An earlier chapter of this work has been devoted to the political institutions of Spain, France, and the Netherlands, and each had its share of influence on American history; but it is England from which the American nation really sprang, of which it was for more than a century and a half a dependency, and to whose traditions, institutions, and government we must look back for the origins of our own. The oldest political institution in England is the monarchy. Older than Parliament, older than the law-courts, older than the division of the country into shires, the monarchy dates back to the consolidation of the petty Anglo-Saxon states in the ninth century—and these were themselves kingdoms.
At no time in this long course of English history were the claims of the monarchy more exorbitant than under James I. and Charles I., from 1603 to 1642, just when the tide of immigration began to flow towards America, and when the governments of the colonies were being established. "What God hath joined, then, let no man separate. I am the husband and all the whole isle is my lawful wife. I am the head and it is my body. I am the shepherd and it is my flock. . . ." [Footnote: Prothero, Select Statutes, 283.] So King James wove metaphors, when he addressed Parliament at its opening in 1604. When disputes had arisen in 1610 he declared: "The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. … As to dispute what God may do is blasphemy, … so is it sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power." "Encroach not upon the prerogative of the crown; if there falls out a question that concerns my prerogative or mystery of state, deal not with it till you consult with the king or his council, or both, for they are transcendent matters." [Footnote: Ibid., 293, 294.]
This absolute prerogative of the king was attributed to him by others, as well as claimed by himself. Dr. Cowell, professor of civil law at Cambridge, declared that the king "is above the law by his absolute power"; [Footnote: Cowell, Interpreter, under word "king.">[ and Sir Walter Raleigh wrote that attempts to bind the king by law justified his breach of it, "his charters and other instruments being no other than the surviving witnesses of unconstrained will." [Footnote: Raleigh, Prerogative of Parliament, Preface.] But this definition of the prerogative of the king was an exaggerated description of his real position in the English system of government, and was either academic or argumentative. As properly used, absolute monarchy merely meant an all-powerful not an autocratic government; government was supreme, but the king was not necessarily supreme in the government. As government had been developed in England, in the course of time it had grown up around the monarchy as its centre and found in it its embodiment.
In Anglo-Saxon England government was crude and embryonic, but even then the king held a general oversight over the exercise of its few functions. In the later Middle Ages, when government was somewhat more highly developed, its more numerous functions, in so far as they were not performed by feudal lords or church officials, were fulfilled by the king. It was by the monarchy that the law-courts were formed and commissioned, that Parliament was summoned and given the opportunity for self-development, that the system of taxation and of military life was organized. The great advance in the organization and effectiveness of government which marked the reigns of the Tudor rulers consisted in the elaboration and increased activity of the administrative or royal element in the government.
The royal prerogative might, therefore, be conceived of as the function of keeping the machine of government running. The king was the director and controller of an aggregate of governmental powers. All officials were commissioned in his name, and those of higher rank were actually selected and appointed by him. All foreign intercourse was carried on in his name, and in the main directed by him; Parliament was called, prorogued, and adjourned at his will, and he kept at least a negative control over its actions. All justice, was exercised in his name, and his interests and known wishes sometimes influenced decisions. All charters, whether to cities, to guilds, to possessors of mercantile monopolies, or to commercial and colonizing companies, were issued under his name and seal, and the powers granted in them could not be in opposition to his will. [Footnote: Smith, The Commonwealth of England, book I., chap, ix., book II., chap. iv.]
The powers of the king were, therefore, very real, even if the philosophic contentions of James and other theorists be disregarded; but they were powers restricted in every direction by actual conditions, and exercised through ministers whose familiarity with precedent, whose control over the details of administration, whose dignified offices, and whose personal weight of judgment and character made them, though nominally servants of the king, a real power in the government.
Much of the royal power was exercised through the three great law- courts, King's Bench, Exchequer, and Common Pleas; through the courts of equity, held by the chancellor, the master of the rolls, and the master of requests; through the half-administrative, half-judicial bodies, the council of the north and the council of the marches of Wales, and through the circuit courts of assize. Much was exercised through higher and lower administrative officers, through the Exchequer, and through lower offices such as the wardrobe and the admiralty.
But the real centre of gravity of the executive powers of the government at this time is to be found in the Council or Privy Council, two terms which are used indiscriminately. [Footnote: Dicey, The Privy Council, 80] This body was made up of seventeen or eighteen members, including all the great ministers of state, the lord chancellor, or, as he was sometimes called, lord keeper of the great seal, the high treasurer, the two secretaries, the great master and the comptroller of the household, the chamberlain and the great admiral, besides a certain number chosen as members of the Privy Council without otherwise occupying office. [Footnote: Acts of the Privy Council, 1594-1597] There were usually from six to ten members of the council present, the membership of some of the ministers being somewhat perfunctory.
As a body, however, its services were as far from perfunctory as can well be conceived. Its sessions were held almost daily and its sphere of activity was apparently coextensive with the life of England and of all its dependencies. Scarcely an interest, public or private, escapes its attention, whether it is the organization of a campaign in France or the settlement of a family quarrel between father and son; [Footnote: Acts of the Privy Council, 1591-1592, pp 160, 193, 256-258, 292, 327, 414, 476, etc.] whether it is "Sir John Norreis, knight, and Thomas Diggs, esquire," or a Lord Morley, or the chief baron of the Court of Exchequer, Lord Manwood, or some merchants or poor artisans or an "Elice Gailer, of Berton, yeoman," that appear before the council at its summons; whether it is engaged in formulating rules for articles contraband of war, or trying to put an end to illicit coinage on the borders of Wales; whether engaged in one or other of a hundred different interests, the council is always active, intrusive, and high- handed. [Footnote: Ibid, 231, 305, 314, 378, 449, 572.] It regulated manufactures and trade, protected foreigners, disciplined recusants, kept the oversight of customs and other officials, settled disputes between colleges and their tenants, bishops, deans, and government officers, instructed sheriffs and justices of the peace as to their duty, made provision for the keeping up of military and naval forces, and performed other duties so numerous and varied as to defy enumeration or classification.
A special duty of the Privy Council was to keep up correspondence with the officials of outlying districts under the dominion of the crown and not within the systematic administration of sheriffs, assize courts, justices of the peace, or other regular governance. These regions included the marches of Wales and of Scotland, certain counties of England, Ireland, and the Channel Islands, the last two of these having been placed under the direct supervision of the Privy Council by statute. [Footnote: Poynings's Act (1495), Dicey, The Privy Council, 90.] As colonies grew up they fell, naturally, under the special care of the Privy Council. The duty of hearing appeals from colonial courts became and is still a duty of the council; to the Privy Council were referred colonial laws for approval or veto; and the successive bodies formed for the oversight of the colonies, culminating in the Board of Trade and Plantations of 1696, were either committees of the Privy Council or boards acting under its control and reporting to it.