Two days after Yorke’s death the Great Seal was put into commission in the hands of Baron Smythe and the Judges Aston and Bathurst. Sir Fletcher Norton had been made easy for the preference of Yorke, by the promise of the Speaker’s chair--and now, by an unwonted fit of decency, said he would not profit of the Government’s distress, but would remain Speaker. He was accordingly proposed by Lord North and Mr. Rigby. Lord John Cavendish, to the surprise of everybody, proposed Thomas Townshend the younger, but confessing he had not communicated his intention to the person he named. Lord George Sackville concurred with Lord John, and both threw out as many indirect aspersions on Norton as they could with any tolerable decency--the only reason probably for opposing him; and that they might deny his being unanimously elected. Townshend declared with astonishment, that he had not only never thought of the office, but knew himself totally unfit for it, and besought them to excuse him. He and his family voted for Norton, who was chosen by 237 to 121, and who, with a manliness at least in his profligacy, took possession of his post, without acting those stale affectations of modesty with which other Speakers have been wont to get themselves forced into the chair. The very day on which Yorke died, Dunning, the Solicitor-General, and James Grenville (unwillingly, to gratify the violence of his brothers) declared they would resign their places. That of Master of the Horse to the Queen, was given to Lord Waldegrave.[42]