Master of the Rolls in the context of Great Seal of the Realm

This is a list of Keepers of the Records in the Tower of London. The position was medieval in origin, and ended in 1838 with the creation of the London Public Record Office.

In the 16th century the distinction was made between Chancery Rolls from the reign of Richard III onwards, which were under the direct control of the Master of the Rolls, and earlier Rolls that were kept in the Tower of London, with a designated Keeper. The Masters of the Rolls wished to keep at least a theoretical control over the Keepers, but until 1604 and a judgement against Sir Roger Wilbraham there was no case law to support the claim.

The Chancellor of the High Court, known until 2005 as the Vice-Chancellor of the High Court, is the head of the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. This judge and the other two heads of divisions (Family and King's Bench) sit by virtue of their offices often, as and when their expertise is deemed relevant, in a panel in the Court of Appeal (England and Wales). As such this judge ranks equally to the President of the Family Division and the President of the King's Bench Division.

From 1813 to 1841, the solitary and from 1841 to 1875, the three ordinary judges of the Court of Chancery – rarely a court of first instance until 1855 – were called vice-chancellors. The more senior judges of the same court were the Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls (who were moved fully to the Court of Appeal above in 1881). Each would occasionally hear cases alone or make declarations on paper applications alone. Partly due to the old system of many pre-pleadings, pleadings, and hearings before most cases would reach Chancery the expense and duration of proceedings was pilloried in art and literature before the reforms of the late 19th century. Charles Dickens set Bleak House around raised hopes in a near-incomprehensible, decades-long case in Chancery (Jarndyce and Jarndyce), involving a decision on an increasingly old will which was rendered useless as all of the deceased's wealth was – unknowingly to the prospective beneficiaries – absorbed in legal costs. Reform swiftly followed.

The Court of Appeal (formally "His Majesty's Court of Appeal in England", commonly cited as "CA", "EWCA" or "CoA") is the highest court within the Senior Courts of England and Wales, and second in the legal system of England and Wales only to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The Court of Appeal was created in 1875, and today comprises 39 Lord Justices of Appeal and Lady Justices of Appeal.

The court has two divisions, Criminal and Civil, led by the Lady Chief Justice and the Master of the Rolls respectively. Criminal appeals are heard in the Criminal Division, and civil appeals in the Civil Division. The Criminal Division hears appeals from the Crown Court, while the Civil Division hears appeals from the County Court, High Court of Justice and Family Court. Permission to appeal is normally required from either the lower court or the Court of Appeal itself; and with permission, further appeal may lie to the Supreme Court. Its decisions are binding on all courts, including itself, apart from the Supreme Court.

The deputy president of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the second most senior judge of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, after the president of the Supreme Court. The office is equivalent to the now-defunct position of Second Senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, also known previously as the Second Senior Law Lord, who was the second highest-ranking Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.

By Royal Warrant of Queen Elizabeth II published on 1 October 2009, a place for the deputy president of the Supreme Court in the order of precedence was established: the deputy president of the Supreme Court ranks after the Master of the Rolls and before the other justices of the Supreme Court.

Montacute House is a late Elizabethan mansion in Montacute, South Somerset, England. An example of English architecture created during a period that was moving from the medieval Gothic to the more classically-inspired Renaissance style, Montacute is one of the few prodigy houses to have survived almost unchanged from the Elizabethan era. The house has been designated as a Grade I listed building, and its gardens are also listed at the highest grade on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England.

Designed by an unknown architect, possibly the mason William Arnold, the three-storey mansion, constructed of the local Ham Hill stone, was built in about 1598 for Sir Edward Phelips, a lawyer and politician who was Speaker of the House of Commons from 1604 until 1611, and subsequently Master of the Rolls from 1611 until his death in 1614. He was the prosecutor in the trial of the Gunpowder Plotters. Phelips' descendants occupied the house until the early 20th century. For a brief period, the house was let to tenants, one of whom was Lord Curzon, who lived at the house with his mistress, the novelist Elinor Glyn. The house narrowly escaped demolition in the early 20th century, when it was valued for scrap at just under £6,000. In 1931, it was purchased by the philanthropist, Ernest Cook, who presented the house to the National Trust. One of the earliest of the Trust's acquisitions, the house came empty of its contents, and without the endowment the Trust subsequently required, its then secretary, James Lees-Milne describing it as an "empty and rather embarrassing white elephant".

The Public Record Office (abbreviated as PRO, pronounced as three letters and referred to as the PRO), Chancery Lane in the City of London, was the guardian of the national archives of the United Kingdom from 1838 until 2003, when it was merged with the Historical Manuscripts Commission to form The National Archives, based in Kew. It was under the control of the Master of the Rolls, a senior judge. The Public Record Office still exists as a legal entity, as the enabling legislation has not been modified.