Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/366

 358 THE COUNCIL UNDER THE TUDORS July his chaplains), 1 his ' spiritual learned counsel ', 2 learned in the canon as distinct from the common law, and his noble counsel, who consisted of nobles ; 3 and occasionally he called a ' great council ' which might contain all these elements. 4 There were the ' counsel of the county ' (which means the councillors living in the county), and Cromwell once proposed ' to appoint the most assured and substantial gentlemen of every shire to be sworn of the king's council '. 5 In February 1526 a mere committee of the council to deal with a ' matter in law ' contained twenty -four names besides all the judges, barons of the exchequer, king's Serjeants and attorney, and two other lawyers. 6 This multitude and multiplicity of counsel and councils indicates the diffuseness of the council in the earlier part of Henry VIII's reign. Occasionally, but very rarely, the word ' privy ' is used and implies some closer formation ; but it was not until 1526 that Wolsey, disgusted, perchance, with foreign affairs after Pavia, or possibly Henry VIII himself, turned his attention to the reform of domestic administration. There had seven years before been talk of the expulsion from court of some undesirable advisers, but these were gentlemen of the king's chamber rather than members of his council. Early in 1526, however, there was drafted the remarkable scheme of reform now known as the Eltham Ordinances. 7 They dealt with the 1 Trevelyan Papers (Camden Soc.), i. 152, 154 ; Rutland Papers (Camden Soc.), pp. 31, 33. 2 Letters and Papers, v. 311, x. 864. 3 Hall, p. 759 ; cf. Acts of the Priv. Coun. 1552-4, p. 398 ; Ellis, Original Letters, i. i. 53, ' the nobles of this land, as well spiritual as temporal, being of his council in this behalf ' ; Letters and Papers, xix. i. 1. 4 Hall, p. 700. 5 Ellis, n. ii. 122 ; Letters and Papers, vii. 420, xm. i. 453, ' the learned councillors of the county '. 6 Letters and Papers, iv, App. 67. 7 The manuscripts of these ordinances have never been satisfactorily examined. They were printed by the Society of Antiquaries in 1790 from Harl. MS. 642 (one of D'Ewes's collections), and are quoted by Nicolas (Proc. of the Priv. Coun. vn. v-vi) and by Miss Scofield from that source. The Public Record Office has only a modern transcript of a manuscript which apparently did not contain the paragraphs about the council, and Brewer and Gairdner warn us (Letters and Papers, iv, p. 860 n.) that the Antiquaries' printed text does not, as it professes to do, follow Harl. MS. 642. They remark that both Harl. MS. 642 and another copy in Harl. MS. 610 are ' in modern handwriting ' [' modern ' means anything not contemporary]. The best manuscript is the fine Bodleian MS. Laud. 597, which is strictly contemporary, though it has not hitherto been used. It agrees fairly well with the Antiquaries' printed text ; but it is not the official copy signed by the king and kept in the royal ' compting- house '. There is also ' a brief of the statute of Eltham ' in Cotton MS. Vespasian C. xiv, fo. 218 (Letters and Papers, iv, App. 63). In August 1525 Wolsey had written to Sir H. Guilford, the comptroller of the household, for ' the book of Statutes of the Household signed by the king ', and Guilford had replied on the 16th that it was in the cofferer's custody, who had gone to his house in Sussex (Letters and Papers, iv. 1572). ' The Cardinall ', writes Hall (p. 707), ' came to Eltham the viii daie of