'The Queen hath promised him [Sir H. Unton] the Thresureship of the Chamber, and stands constant in it, and at his return to haue it. But if 900 [Burghley] and 200 [Cecil], that would 40 [Stanhope] had it, can hinder it, the other shall goe without it.'
It was not until 5 July that, according to an amused letter from Anthony Bacon, 'Elephas peperit' with the swearing in of Sir Robert Cecil as Secretary and John Stanhope as Treasurer of the Chamber, 'so that now the old man may say with the rich man in the gospel requiescat anima mea'.
Burghley himself notes the appointment without comment in his diary.[214] John Stanhope, who was knighted on his appointment and created Lord Stanhope of Harrington on 4 May 1605, did not get the Vice-Chamberlainship until 1601. He remained Treasurer until his death in 1617. There was some characteristic Stuart traffic in the reversion. Sir Thomas Overbury held it at his death in 1613. Lord Rochester then bought it from Stanhope for £2,000, and offered it to Sir Henry Neville, who declined to take it from a subject. Finally it passed to Sir William Uvedale, who in fact became Treasurer in succession to Stanhope.[215]
During Stanhope's tenure of office, some changes in the 'order of payment' took place. The account for 1607-8 recites a privy seal of 27 January 1608 as authority for the transfer from the Privy Purse to the Treasurer of the Chamber of certain payments made on warrants from the Lord Chamberlain. Similar payments thereafter form a regular section of the account from year to year. By a later privy seal of 11 October 1614, still extant, an additional sum of £1,500 a year is put at the disposal of the Treasurer to enable him to meet them.[216] His total assignment was thus increased to about £20,000 or rather more than half as much again as the office had cost under Elizabeth. That of the Privy Purse was now about £6,000.[217] We have seen that there had been possibilities of overlapping between the two accounts, but it is rather odd that amongst the items transferred should be specified allowances for plays, bear-baitings and other sports, since such allowances had regularly been paid by the Treasurer of the Chamber for something more than a century past. It is, however, the case that from 1614-15 onwards, the payments were made on warrants from the Lord Chamberlain instead of the Privy Council.
It is rather surprising that the Privy Council, whose members were carrying out duties roughly analogous to those of a modern Cabinet, should at any time have concerned itself with such trifling matters of domestic routine as the signature of certificates authorizing the payment of rewards at recognized rates to companies of actors and other entertainers. The explanation, however, is that the Privy Council, like the Household and the Departments of State themselves, was a direct representative of the Norman curia regis, and that the curia regis had been the organization through which the King's subjects and servants gave him assistance in all his affairs, small and great, domestic as well as political.[218] For all practical purposes, indeed, the Elizabethan Privy Council consisted of little more than the chief officers of the State departments and Household, sitting together, and acting collectively. The great territorial magnates, who at certain periods of its history had turned it into an instrument for the control rather than the exercise of the royal prerogative, 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[219]; 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.[220] 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.[221] It is probable that the Queen sometimes sat with the lords, although her attendance is never recorded in the register.[222] The usual president was the Lord Chancellor; the earlier Tudor post of President of the Council was rarely, if ever, filled up by Elizabeth.[223] But the general supervision of the clerks and the preparation of business for consideration, other than that which lay directly within the department of some particular officer, seems to have fallen to the Secretary. The number of councillors was gradually reduced from twenty-four at the beginning to thirteen at the end of the reign. Of these not more than half were generally present at any one sitting. But there appears to have been no fixed quorum; occasionally only two members or even one transacted business. At first three meetings a week sufficed; later they were often held daily, both by morning and afternoon, and even on Sundays. Wednesday and Friday were generally set aside for petitions and other private business, and the remaining days devoted to public affairs. Drafts of proclamations were passed by the Council before they received the royal sign manual, and thus became of the nature of Orders in Council.[224] Where a proclamation was not in question, the conclusions arrived at by the Council were embodied in a minute, and submitted through the Secretary for royal approval. When this had been obtained, any executive action was then taken in the form of warrants or letters to administrative officers, central or local, or to individuals, according to the nature of the business. These required the signature of not less than six councillors, who were not necessarily those present when the business was discussed. Before they were put forward for signature they were subscribed by the Secretary or one of the clerks. Warrants to the Treasurer of the Chamber or other paymasters were also impressed by the clerk with the special seal of the council. The minutes were ultimately placed in the council chest, which is unfortunately lost. But copies or abstracts of those which related to public affairs, or in some cases copies of the letters finally issued, were made by the clerks and from time to time bound up in volumes, of which a series, far from continuous, is preserved.[225] 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.[226]
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.[227] For Star Chamber purposes they associated with themselves judges, who ranked as 'ordinary' but not 'privy' councillors.[228] '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.[229] 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 will be the subject for discussion in a later chapter.[230] Similarly, the players, or those of them who were royal servants, came as such under the jurisdiction of the Court of Requests, and some interesting information as to their contracts and disputes is derived from the records of that tribunal.[231]