Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/348

 340 THE COUNCIL UNDER THE TUDORS July A third obstacle in the path of the investigator is the unfamiliarity of the categories in which he has to seek his materials. We are always looking for sixteenth-century men and things in twentieth-century garb, and going for financial assis- tance to treasury and exchequer when what we want is hidden in the household and the chamber ; we can understand a lord high treasurer, who has nothing to do with finance, as little as a lord high admiral who never goes to sea, for the adequate reason that it was not his business. Neither in Hallam nor in Gneist will the student find the faintest allusion to the fact that the history of financial administration under the Tudors has still to be sought in the records of the household and the chamber rather than in those of the treasury and the exchequer. Similarly it is difficult to realize that the king's council was part of the king's household, just as a council was also part of the household of any magnate, 1 and that we have to trace the development of the council with the help of household books arid ordinances. It is from a household book that we learn that Sir Robert Cecil was once lord keeper of the privy seal. 2 A difficulty that has particular reference to the council and star chamber arises from the absence in Tudor times of our modern differentiation between a council and a court. Here again we read back into earlier ages a specialization of functions, if not a separation of powers, which did not then exist, thereby ignoring or confusing the process of historical evolution. Fleta's remark in the early fourteenth century is still true of the six- teenth : rex habet curiam suam in consilio suo. Council and court of star chamber, in the fifteenth if not in the sixteenth century, sit in the same room, consist of the same personnel, and exercise the same jurisdiction. The earliest known reference to the ' court ' of requests calls it the ' council ' of requests ; 3 the court of star chamber is the council in the star chamber ; and the other great prerogative courts are the councils of the north and of Wales and its marches. Courts are held coram consilio, and no one is ever summoned to appear before a curia. Even to-day 1 Every great man had his household and council, even a knight like Sir W. Compton (Letters and Papers, iv. 5268.) Thus the Duke of Buckingham had his chancellor, with his broad seal, his treasurer, steward, and so forth, just like a king. His style was ' right high and mighty prince ' ; he used the royal plural ' our ', and could not feel safe if he travelled with less than 300 or 400 men (Ellis, Original Letters, in. i. 220-6). Wolsey had a household of over 700 men (Letters and Papers, iv. 2972) ; he also, as bishop of Durham, had a separate council there (ibid. iv. 893). For the marquis of Exeter's council (which was converted into the council of the west after his execution) see ibid. xiv. i. 109. 2 Royal Households (Soc. of Antiquaries), 1790, p. 242. He received the fee and did the work, but is not styled lord privy seal even in the register of the privy council. 3 Patent Roll, 1 Richard III, pars. 3, m. 16 ; Calendar of Patent Bolls, 1476-85, p. 413.