Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/522

 614 EMOLUMENTS OF SECRETARIES OF October differing considerably in detail and with regard to some of the lesser clerical officials they all agree in giving the fee of the two principal secretaries as £100 each and their table at court. ^ Apparently during the first half of the century the salary was granted for life ; the office, on the contrary, being conferred during the royal pleasure.^ After the Restoration a difficulty arose. When Sir John Trevor succeeded Sir William Morrice as secretary of state in September 1668, his patent was drawn up in the usual fashion, the salary being granted for life.^ There appears to have been some opposition to Trevor's appointment, headed by the lord keeper, Bridgeman, who no doubt feared, though without cause, that the new secretary would prove a tool of Lord Arlington's, by whom he had been recommended.^ Possibly as a result of this opposition, or merely as one of the attempts at retrenchment made by the treasury commissioners, Trevor's patent was challenged in the treasury. They objected to the payment of £100 for Ufe, and Sir George Downing was ordered on 15 December to see how the patents of ArUngton and Morrice ran.* Reference was also made to the EUzabethan procedure.^ Already on 12 January 1668-9 it was minuted in the treasury that the docquet should be altered and Trevor have his salary, like his place, during pleasure ; ' but no doubt the secretary objected, for six months elapsed before Downing returned the bill to Arlington's clerk to be altered in the king's presence, Trevor having consented to the change.^ It is probable that this change was only temporary. In later warrants of appointment, the customary phrase appears to have been ' with the yearly fee ', or ' with the yearly pension ' of £100,® and in the case of Sir Leoline Jenkins the hundred pounds is distinctly stated on one • See below, for the question of the secretaries' diet. and to Sir John Coke on 2 November 1625 (Cai. State Papers, Dom., 1625-6, pp. 2, 141) and the grant to Sir Henry Vane on 3 February 1640 {Cal. oj State Papers, Dom., 1639-40, p. 419). decision reached was that Secretaries of State had ' their patents during pleasure, but £100 a year for life ' : Col. oj State Papers, Dam., 1668-9, p. 124. • Ibid. m. i. 7, 15 January 1669. The result of the inquiry does not appear. ' Cal. of Treasury Books, m. i. 6. • Cal. of State Papers, Dom., 1668-9, p. 398. • See for example Coventry's warrant of appointment {Cal. of State Papers, Dom., 1672, p. 322) and that of Williamson {ibid., 1673-5, p. 360). According to the calen- dars, in these warrants the phrase ' during pleasure ' is not even used with reference to the office. Jenkins's warrant of 5 May 1680 grants the office ' during pleasure ' with the yearly fee of £100 {Cal. of State Papers, Dom., 1679-80, p. 464), while in Sunderland's warrant there was apparently no mention of the fee {ibid. pp. 78,
 * See, for example, the grants of office to Sir Albertus Morton on 29 March 1625,
 * There was apparently some discussion when the patent was drafted, but the
 * Hist. MSS. Comm., Montagu House Papers, i. 421, 423.
 * Cal. of Treasury Books, ii. 509.