Constituency : Plymouth 1847-52, 1853-7, Richmond 1861-72
Roundell came in at Richmond , Yorkshire in July 1861 after the resignation of Henry Rich to accommodate him as Palmerston wanted to appoint him Solicitor-General.
Roundell was an Oxfordshire rector's son. He was educated at rugby and Oxford where he was a brilliant scholar. He became a barrister and built up a lucrative practice, enabling him to set up a country estate. He entered Parliament in 1847 as a Conservative but immediately associated himself with the Peelites. He was forced to withdraw from the contest in 1852 as a result of voting against the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. His defeat in 1857 was due to his opposition to Palmerston over China.
Roundell was switched to Attorney-General in 1863 after the resignation through ill-health of William Atherton. Roundell had already shouldered the burden of much of his Commons work. His sympathies with the north helped maintain British neutrality in the American Civil War; speaking of the proposal to break the blockade he declared "An armed neutrality ... is a species of war , and not the most honourable , because it is not avowed ". After the death of Cornewall Lewis he was viewed as the last hope of the Palmerstonians who wished to avoid Gladstone's succession.
Roundell was a High Churchman and an avowed moderate who supported church rates and opposed the secret ballot. He opposed educational franchises. It was a shock when he declared support for household suffrage in 1866 and it helped to undermine the Russell-Gladstone Bill. He conducted much of the routine business of opposition in 1867-8 and predicted , perhaps looked forward to, a profound political realignment. He wrote a number of publications on the rights of the church
Roundell did not initially join Gladstone's government as he opposed disendowment of the Irish Church and he also spoke against the Irish Land Act describing its provisions as "confiscation and communism ". He defended the church's interests in the debates on the University Tests Act and the Education Act. Notwithstanding this opposition he was still consulted by Gladstone's government on legal matters and argued the British case in the Alabama arbitration.In 1872 Gladstone elevated Roundell to the Lords as Baron Selborne and he became Lord Chancellor. He supervised the Judicature Act of 1873 , a comprehensive re-organisation of the judiciary. In opposition he fretted over growing Liberal tendencies towards disestablishment.He resumed as Lord Chancellor in 1880 and was upgraded to an earl in 1882 as a reward for his helpful acquiescence to the Second Irish Land Act. Though he greatly admired Gladstone as a statesman he became increasingly worried that he could be led towards a fundamental assault on the church and the aristocracy. He accepted Bradlaugh on the grounds that the Bible gave "no rule on which to found any exclusive or theocratic constitution of civil society". In the Cabinet he was one of the chief voices in favour of imperialist courses of action. His last service to Gladstone was in persuading the Lords to accept the Third Reform Act rather than risk a dissolution.
Roundell could not countenance Home Rule and so became a Liberal Unionist in 1886. It was " a surrender to the Revolutionary party here and in Ireland" and said of his former leader "if he lived long enough there is nothing ... he would not destroy". He allied with Salisbury rather than Hartington in the Lords.
Roundell published four volumes of his memoirs eliciting from Gladstone the comment "The padding ... is something fearful".
He died in 1895 aged 83. His son married Salisbury's daughter and was a minister in Balfour's Cabinet.
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