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 in different reigns. It flourished at the end of the reign of Edward II, and again during the first half of that of Edward III. Soon after the middle of the fourteenth century, it lost much of its political status, owing to the separation from it of the Secretaries, who now had their own clerks in the Signet Office, and on the financial side it was for long little more than a privy purse in strict subordination to the Exchequer. It was still, however, capable at need of serving as a medium of war expenditure, and with the appointment of Thomas Vaughan by Edward IV in 1465 its financial importance began to revive. Up to the end of the fourteenth century, its financial officers are generally called Receivers of the Chamber; during the next the double title of Treasurer of the Chamber and Keeper of the King's Jewels establishes itself. They are sometimes, although perhaps not always, appointed by patent, and at any rate from the time of Henry IV are only accountable to the King in person. On the execution of Vaughan in 1583 the posts of Treasurer of the Chamber and Keeper of the Jewels were divided; and it may serve as an illustration of the conservatism of courts that this was still a subject of grievance in the Jewel House two hundred years later.

At the beginning of Henry VII's reign the functions of Treasurer of the Chamber were discharged by Thomas, afterwards Sir Thomas, Lovell. On his appointment as Treasurer*