continuous, is preserved.[1] Even at their fullest, however, these 'Acts of the Council' cannot be supposed to form a complete record of its proceedings. Council letters are to be found in many local archives of which no note exists in the register. There were four or five Clerks of the Council who took duty, two at a time, according to a monthly rota, and it is clear that some of them were more business-like than others. But it is also probable that much business of a confidential character was deliberately left without record. In addition to the clerks, there was a Keeper of the Council Chamber door, probably one of the Ushers of the Chamber, and the Messengers of the Chamber were available to carry such letters as could not conveniently be entrusted to the regular staff of the Master of Posts.[2]
The ordinary sittings of the Privy Council were of course held in private, and each member took a special oath of secrecy upon appointment. But on each Wednesday and Friday during term time they resolved themselves into the Court of Star Chamber, and held a public sitting to inquire into cases of riot, libel, disregard of proclamations, and the like. Herein they were exercising the old power of the curia regis to duplicate the functions of the law courts.[3] For Star Chamber purposes they associated with themselves judges, who ranked as 'ordinary' but not 'privy' councillors.[4] 'Ordinary' councillors also were the Queen's 'counsel learned in the law', who included the Attorney- and Solicitor-Generals and the Queen's Serjeants, and the Masters of Requests who, by another exercise of curial jurisdiction, sat in the old 'white hall' at Westminster to deal, under the general direction of the Privy Council, with civil cases arising out of the suits of poor men or of royal servants.[5] The political functions of the Privy Council lie beyond the scope of this study, but their concern with all matters affecting breach of the peace, sedition, heresy, and public health entailed, under more than one of these heads, a general supervision of the stage, which
- ↑ Cf. App. D, Bibl. Note.
- ↑ Robert Laneham was Keeper and describes his functions (Laneham, 59): 'Noow, syr, if the Councell sit, I am at hand, wait at an inch, I warrant yoo. If any make babling, "peas!" (say I) "woot ye whear ye ar?" if I take a lystenar, or a priar in at the chinks or at the lokhole, I am by & by in the bones of him; but now they keep good order; they kno me well inough: If a be a freend, or such one az I lyke, I make him sit dooun by me on a foorm, or a cheast: let the rest walk, a God's name!'
- ↑ Baldwin, 439; Cheyney, i. 81; Dicey, 68, 94.
- ↑ Baldwin, 450; Percy, 17.
- ↑ Cheyney, i. 109; Percy, 48.
