ion is
indebted to the Stuarts. For all practical purposes Francis Bacon was a
Q.C. during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He enjoyed peculiar and
distinctive _status_ as a barrister, being consulted on legal matters by
the Queen, although he held no place that in familiar parlance would
entitle him to rank with her Crown Lawyers; and his biographers have
agreed to call him Elizabeth's counsellor learned in the law. But a Q.C.
holding his office by patent--that is to say, a Q.C. as that term is
understood at the present time--Francis Bacon never was. On the
accession, however, of James I., he received his formal appointment of
K.C., the new monarch having seen fit to recognise the lawyer's claim to
be regarded as a 'special counsel,' or 'learned counsel extraordinary.'
Another barrister of the same period who obtained the same distinction
was Sir Henry Montague, who, in a patent granted in 1608 to the two
Temples, is styled "one of our counsel learned in the law." Thus
planted, the institution of monarch's special counsel was for many
generations a tree of slow growth. Until George III.'s reign the number
of monarch's counsel, living and practising at the same time, was never
large; and throughout the long period of that king's rule the fraternity
of K.C. never assumed them agnitude and character of a professional
order. It is uncertain what was the greatest number of contemporaneous
K.C.'s during the Stuart dynasty; but there is no doubt that from the
arrival of James I. to the flight of James II. there was no period when
the K.C.'s at all approached the sergeants in name and influence. In
Rymer's 'Foedera' mention is made of four barristers who were appointed
counsellors to Charles I., one of whom, Sir John Finch, in a patent of
precedence is designated "King's Counsel;" but it is not improbable that
the royal martyr had other special counsellors whose names have not been
recorded. At different times of Charles II.'s reign, there were created
some seventeen K.C.'s, and seven times that number of sergeants. James
II. made ten K.C.'s; William and Mary appointed eleven special
counsellors; and the number of Q.C.'s appointed by Anne was ten. The
names of George I.'s learned counsel are not recorded; the list of
George II.'s K.C.'s, together with barristers holding patents of
precedence, comprise thirty names; George III. throughout his long
tenure of the crown, gave 'silk' with or without the title of K.C., to
ninety-three b