Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/529

 1920 STATE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 521 possible, though there is no definite statement on the matter, that it was usual for at least half the required amount to come out of the royal coffers.^ Clarendon says that the retirement of Nicholas in favour of Bennet cost the king about £20,000 ' in present money, land, or lease'.- On the other hand, the king could as a punishment forbid the retiring secretary to receive any compensation, as was done in the case of the earl of Sunder- land on his dismissal in 1681 for supporting the Exclusion Bill, and again in 1688. The earl, who had paid Williamson for the place, felt deeply injured.^ The question of the diet allowed to the secretaries of the king's court leads naturally to a consideration of their position in the royal household and of the development of departmental government, but this can here be only briefly referred to. The Liber Niger of Edward IV provides allowance for ' a secretary sitting in the king's chamber, and he shall have eting in the hall one gentilman '. The four ' sufficiant writers of the king's signet under the "seide secretary ' also eat daily in the king's hall, and the secretary ip allowed ' 3 persones way1;ers on him for all that office '. He and the signet clerks pay ' for theire carriage and barneys in courte ', except for ' a littell coffer ' in which the king's papers are filed. The allowance in diet, lighting, &c., ranks roughly between those granted to barons and to bannerets.* This formed the foundation for all later rulings on the subject. In Henry VII 's reign the secretary is still sitting among the chaplains in the king's chamber,^ but when Henry VIII made his ordinances at Eltham we find two principal secretaries who sit in their own chamber and are served with ' one double messe and one single ', with an extra allowance for supper once a week. The cost of the first ' mess ' is given at £358 9s. ^d. and of the second at £48 6s. 9jc?.« The latter is ' After Sir Albertus Morton's death there is mention of the king's promise to refund the £3,000 paid by Morton to Secretary Calvert {Cowper MSS.,i. 214). Morton is said to have paid £6,000 in all, so the king may have offered to pay half. This was the course pursued by Charles II when he wished Sir William Temple to succeed Coventry. He offered to put down £5,000 if Temple would pay the other £6,000 required for the time being (Hist. MSS. Comm., Lindsey MSS., p. 397). A corre- spondent of Williamson's, discussing the latter's possible promotion, writes in 1673 : ' methinks after such incessant service the king should not deviate from his custom of paying for the place though the candidate beat the bargain' {Lellers to Sir Joseph Williamson (Camden Soc. ), i. 77). In 1662 Nicholas, the retiring secretary, was definitely pensioned by the king. * Continuation, i. 431-8. » Diary of Sir H. Sidney, ii. 165, and Ralph, Hist, of England, i. 1019. « Ibid. pp. 172, 18^-4, 188-90. On p. 192 the charge of the secretaries' first mess, inclusive of the extra supper, is given as £406 10s. 3|rf. and of their second mess as £406 8*. 9^. It is conceivable that both these amounts refer to the ' double ' mesa (p. 172), while the xnuch inferior diet given on p. 183 is for the clerks of the council, signet, &c.
 * Household Ordinances, p. 35. * Ibid. p. 1 12.