Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/366

 composition of the House of Commons; and little, if indeed anything, to show how the composition of the House of Lords was able to influence legislation or administration, Not that we are entirely in the dark as to these matters: we know from the character of the Acts passed, and from the nature of the political measures of the reign, what sort of influences must have been at work: but we have no documentary details, nothing of personal or sensational import.

The ministerial changes of the reign are not in themselves important: the chancellorship, after having been held for a few months by Bishop Alcock, early in 1486 devolves upon Archbishop Morton, who is the minister of the reign: he retains the great seal as long as he lives, and during the rest of the reign it is held only by Dene and Warham, successively archbishops of Canterbury. The treasury in the same way sees few alterations; whilst Alcock is chancellor. Sir Reginald Bray is treasurer; under Morton, Lord Dynham; and from 1500 to 1509 Thomas Howard, who, as Earl of Surrey and Duke of Norfolk, remains at the head of finance during his life and leaves the position to his son, who holds it until 1546.

The tenure of these great offices by prelates and magnates of this sort, of course, implies that a great deal of the business of the country was conducted by means of subordinate officials; it also means that the king and. his council took such direct part in it, that the nominal ministers had a somewhat diminished responsibility; and it probably means further, under Henry VII at least, that the king dealt directly with the subordinate officials without much concert with his nominal ministers. This is especially the case as the reign proceeds; during the first half Archbishop Morton, who was both a distinguished lawyer and, in popular opinion, a too active financier, really did ministerial work. After his death the king seems to have employed men like Empson and Dudley for measures which men like Archbishop Warham and the Earl of Surrey could certainly not have approved, but which they were helpless to prevent, and perhaps without courage to remonstrate about. There is not then much to be said about ministerial history.