fell vacant, and on 17 June he installed himself therein. Next year he was returned to parliament as senior member for Windsor. On 12 Sept. 1598 Elizabeth, then on her way to Nonsuch, paid him a visit at his house at Mitcham, spending the night of the 12th there, and dining with him next day. He tells us that he presented her with ‘a gown of cloth of silver, richly embroidered, a black network mantle, with pure gold, a taffeta hat, white, with several flowers, and a jewel of gold set therein with silver and diamonds, which entertainment of her majesty, with the charges of five former disappointments,’ cost him some 700l. In 1599 we find him associated with John Herbert, one of the masters of requests, and Robert Beale, secretary to the council of the north, in a commission to decide without appeal claims by French subjects in respect of piratical acts committed by English seamen. Next year he became the senior master of requests, being already talked of as master of the rolls. At the parliamentary election of the following year he retained his seat for Windsor. On 20 May 1603 he was knighted by the king at Greenwich. In 1606 (7 April) he succeeded Sir George Hume as chancellor and under-treasurer of the exchequer, and the following year (5 July) was sworn of the privy council. Cæsar was prompt to use the interest which he now possessed with the king on behalf of his inn. It appears to have been through Cæsar's influence that the lease of the Temple buildings was enlarged in 1608 into a fee simple, subject to a quit rent of 10l. (Dugdale, Orig. 145–6). His tenure of the office of chancellor of the exchequer coincided with the period of Salisbury's treasurership, the period during which James's financial difficulties and the consequent tension between him and the parliament reached their extreme point. He seems to have been really little better than a clerk to the lord treasurer. In that capacity he was employed in estimating the value of the conversion of tenure
Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/209
