The descent of the old Exchequer collar could not be traced with any certainty, beyond a century and a half before Sir Richard Richards became Chief Baron in 1817. On his death, his -widow preferred keeping, it to transmitting it in the customary manner, and it is now in the possession of the family. The new collar which Chief Baron Alexander in 1824 was obliged to substitute for it, after passing through two of his successors in office, was in its turn retained by the son of Chief Baron Lord Abinger; and Sir Frederick Pollock, who now presides in the Court, was consequently put to the expense of providing a new one, the weight of which is no less than four pounds of gold.
   The collar of the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas boasts a higher antiquity, being that said to have been worn by that eminent judge Sir Edward Coke. Chamberlain, it is true, in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, dated the 23rd of November, 1616, about a week after Coke's discharge from the Bench, relates that Sir Edward "gave a good answer to the new Chief Justice, who sending to him to buy his collar of SS, he said he would not part with it, but leave it unto his posterity, that they might one day know that they had a Chief Justice to their ancestor."¹ But as there is no such collar among the treasures of Holkham, it may be presumed either that the on-dit related by the entertaining letter-writer was unfounded, or that if the Chief Justice, in his anger at his dismissal, actually made the speech as reported, he on reflection altered his mind, and consented to part with the collar. For the first hundred years afterwards, however, there is no other evidence than tradition; the earliest date that can be positively traced is 1714, when Lord Trevor received it from his predecessor. Prom that time to the present, there is clear proof of the succession. On Chief Justice Tindal's depth in 1846, his representatives transferred it to his successor, Sir Thomas
   ¹ Johnson's Life of Coke, vol. i. p. 341.