Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/72

 64 COUNCIL AND CABINET, 1679-88 January When incorporating these notes in his life of Guilford, North inserted after the list of the cabinet this sentence : ' This posture of the cabinet pleased his lordship well enough ; and it is plainly that which stood when he entered, because no notice is taken of the Earl of Nottingham, lord chancellor.' The chancellor died on 18 December 1682, so that this list can hardly refer to any period earlier than the end of that year. As Conway was succeeded as secretary of state by Sunderland at the end of the following January the list cannot be later than then. This date also fits in very well with the brief remarks of Guilford's printed above. Roger North's statements on the time when his brother entered the cabinet are inconsistent, for elsewhere he says that his lordship was called to the cabinet before he had the Great Seal committed to him. 1 If this is anything more than a simple blunder, the explanation is probably that the eventual lord keeper was sometimes called to the cabinet to give advice on legal business without being an ordinary member of it. Roger North gives some further information about his brother's atten- dance at the council and the cabinet : ' When the king was at Windsor, the public council was commonly held at Hampton Court, 2 which was for the ease of attendance. His lordship (Guilford) had a lodging both at Whitehall and Hampton Court to retire to upon these occasions. The cabinet council usually sat on Sunday evening ; and when the court was at Windsor, that was always a travelling day and a lodging was provided for his lordship in the dean's house.' 3 Some additional details can be added to this account, the last part of which is correct as far as it goes. Whereas the committee of intelligence met on every day in the week, though more often on Sundays than on any weekday, 4 the cabinet generally, though by no means invariably, met on a Sunday except in times of crises. 5 1 Lives of the Norths, i. 243. Cf. ' It was not long before he was summoned to the cabinet for the king found his losses by this new modell, and turned some out, and gave others leave to withdraw upon their declining his service becaus their advice was not taken, when the lord chief justice North was so farr from following his company that he was taken into the most secret recesses of the king's councells ' (Add. MS. 32520, fo. 251). 2 The late Sir William Anson gave a curious paraphrase of this and the preceding sentences of North's narrative : ' The functions of the privy council were still con- sultative, some of its meetings were public and were usually held -at Hampton Court on Thursdays ' (ante, xxix. 60). The context, however, proves that by a ' public council ' North meant one for the transaction of public business as opposed to ' private business upon summons ', and that it was only the ' public council ' which usually met at Hampton Court on Thursday. I do not think that North is correct, but in any case his remarks will not bear the interpretation Sir William Anson placed upon them. 3 Lives of the Norths, i. 321. seven times. There were nine meetings on Sundays, four on Mondays, three on Tuesdays, three on Wednesdays, three on Thursdays, one on a Friday, and four on Saturdays. 8 It is unfortunately impossible to collect many definite statements as to the exact dates on which the cabinet met, but it is at least clear that in normal times it met more often on Sunday and generally in the evening than on any other day. Thus out of four references chosen at random from four different authorities, three of the meetings were held on Sunday and one on Wednesday : 1 January 1682'(Reresby, Memoirs, ed. 1875, p. 229), 22 July 1683 (Lords' Journals, xiv. 378), 26 October 1687 (Hist. MSS. Comm., Beaufort MSS., p. 91), and 23 September 1688 (Clarendon's
 * From 19 May (a Monday) to 27 December 1679 the committee met twenty-