Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/367

 1922 THE COUNCIL UNDER THE TV DORS 359 whole of the royal household, of which the council was only a part, but that part of the ordinances is one of the most important documents in the history of the council. It provides that ' a good number of ... persons of his Council shall give their attendance upon his most royal person ', and proceeds to name twenty. But forasmuch as the chancellor, treasurer, privy seal, steward, and others were often necessarily absent on their judicial and other administrative duties, ten of the twenty are selected to ' give their continual attendance in the causes of the said council, unto what place soever his highness shall resort '. These ten do not include any of the above-mentioned great officers of state, but even of them some may be absent, and it is finally provided that at least two out of the following four Clerk, bishop of Bath, the secretary (possibly Knight), Sir Thomas More, and Sampson, dean of the chapel shall attend the king every day at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. ' for hering and direction of pore men's compleintes and maters of justice '. This division of the council corresponds with other categories : the judicial duties which occupied the chancellor, treasurer, lord privy seal, and others of the council referred to the star chamber at West- minster ; the remaining ten, bound to attend wherever the king should resort, were the council ubicunque fueyit ; and the four were predecessors of the ministers who, until very recent times, were in turn always in attendance on the sovereign. The total number, twenty, coincides almost exactly with the numbers of the council often given under the Lancastrians 1 and with the nineteen members of the privy council when it was finally organized in 1540. But there is no evidence that this scheme was carried into effect in 1526. Nor does it correspond with the ultimate organization of the privy council or the lines of its differentiation from the star chamber. The scheme, indeed, left Wolsey in the star chamber better provided with counsel than the king ubi- cunque fuerit, unless he were in London. But it does coincide with the policy of devolution which Wolsey was then carrying out by developing the Lady Mary's council in Wales and the duke of Richmond's council in the north. 2 Then, writes Sir January, and taried there till the xxii. ... At this season the Cardinall made many ordinances concerning the kynges house whiche bee at this daie called the Statutes of Eltham.' But while he says a good deal about the reform of the household and the outcry it caused, he says nothing about the council, except on p. 703, when he refers to the council in Wales. For earlier projects of reform see Letters and Papers, iii. 576, 578. 1 e. g. Nicolas, Proc. of the Priv. Coun. i. 237, v. xxii ; at other times, however, there were between 30 and 40 (ibid, vx Hi, Ixxxiii). The correspondence with the 19 of 1540 is exact, allowing for the fact that one of the 20, Dr. Wolman, is only included in 1526 ' for ordering of poor men's complaints '. z Ellis, Original Letters, I. ii. 115. Cf. Letters and Papers, IV. 1872: 'My lord legate ' ordered ' that no subpoena should be directed into Wales or the Marches,