The Legal Monkhood of the Bench

Its leader was Oliver Mowat, the Premier of the province of Ontario. Mowat had been one of the original three Liberal members of the Canadian coalition that carried Confederation; but, soon after the conclusion of the Quebec Conference, he resigned to become Vice-Chancellor of Ontario. Eight years later, after the Liberals had gained power in Ontario, he emerged from what Macdonald called 'the legal monkhood of the bench' and succeeded Edward Blake as Premier.

--Donald Creighton, Canada's First Century, Wynford Project (Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2012), 46.