Editing Exchequer of Pleas (section)

===Chancellor===
The [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]], independently head of the [[Court of Chancery]], was also involved in the Exchequer of Pleas as a check on the [[Lord High Treasurer]].<ref>Thomas (1848) p.5</ref> He evolved out of the [[Lord Chancellor]]'s clerk, or ''clericus cancellari'', who sat in the Exchequer and was responsible for correcting and sealing [[Hereditary peer#Writs of summons|writs of summons]], also holding the Exchequer's copy of the Great Seal.<ref name="Vincent 1993 p.105">Vincent (1993) p.105</ref> The earliest appearances of such a clerk in the records come from 1220, when a document was signed by Robert de Neville, ''cancellarius''.<ref>Vincent (1993) p.107</ref> The Lord Chancellors of the time were clergymen with little interest in judicial or fiscal matters; as a result, the clerk became more independent from the Chancellor and, by the 1230s, became a royal appointment holding the seal independently of the Lord Chancellor, known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer.<ref name="Vincent 1993 p.105"/> 

After 1567 the Chancellor was additionally confirmed as the Under-Treasurer of the Exchequer, allowing him to carry out the Treasurer's duties when he was unavailable.<ref>Bryson (2008) p.41</ref> The Chancellor was appointed by [[letters patent]], and until 1672 it was a life appointment, then changed to an office "to hold only during the pleasures of the crown".<ref>Bryson (2008) p.42</ref> Until the [[English Civil War]] the Chancellor of the Exchequer was a judicial office with little political standing; after the War, however, it became seen as a "stepping stone" to higher political appointments. After 1672 it again became an administrative and judicial office, until 1714, when the Chancellor's position as head of the Treasury made it an important appointment again.<ref>Bryson (2008) p.44</ref>