ABSTRACT
Conscience continued to be very much a part of the discourse of equity throughout the seventeenth century. This chapter describes materials which might permit a more searching analysis of the concept of the conscience of equity. It considers particularly the implications of Lord Nottingham's very deliberate distinction between private and civil conscience, the latter presumably being proper to equity. Nottingham directly and explicitly responded to concerns about equity's arbitrariness. The connection between Chancery and conscience continues to be made in ways with which people are familiar. For one thing, as the quotation from William Sheppard indicates, conscience continues to be regarded as a criterion of judgment in equity. The increasing destabilization of conscience as a result of religious controversy and apparent realization that the idea of a uniform, objective conscience was difficult to sustain. The spiritual conscience is that which addresses itself to spiritual matters. Conscience involves both a normative and a factual, or evidentiary, element.
