Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/368

 360 THE COUNCIL UNDER THE TUDOR8 July Thomas Elyot to Cromwell in 1532, ' was there newly delegate from the Sterre Chamber all matters of the North partes and Wales, as ye know ; those few that remayned were for the more parte the complaynts of beggars '. This devolution relieved a council, which was not yet divided into a privy council and court of star chamber, of administrative as well as of judicial business, and made it more possible for it to concentrate upon problems involved in the policy upon which Henry VIII was about to embark. Wolsey's autocracy was not, however, con- ducive to the growth of conciliar government. After his fall, conditions were for a time more favourable to its development. We have the somewhat abortive creation of a president of the council attendant upon the king, and the use becomes more frequent of phrases like the ' secret council ' 1 and ' high privy council ', 2 while ' privy council ' comes more and more into use in and after 1529. 3 Then for three or four years, during the zenith of Cromwell's influence, the phrase becomes rarer 4 until in March 1538 we find Thomas Derby officially described as clerk of the privy council. Almost simultaneously an idea similar to that implied in this description had occurred to (Sir) Philip Hoby during his mission to Spain, and on his return in the autumn of 1538^he made a note ' to remember and advertise my lord privy seal of a redress : first, to withdraw the king's council more secret together, and to avoid spiritual men there- hence for divers considerations '. 5 It was not, however, until twelve days after Cromwell's execution that, on 10 August 1540, the privy council received its definite organization ; and from that date it is possible to treat the privy council and the council in the star chamber as two distinct entities. A. F. POLLARD. but every cause to be first tried. . . there ; the appeal to lie afterwards to his Lord- ship and the other commissioners '. Letters and Papers, no. 1887, ' proclamations were made to that effect in Westminster Hall '. Ibid. no. 2201, ' which have caused daily prayers to be made for Wolsey in these parts '. See also ibid. no. 2768, v. 799, xiv. ii. 351, xvra. ii. 34. 1 Ibid. vi. 1503. 2 Ibid. vi. 1656. 3 Ibid. iv. 4395, 5586 [i.e. in 1529], V. 1025, 1029 [in 1532], vi. 82 [in 1533], vn. 828, 1525, 1624 [in 1534], vm. 225 [in 1535], xi. 501, 580 [3], xn. i. 299. 1536 (State Papers, i. 506-10 ; Letters and Papers, xi. 957 ; cf. Sadler in ibid. 501). s Ibid. xra. ii. 416.
 * Henry VIII, however, uses it in his correspondence with the northern rebels in