were now, unless they happened to hold official positions, rarely sworn amongst its members; but upon it, side by side with the Chancellor and the Treasurer, the Admiral and the Privy Seal, sat not only the Secretaries, but also the Steward and the Chamberlain, the Master of the Horse, the Treasurer and Comptroller of the Household, and often the Vice-Chamberlain or the Treasurer of the Chamber. It was therefore natural enough, to Tudor no less than to mediaeval ways of thinking, that among its numerous and imperfectly defined activities should be included some which give it the aspect of a Household board of control. It was in fact by means of a Household ordinance that Henry VIII regulated the composition of the Privy Council and directed the constant attendance of the members upon his own person[1]; and throughout Elizabeth's reign we find the Council in the closest possible association with the Court, following it from palace to palace, and even from stage to stage of the progress, so that the record of its meetings serves practically as a royal itinerary, and sitting under the most direct Household influences in some convenient apartment of the Privy Chamber. There was even no longer, as in the time of Henry VIII, a 'council at London' as well as a 'council with the King', with the exceptions that, if the Court was very far from head-quarters, a few of the lords sometimes stayed behind to look after current affairs, and that the council as a whole seems occasionally to have met at Westminster when the Court was not there, either in connexion with the sittings of the Star Chamber, or for special business in the lodgings of one or other of its members.[2] This tradition of propinquity between the Sovereign and his council was, however, broken through by James, who at an early date in his reign took to leaving the lords to transact business at court, while he went hither and thither on his endless hunting journeys.
In the absence of any contemporary ordinale for the Privy Council, some idea of its methods can be gathered from the register of transactions kept by its clerks and from other sources.[3] It is probable that the Queen sometimes sat with
- ↑ H. O. 159 (1526).
- ↑ Cheyney, i. 67, 106; Hornemann, 52; Dasent, passim. Certain regulations called Orders in Star Chamber (cf. App. D, No. cxx) appear to proceed from the Council sitting in the Star Chamber, but in an administrative, not a judicial, capacity.
- ↑ Cf. generally for this paragraph Cheyney, i. 65; Hornemann, 19, 49; E. R. Adair, The Privy Council Registers (E. H. R. xxx. 698); and prefaces to Dasent, passim.
