[153] Lord Ellesmere observes that in the 8th Chapter of Samuel, Jehoshaphat the son of Abilud, the Chancellor among the Hebrews, was called "Mazur," which, translated into English, becomes "Sopher," or Recorder. "Whether the Lord Chancellor of _England_ as now he is, may be properly termed _Sopher_ or Mazur, it may receive some needlesse question, howbeit it cannot be doubted but his office doth participate of both their Functions."--"Observations concerning the Office of Lord Chancellor," p. 2. After their conversion to Christianity, the kings employed the services of a priest as chaplain or confessor, and in the person of the Chancellor the posts of "Keeper of the King's Conscience" and secretary were thus naturally combined. In King Ethelred's time the Chancellorship was divided between the Abbots of Ely, Canterbury and Glastonbury, who exercised it in turn, each for four months. The appointment continued for several centuries to be held by a cleric. In the early days of Parliament, indeed, the Chancellor received his writ of summons as a Bishop and not as Chancellor, and, though he attended in the latter capacity in any case, no summons was sent to him if he did not happen to be a bishop. Ecclesiastics were appointed to the Chancellorship, without exception, until the time of Sir Robert Bourchier in 1340, and it was not for a long time after this that spiritual statesmen wholly gave place to lawyers. Thomas à Beckett, William of Wykeham and Cardinal Wolsey, figure prominently among the clerical Chancellors of early times, and it was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century that laymen succeeded in establishing themselves firmly upon the Woolsack. Since that time no cleric, with the single exception of Bishop Williams, in 1621, has been entrusted with the Chancellorship or the custody of the Great Seal. One of the chief duties of the Chancellor in early times consisted in affixing the royal Seal with which from time immemorial the will of the sovereign has been expressed. At the present day Royal grants and warrants, Letters-Patent of Peerage or for inventions, Commissions of the Peace, etc., are issued under what Coke calls the _Clavis Regni_. When the sovereign is absent it acts as his representative, and Parliament itself is opened by a Commission under the Great Seal. This emblem of sovereignty may therefore be considered one of the most important instruments of the Constitution, and, as its loss would entail endless inconvenience, it is given into the custody of the Lord Keeper or Lord Chancellor.[154] As secretary to the King the Chancellor would seem to have been its natural custodian, but when he fell sick or died, or went abroad, it was occasionally placed in other hands. Later on it became the custom to make the Keepership of the Great Seal a regular appointment, separate and distinct from the Lord Chancellorship.