Chancellor of the Exchequer when James Callaghan was the first chancellor to break with tradition when he used a newer box. Prior to Gladstone, a generic red Despatch Box of varying design and specification was used. The practice is said to have begun in the late 16th century, when Queen Elizabeth I's representative Francis Throckmorton presented the Spanish Ambassador, Bernardino de Mendoza, with a specially constructed red briefcase filled with black puddings. In July 1997, Gordon Brown became the second chancellor to use a new box for the Budget. Made by industrial trainees at Babcock Rosyth Defence Ltd ship and submarine dockyard in Fife,
Exchequer of Pleas involved in the Exchequer of Pleas as a check on the Lord High Treasurer. He evolved out of the Lord Chancellor's clerk, or "clericus cancellari", who sat in the Exchequer and was responsible for correcting and sealing writs of summons, also holding the Exchequer's copy of the Great Seal. The earliest appearances of such a clerk in the records come from 1220, when a document was signed by Robert de Neville, "cancellarius". 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,