Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/24

14 and not before the council, and that all actions of the kind before the council of Richard which were still pending be annulled and adjourned to the common law.

Of the history of the council during the reigns of Henry IV. and of Henry VI., when again Parliamentary pressure was brought to bear, there is no need at present to speak. The conclusions now to be drawn would not be much affected thereby. The first part of the reign of Richard II. shows, to a fuller extent than at any time before or since, the aims of Parliament to elect the council and to direct its organization. Even then the will of Parliament was only intermittently and with no consistency asserted. Moreover the council was already too mature and well-established an institution to be readily changed by legislative enactments. In the king's personal government during the later years of the reign we see the whole Parliamentary policy brought to naught. That the council was normally within the sphere of the royal prerogative and depended not upon statutes for its power or usefulness was destined again to be proved. Yet there are results which may be attributed to the influence direct and indirect of lords and commons. The privy council was never again so large or so heterogeneous a body as heretofore; its members were more generally of respectable estate; the councillors felt something of a responsibility for their actions; while as a governing body it was drawn more into the light and its actions were better understood and noted. Of these results the latter has afforded the material from which in the main the present article has been constructed. 2em