Edward VI in 1553, dissolved alike the Court of Surveyors and the analogous Court of Augmentations, created to deal with the revenues of surrendered religious houses in 1535, and established in place of these a combined Court of Augmentation and Revenues of the King's Crown, of which the Treasurer of the Chamber was to continue to act as Treasurer.[1] Hardly, however, had this readjustment received legislative sanction, when it was upset again. A patent of 1554, under the authority of an Act of Mary's first Parliament, suppressed the Court of Augmentation, by annexing its business to the Exchequer, and directed the revenues to be paid into the Exchequer and accounts to be audited there, as before the Court was set up.[2] Cavendish did not find the Treasurership a bed of roses. On Tuke's death it was anticipated that his successor would receive a legacy of official debts.[3] A book containing copies of 'certificates' or reports made by Cavendish to the Privy Council show that he soon had occasion to be perturbed.[4] About Lady Day 1546 he represented that his receipts had been dislocated to the extent of about £14,000, and that in view of his liabilities, which he detailed, there was urgent need to consider the state of the office. In another paper he called attention to the enormous number of securities for old debts to the Crown, some of them dating from the time of Henry VII, with which he found from Tuke's books that he was charged; and, as 'a yonge officer not long exercised in the same', prayed that these might be reviewed, and a decision arrived at as to how much of the total nominal amount of £322,980 covered by them stood for 'sperat' and how much for 'desperat' debts. The book also contains summaries of his liabilities during 1547, at the end of 1548, when he declared that he had debts of £14,000 and no ready money in the office, and finally at Lady Day 1554. This last item does not disclose how far his revenue had in the interval been made sufficient for his needs. It is possible that it had been made more than sufficient, for on 17 August 1556 the Privy Council called upon him to appear before them with 'Cade his clerc', and on 9 October 1557 they returned his book of account, stating that he owed £5,237 5s. 0-3/4d. and
- ↑ 7 Edw. VI, c. 2 (Statutes, iv. 1, 164).
- ↑ 1 Mary, Sess. 2, c. 10 (Statutes, iv. 1, 208); Thomas, 15.
- ↑ Wriothesley to Paget in Brewer, xx. 2. 338 (5 Nov. 1545). A later letter of 11 Nov. (Brewer, xx. 2. 365) refers to debts of the Surveyors' Court 'which is the Chamber'. In 1552 Charles Tuke was called on by the Privy Council to bring his father's accounts to the Lord Chamberlain for view and consideration (Dasent, iv. 164).
- ↑ Trevelyan Papers, ii. 1. The book is now in the R. O. It is in the statement of 1548 that Sir T. Wyatt's name has been inserted.
