The people of England, as Disraeli said some seventy years ago, have been accustomed to recognize in the Lord Chancellor a man of singular acuteness, of profound learning, and vast experience, who has won his way to a great position by the exercise of great qualities, by patient study, and unwearied industry. They expect to find in him a man who has obtained the confidence of his profession before he challenges the confidence of his country, who has secured eminence in the House of Commons before he has aspired to superiority in the House of Lords; a man who has expanded from a great lawyer into a great statesman, and who "brings to the Woolsack the commanding reputation which has been gained in the long and laborious years of an admired career."[181] Seldom, indeed, are the people of England disappointed. [181] "The Runnymede Letters," p. 230. CHAPTER VII THE SPEAKER The position of "First Commoner of the Realm" is, after that of Prime Minister, the most distinguished as well as the most difficult to which it is possible for any man to attain while still a member of Parliament. A comparison of the two offices proves, in one respect at any rate, favourable to the former; for whereas it has been said that the Premier "can do nothing right," the Speaker can do no wrong. He may indeed be considered to enjoy in the House the prerogative which the sovereign is supposed to possess in the country. But it is not upon his presumable infallibility that the occupant of the Chair relies to-day for the unquestioned honour and dignity of his position. It is rather to the reputation for absolute integrity with which, for close upon a hundred years, each Speaker in turn has been justly credited, that he owes the tribute of esteem and respect, almost amounting to awe, which is nowadays rightly regarded as his due. The reverence he now inspires is the product of many Parliaments; his present state is the gradual growth of ages. From very early days, when the two Houses began to sit apart, the Commons must probably have always possessed an official who, in some measure, corresponded to the modern idea of a Speaker. And though Sir Thomas Hungerford, elected to the Chair in 1377, was the first upon whom that actual designation was bestowed, the Lower House undoubtedly employed the services of a spokesman--or "pourparlour," as he was then called--at an even earlier date.[182] [182] Hakewell gives a list of Hungerford's predecessors in the Chair, which includes Sir Peter de la Mare, commissioned by Parliament to rebuke Edward III. for his misconduct with Alice Perrers, and imprisoned for so doing.