regarded as members of the Household, and although largely independent, they were in many or all cases subject to some kind of supervision by the Lord Chamberlain.[1] Probably the explanation of their origin is given by a phrase used about 1478 by the writer of the Liber Niger. Here the Wardrobe is spoken of as 'an office of chaumbre outward'.[2] In these standing offices, and also in the Secretariat, we seem to have examples of that budding off from the main administrative organization by which those great departments of state, the Exchequer and the Chancery, had already come into existence. Doubtless the process was facilitated, when considerations of practical convenience and a desire to reduce the number of mouths to be provided for in the palace led to the location of particular branches of work in permanent and independent premises. The history of the Revels Office, which will form the subject of another chapter, well serves to illustrate the kind of development involved.[3]
Members of the standing offices were generally appointed for life, those of the regular Household during the royal pleasure. The former received letters patent; the latter were only sworn in before one or other of the chief officers, and as most of the early records of the Lord Chamberlain's department have perished, no complete list of them is upon record. The uniform rates of pay and allowances for each grade of officer which prevailed in the fourteenth century had undergone many complications by the middle of the sixteenth. Each officer had, of course, his fee or wages, payable either at the Exchequer or by the Treasurer of the Chamber, whose functions will shortly be described, or, as in the case of most of the regular officers of Household and Chamber, by the Cofferer of the Household. The rates had gradually increased, perhaps with a decrease in the purchasing power of money. Those for the recently established Tudor posts were reckoned in pounds; the older ones in marks. Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber and Pensioners got £50, Esquires of the Body £33 6s. 8d. (fifty marks), Gentlemen Ushers of the Privy Chamber £30, Grooms of the Privy Chamber £20, Grooms of the Chamber £2 13s. 4d. (four marks). These may serve for examples. Obsolete mediaeval rates of
- ↑ On the relation of the Lord Chamberlain to the Revels in particular, cf. ch. iii. The issues from the Great Wardrobe were mainly upon his warrants.
- ↑ H. O. 37. The post of Clerk of Works is also called an 'office outward' (H. O. 54).
- ↑ Cf. ch. iii, especially Tilney's list of 'standing offices' c. 1607. The 'maisters of the standing offices' also appear in the description of James's coronation (Nichols, James, i. 325).
