The Tudor Privy Council (Classic Reprint) PDF Download

Author: Dorothy Meads Gladish
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781330916032
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Excerpt from The Tudor Privy Council During the minority of Henry III. there appeared for the first time a Council which included the great officers of state, a body with constitution and powers as yet ill-defined. In addition to such departmental duties as any of them might discharge, the members of this Council had the duty and responsibility of advising the King, of acting with him, and of being always in immediate attendance upon him. They formed a body distinct from the larger deliberative assembly, the Magnum Concilium, from the more frequently summoned assembly of magnates, and from the judicial and financial staff which transacted the business of the courts of the Chancery and the Exchequer. By the middle of the thirteenth century this body had assumed so definite a form that the mode of its selection formed an important feature in the Provisions of Oxford. From the reign of Henry III. it had, as an assembly, acquired a corporate character; its members were sworn as councillors of the Crown; in it general questions of policy were discussed, and prepared if necessary for the estates of the realm; finally it became the medium through which the King, himself irresponsible, performed acts of State: it was in short, as Anson calls it, the Continual Council. (1) The minority of Richard II. was the time when the powers of this Council were defined as being practically co-extensive with the Prerogative, but, with his reign, the Councils period of growth closed. Before Richard's accession the character of English institutions had become permanently fixed. The vagueness which marked the constitution of the Curia Regis had passed away; the law courts had become distinct bodies, and the Court of Chancery, though closely connected with the Council until a later period, was rapidly tending to become a separate Court of Equity. The Great Councils, though still frequently convoked, had surrendered their most important functions to Parliament, and the Council itself had become the same body which, in constitution and powers, it remained for at least a century. The Council's proceedings were probably first accurately recorded when its existence as a separate institution was for the first time distinctly recognised; the earliest extant records of its proceedings date from the reign of Richard II. From 1386 for a period of about seventy years it is possible to gain from these records precise information on many points, and it is clear from them that what the Council was under Richard II., such it was in all essential respects under Henry VI. Its influence varied greatly during the period 1386-1460 (at which time the records fail until 1540), but not its character. These minutes of the Council possess peculiar value because they exhibit that body under such diverse circumstances; it is shown as influenced by the tyranny and caprice of Richard; "by the crafty astuteness of Bolingbroke; by the vigour and success of the victor of Agincourt, and by the piety and imbecility of his son." (2) The members of the Council were appointed for a year, and usually re-appointed at its expiration; they were bound to attend meetings, and, if the value of money in the fifteenth century be taken into account, were highly paid for their services. (3) The Chancellor and Treasurer were accustomed to receive salaries for their attendance at the Council Board. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com