Conventional wisdom confers iconic status on the clause of England's Act of Settlement (1701) mandating secure tenure for judges. This paper estimates how the move to secure tenure affected the number of citations to judges' decisions, a measure of the quality of decisions. The empirics uses two new databases, on judges' biographies and on citations. Several strategies facilitate identification of the effect of secure tenure. A court-year panel permits difference-in-differences. Controls capture judges' human capital and amount of litigation.