"So successful a watch and ward had been established over the young lady by this judicious parent, that she had grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless. With her character thus happily formed, in the first bloom of her youth she had encountered Mr. Pocket: who was also in the first bloom of youth, and not quite decided whether to mount to the Woolsack, or to roof himself in with a mitre. "

Because wool was so important to the economy of England hundreds of years ago, a leather sack of it was kept in Parliament as a symbol, as the seat of the principal officer. Comment by our UK friends would be very welcome.

A URL about wool, with picture of Woolsack at the very end.
http://www.d.umn.edu/~aroos/wool.html

Yes, indeed, the top dog lawyer in the UK sits his ample posterior upon a dead sheep, wears outlandish costume, and speaks in arcane language that is unintelligible to the majority of British ‘subjects’ of the Crown. Ah, me, by such chicanery are the spoils of the whore of all parliaments divided by the lawyers! [/rant]


WOOLSACK, i.e. a sack or cushion stuffed with wool, a name more particularly given to the seat of the lord chancellor in the House of Lords. It is a large square cushion of wool, without back or arms,’ covered with red cloth. It is stated to have been placed in the House of Lords in the reign of Edward III. to remind the peers of the importance of the wool trade of England. The earliest legislative mention, however, is in an act of Henry VIII. (c. 10 5. 8): “The lord chancellor, lord treasurer and all other officers who shall be under the degree of a baron of a parliament shall sit and be placed at the uppermost part of the sacks in the midst of the said parliament chamber, either there to sit ~n-.,,n n~~p form or noon the utmermost sack.” The woolsack is technically outside the precincts of the house, and the lord chancellor, wishing to speak in a debate, has to advance to his place as a peer.
http://18.1911encyclopedia.org/W/WO/WOOLSACK.htm