SELDEN, JOHN, one of the most learned men of his time, as well as a distinguished statesman and lawyer, was born at Salvington, in Sussex, on the 16th December 1584. His father was John Selden, a minstrel, and his mother, whose heart the minstrel is said to have won by his proficiency in music, was Margaret Baker, a descendant of a knightly family of that name in Kent. Their son John received his early education at the free grammar school of Chichester, where he progressed so rapidly in his studies, that he was removed to Hart Hall, Oxford, at the early age of fourteen. After remaining there for four years, he entered himself at Clifford's Inn for the study of law, and in 1604 he removed to the Inner Temple. "After he had continued there," says Wood, "a sedulous student for some time, he did, by the help of a strong body and a vast memory, not only run through the whole body of the law, but became a prodigy in most parts of learning, especially in those which were not common, or little frequented or regarded by the generality of students of his time. So that in a few years his name was wonderfully advanced, not only at home, but in foreign countries, and was usually styled the great dictator of learning of the English nation." His reputation for learning, particularly on all subjects connected with law, must speedily have gained him a lucrative practice, though he was more employed as a conveyancer and chamber counsel than as a pleader. Indeed, judging from what of his speeches remain, eloquence cannot be said to have been one of his distinguishing qualifications. His earliest work, the Analecton Anglo-Britannicum, a chronological digest of records relating to the history of England previous to the Norman invasion, was finished in 1607, but was not published till eight years afterwards. In 1610 appeared his England's Epinomis, and Jani Anglorum facies altera, both illustrative of the state and progress of English law; and the same year he published an essay on The Duel or Single Combat. In 1614 appeared his largest English, and in the opinion of some his best, book, on Titles of Honour, a work which is still regarded as an authority upon that subject. In 1617 he published the first edition of his celebrated work, De
Diis Syris, and the following year his History of Tithes. In the latter of these works, while maintaining the legal, he denied the divine right of the clergy to receive tithes; and in consequence was summoned before the High Commission Court, when he had to make a public acknowledgment of his sorrow for having published his opinions, though he did not in any way recant them.
In 1621, Selden, though not then a member of the House, was sent for by the Commons to give his opinion on the questions in dispute between them and the Crown. On that occasion he advised them so strongly to maintain their rights and privileges, that he was committed to prison; but through the influence of the bishop of Winchester, he was liberated after an incarceration of five weeks. In 1624 he sat in Parliament as one of the representatives of the borough of Lancaster, but took no prominent part in the business of that session. The same year he was chosen reader of Lyons Inn, but refused to accept the office, which so offended the benchers that they ordered him to be fined, and to be for ever disabled from being called to the bench. This order, however, was subsequently rescinded, and Selden was called to the bench in 1632. In the first parliament of Charles I., which met in 1625, Selden sat as one of the representatives of Great Bedwin, and declared himself so warmly against the Duke of Buckingham, that when, in the following parliament, his Grace was impeached by the House of Commons, he was one of the members appointed to prepare the articles and to manage the prosecution. In the parliament which met in March 1628, Selden again represented the town of Lancaster, and took a very prominent part in the proceedings. He rendered very efficient aid in the preparation of the celebrated Petition of Rights, and was one of the speakers appointed to confer with the Upper House in order to obtain its concurrence in an address to the king. The result was, that the measure, having the support of both Houses, at length received the reluctant assent of the king. Selden was also one of those that drew up a remonstrance to the king for the removal of Buckingham, and demanded that judgment be given against him upon the impeachment of the last parliament; and also a remonstrance declaring that the impost of tonnage and poundage was no prerogative of the crown. In all these matters Selden's vast learning was of the utmost importance. His knowledge of the laws and constitution of the country furnished him with numerous authorities, and enabled him to support his arguments with an unanswerable mass of facts and precedents. It was in this that he was chiefly distinguished as a debater.
During the recess he applied himself to literary pursuits, and gave to the world his Marmora Arundeliana, an account of the Arundelian Marbles, which had lately been brought to England. Parliament again met in January 1629, and Selden appeared more active than ever in the popular cause. The violent opposition of this parliament to the measures of the court speedily brought about its dissolution, and Selden with several others were committed to the Tower. At first their treatment was extremely harsh and rigorous, being denied even the use of books or writing materials. At length, after a confinement of eight months, they were brought up before the King's Bench, and offered their liberty upon granting security for their good behaviour. This, however, was refused; and, though the strictness of their confinement was more and more relaxed, till it became little more than a name, it was not till May 1631 that Selden, through the influence of the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, was liberated on bail, and not till the beginning of 1634 that he received a free discharge. In 1646, parliament voted £5000 to be paid to each of these gentlemen, or their heirs, for the losses they had sustained on this occasion. Among the fruits of this period were his two learned works, De Successionibus in Bona
Selden. Defuncti ad Leges Hebraorum, and De Successione in Pontificatum Hebraorum.
In 1635 was published his Mare Clausum, a work written a good many years before in answer to Grotius's Mare Liberum, and now published at the request of the king, in consequence of a dispute with the Dutch regarding their fisheries on our shores. It was dedicated to his majesty, and this has been regarded by many as indicating a change in Selden's views regarding the court party. Be this as it may, we do not find that he was so frequently or prominently opposed to the court party as formerly. The next four years of Selden's life yield us nothing of interest; but at the end of that period he published his De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta Disciplinam Hebraorum. It is not a little remarkable that Selden does not appear to have taken any part in the great Ship-money case of 1638, although his services would have been of the utmost value on behalf of Hampden. It may be that he declined to interfere, or perhaps the Hampden party saw reason to suspect him of an inclination towards the court party.
In 1640 he was unanimously chosen to represent the University of Oxford in the Long Parliament, and we now find him not only less violently opposed to the Crown party, but very frequently supporting their measures. He gave his opinion with the king as to the right of the bishops to a seat in parliament; and though he was one of the members named by the House to prepare the accusations against the Earl of Strafford, he was not one of those appointed to conduct the prosecution, and voted against the majority who condemned the earl. He also opposed the resolutions of the House which led to the exclusion of the bishops from parliament. The Lord Keeper Littleton having displeased the king, Charles wrote to Lord Falkland requiring that the great seal be taken from the present keeper, and given either to Banks or Selden. That this offer was made by the king from a belief that Selden was in his interest, may be readily supposed, seeing that afterwards, when Selden opposed in the House the king's Commission of Array, his majesty was much troubled, and desired Lord Falkland to write a friendly letter to Selden on the subject. Selden acknowledged that he had spoken all the more strongly against the commission, in order that he might be able to speak the more freely against the ordinance of the parliament for the militia, to which he was equally opposed, and which was to be brought up for discussion on a subsequent occasion. This he also did his utmost to overthrow, but unsuccessfully. In 1643 he was appointed one of the lay members to sit in the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and the same year he was appointed by the House of Commons keeper of the records in the Tower. In 1644 he subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant, and the following year he was one of the twelve commoners chosen Commissioners to the Admiralty. The same year he was chosen Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, an honour which he declined; and in 1647 he was appointed one of the parliamentary visitors of Oxford University.
When Selden found that there was no possibility of a reconciliation being effected between the king and the parliament, he seems to have withdrawn himself from the arena of political strife. His name does not appear among those members who were imprisoned or expelled by the army, nor yet among those who continued to assume the office of legislators. He took no part in the arraignment of the king, and it does not even appear what his opinion was on that transaction. Cromwell seemed desirous to secure his services, and is said to have applied to him, personally and through mutual friends, to answer the Eikon Basilike, but he declined. Whatever opinion may be formed of Selden's conduct latterly, it is no small argument in favour of his consistency and uprightness, that he retained the confidence and good-will of both parties at a time when
party feeling ran so high. The true explanation seems to be, that, foreseeing the calamities of a civil war, to which the violent proceedings of the popular party were evidently leading, he did what he could to check them. He died, on 30th November 1654, at White Friars, the house of the dowager Duchess of Kent, with whom he lived as legal adviser, and to whom he is said by some to have been married. "Mr Selden," says Lord Clarendon, "was a person whom no character can flatter, or transmit in any expressions equal to his virtue. He was of so stupendous learning in all kinds, and in all languages (as may appear in his excellent and transcendent writings), that a man would have thought he had been entirely conversant amongst books, and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing; yet his humanity, courtesy, and affability was such, that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good nature, charity, and delight in doing good, and in communicating all he knew, exceeded that breeding. His style in all his writings seems harsh, and sometimes obscure, which is not wholly to be imputed to the abstruse subjects of which he commonly treated, out of the paths trod by other men, but to a little undervaluing the beauty of a style, and too much propensity to the language of antiquity; but in his conversation he was the most clear discourses, and had the best faculty of making hard things easy, and presenting them to the understanding, of any man that hath been known." Among his later works may be mentioned De Anno Civili et Calendaris Reipublicæ Judaicæ; Uxor Hebraica seu de Nuptiis et Dicoicis; De Synedriis et præfecturis Juridicis veterum Hebraeorum; De Nummis. A complete edition of his works, with a Memoir of the Author, by Dr David Wilkins, appeared in 6 vols. folio, 1726. Selden's name is best known in the present day by his Table-Talk, a work published thirty-five years after his death by Richard Milward, who had acted as his amanuensis for twenty years. It is a collection of his remarks and opinions on various subjects, especially relating to religion and politics.