found at Elizabeth's court were transferred.[1] There were minor households for the royal children. That of Henry was much enlarged when he was created Prince of Wales in 1610, and in many respects, especially on the literary and artistic side, came to rival his father's.
One other officer, whose name has already been mentioned, must now, in virtue of his special relation to the playing companies, be fully considered. This is the Treasurer of the Chamber. His history affords an admirable example of that capacity of duplicating the functions of the departments of state, which was inherent in the Household as the successor in a direct line of the undifferentiated curia regis. After the development of the Exchequer was completed in the course of the twelfth century, the great bulk of the royal revenue was dealt with by that organization, and payments into and out of the royal account were made through the clerks of the branch known as the Receipt of the Exchequer. The posts of camerarius and thesaurarius were now distinct. But the change was never quite exhaustively carried out. Presumably the sovereign found it convenient to retain a certain residue of his funds under his personal control. Side by side with the Exchequer and its great officer it is still possible to trace into the thirteenth century a thesaurus camerae regis and a thesaurarius camerae; and the Pipe Rolls continue to refer to payments made in camera curiae, or ipsi regi in camera curiae, and to receipts taken by debtors de camera curiae, both of which were certified to the Exchequer per breve regis and put on final record there.[2] There were also clerici camerae, who probably wrote these brevia, and it is conjectured that the privy seal, as distinct from the great
- ↑ Worcester to Shrewsbury, 2 Feb. 1604 (Lodge, iii. 88); 'Now, having done with matters of state, I must a little touch the feminine commonwealth, that against your coming you be not altogether like an ignorant country fellow. First, you must know we have ladies of divers degrees of favour; some for the private chamber, some for the drawing chamber, some for the bed-chamber, and some for neither certain, and of this number is only my Lady Arabella and my wife. My Lady Bedford holdeth fast to the bed-chamber; my Lady Harford would fain, but her husband hath called her home. My Lady Derby the younger, the Lady Suffolk, Ritche, Nottingham, Susan, Walsingham, and, of late, the Lady Sothwell, for the drawing-chamber; all the rest for the private-chamber, when they are not shut out, for many times the doors are locked; but the plotting and malice amongst them is such, that I think envy hath tied an invisible snake about most of their necks to sting one another to death. For the present there are now five maids; Cary, Myddelmore, Woodhouse, Gargrave, Roper; the sixth is determined, but not come; God send them good fortune, for as yet they have no mother.'
- ↑ Madox, i. 262; Thomas, 24; Tout in E. H. R. xxiv. 496.
