Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/360

 352 THE COUNCIL UNDER THE TUDORS July holder of the office is distinguished alike by the great services he has rendered at Washington and Geneva and by his remarkable absence from the council of which he is president. From 1558 to 1679, with the exception of a single decade (1621-31), there was no lord president at all ; and it is clear that if, as has been said, he had specific functions, they could easily be exercised by some one else. Our concern in the reign of Henry VII is, however, to discover what council and what sort of a council it was over which he was supposed to ' preside '. From the time of Henry III, when William of Valence was described as consiliarius regis principalis, 1 various counsellors had been given that or similar titles of pre- eminence, and Fortescue had desiderated ' an hed or a cheeff to rule ' his reformed council ; but although his editor introduces ' President of the Council ' into his comment, 2 no one is known to have borne that title before 10 November 1473, when Bishop John Alcock was appointed tutor to Edward IV's son and president of his council ; 3 but this was the prince's council in Wales and not the king's council in London. The earliest references to a president of the king's council are vague and doubtful. In a list of members of the court of requests compiled by Sir Julius Caesar a century later 4 there occurs ' tempore H. 7 : Epus. Bathon., P.S. Gustos et presidens '. Now, Foxe had been lord privy seal since August 1487, 5 and was bishop of Bath and Wells from February 1492 to December 1494, 6 so that would fix the date of this reference between 1492-4. But the court of requests was emphatically the court of the lord privy seal, and the place of Foxe's name in the list, coupled with the absence of consilii regis after presidens, might imply that Foxe was president of the court of requests and not of the king's council. Moreover, while he continued as privy seal until 1516, it is always others who are described as presidents of the council after 1494. The next reference is in the Plumpton Correspondence, where in a letter of 4 February 1495-6 the writer speaks of consulting ' my lord president ' as well as ' my lord pryvey scale '. 7 This seems to exclude Foxe ; the date would also exclude Sir T. Lovell, who is said by the Plumpton editor to have been lord president in 1504 8 and in the Dictionary of National Biography to have been appointed to 1 Baldwin, King's Council, p. 27. 2 Governance of England, ed. Plummer, cap. xv and pp. 299-300. 3 Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1467-76, p. 401 ; Skeel, Council in the Marches of Wales, p. 26. 4 Lea dam, Requests, p. cvi. 8 Campbell, Materials, ii. 158 ; Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1485-94, p. 171. Le Neve, i. 142, iii. 292. ' Plumpton Corr. p. 114. 8 Ibid. p. cxiii n.