1920 STATE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 619 1638 and 5 January 1639 reached £1,277 lis. ^d} These were definite fees paid for services rendered, but in addition the secretaries received allowances from the signet and certain chancery offices. The clerks of the signet had formerly been regarded as the principal secretary's servants, and though by the seventeenth century the signet office was distinct from the two secretarial offices, it was still definitely under the super- vision of the secretaries of state. It is not surprising, therefore, to find them receiving a dividend each month from the signet office.^ This dividend was a fixed proportion of the signet receipts, and each secretary, whatever the division of business between them, apparently received an equal amount.^ Similarly, dividends were received each term from the chancery offices of the hanaper and petty bag, which received the fees paid for the issues under the Great Seal. The signet dividend received by Secretary Coke for the three months from June to October 1627 was £42 35. 4d., but the amounts varied very considerably from nearly £4 to over £17 a month at the signet office and from about 155. to over £19 at the hanaper and petty bag.^ These are figures taken from the years 1628 to 1632. The large dividend of £19 8s. Id. at the chancery offices after Trinity Term 1628 was no doubt due to the meeting of parliament at that time, one of the duties of the clerks of the petty bag being to draw up certain of the writs of summons. The list of fees printed below, ^ though it dates from a later period, shows how each subordinate official had his share of fees. It was not recognized fees and dividends alone that swelled the incomes of the secretaries. One must not forget the unofficial but ubiquitous ' present '. A judicious offeriixg might persuade the secretary to obtain an immediate warrant for the grant in ques- tion, thus saving both time and money at a later stage. In any case the matter might be considerably expedited if the secretary of state's interest or that of some member of his staff could be obtained. We find among the papers of Williamson when » Accounts presented by Robert Reade, Windebank's private secretary. The disbursements during the first periods for clothing, fares, &c., reach £468 35. d. [Cal 0/ State Papers, Dom., 1637, p. 529 ; 1638-9, p. 295.) See also ibid. 1673-5, pp. 505-13, for fees in Williamson's office September-November 1674. The total for two months is £357 lOs., mostly in sums of £5. ^ Cowper MSS., i. 368.
- Both Secretary Coke and Secretary Dorchester were allowed £12 145. 8d. as
dividend at the signet for November 1631 (Cal. of State Papers, Dom., 1631-3, pp. 291, 296). A fifth of the profits obtained at the signet office from sealing warrants, &o., and two-thirds of those obtained from ' perpetuities ', were allotted to the secretariate. ^ See Add. MS. 36818, and State Papers, Dom., Addenda, 1850-1625, vol. xl, ff. 8, 53-
- Cowper MSS., i. 342, 359, 371, 460. For the chancery offices of hanaper and
petty bag see Scargill-Bird, Guide to the Pvblic Records, pp. 9, 10, 3rd ed., 1908.
- No. 2.
