Having thus recounted his rights and privileges, Sir Gilbert Talbot in a long petition to King Charles II pointed out how these had been encroached upon through, he avers, the machinations of Hyde, the Lord Chancellor. The first great grievance was that his “14 double dishes” per diem, which we have seen carried in their wake as much bread, beer, and wine as seemed good to the Keeper, were discontinued, and in place thereof he was given a meagre £120 per annum as board wages. This was indeed an economy for the Treasury, for the scale of board wages had formerly been fixed at 35s. per diem on such occasions as the fourteen double dishes, etc., could not on the line of march, for instance, be supplied. 35s. a day came to a matter of £641 per annum, so that the Keeper stood to lose each year on the deal. Naturally this raised his wrath.
In connection with the next item of complaint, Sir Gilbert Talbot did somewhat better. His right of old was £300 out of the money presented to the King by the nobles in accordance with their patents at the New Year. The total sum thus presented was, we have seen, about £3000, so that the Keeper’s percentage was liberal enough; but in addition, though the Keeper received the £3000 on behalf of the King in gold, he was allowed to disburse it to those to whom it was distributed in silver, whereby he calculated to make another shilling in the pound profit, making a total of £450. King Charles, evidently bored with details, and the persistence of Sir Gilbert, compounded for £400 yearly, and that sum became the Keeper’s fixed perquisite under this head.
Then came a very knotty point. Formerly, apparently, the Keeper of the Jewel House received the equivalent of £300 per annum for “carrying presents” to the foreign ambassadors. These presents consisted of plate, and the Keeper not only carried them, but made his percentage out of the goldsmiths on their value, as well as receiving such gratuities or favours as the ambassadors might give him in return compliment. But the Duke of Buckingham having prevailed upon Charles I to make these presents in the form of jewels instead of plate, and the Keeper of the day, who was Sir Henry Mildmay, having incautiously remarked that he knew nothing about the purchase of jewels, this useful addition to his income was taken from him and given to the Lord Chamberlain, who possibly knew no more about jewels, but gladly added this item to his income.
The Keeper of the Jewel House was entitled to twenty-eight ounces of silver-gilt plate every New Year’s Day as part of his emoluments. This he took either in kind or cash, as seemed good to him. Nobody seems to have interfered with this item, but the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Manchester, is in Sir Gilbert Talbot’s bad books over a cognate matter. Apparently certain nobles had yearly, probably as a sort of tribute for their patents, to make small presents of gold to the King on New Year’s Day. These can have consisted of little more than a few coins, for the total amount only came to £30 or £40. Each offering of gold was contained in a purse, and both the gold and the purses were handed on to the Keeper as his perquisite. Lord Manchester claimed these purses, but not the gold, as his own, as did his successor the Earl of St. Albans. But the Keeper complained to the King, and contested this claim: so the King, who was for a pleasant life and as few worries as possible, decided that the purses by ancient right belonged to the Keeper, but that if he was a wise knight he would give five or six of them yearly to the Lord Chamberlain as a peace offering. This accordingly he did, and all parties appear to have been contented.
Anciently the Keeper of the Jewel House was also Treasurer of the Chamber, his title then being Master and Treasurer of the Jewel House. But on the Restoration, with so many faithful but needy Royalists to be provided for, the office was divided, and the Keeper felt this deeply; for apparently the Treasury portion was the richer, indeed it became five times more valuable as a source of income than the Jewel House.
The choice and appointment of his subordinates was, and is, the right of the Keeper of the Jewel House, and the reason for this was somewhat curiously demonstrated. Apparently on one occasion a vacancy having occurred, a certain Sergeant Painter went direct to the King and asked him for the post. Charles II, with his usual good nature, at once consented. Painter armed with this authority came to the Keeper and demanded the appointment. But Sir Gilbert Talbot refused to accept him, and said he would take the King’s orders himself. Going to the King, Sir Gilbert asked whether His Majesty had appointed Sergeant Painter to the vacancy in the Jewel House. The King said he had done so. Sir Gilbert pointed out that by right all such appointments were made by the Keeper, so that he might be sure of the honesty and loyalty of those under him who were guarding the Jewels and plate. “Well,” said the King, “for this time let it pass, and I will invade your right no more.” Sir Gilbert then asked if the King would be security for all the Jewels and plate entrusted to Painter. To which the King replied, “No, indeed will I not; and if that be requisite I recommend him not.” Having made this remonstrance to draw attention to his rights, the Keeper withdrew his objections, and calling up Sergeant Painter appointed him to the post.
One of the handsomest perquisites of the Keeper was the appointing of the Goldsmiths and Jewellers to the King and Queen. These appointments were worth £800 each to him, that being the sum paid him for this privilege by the firms appointed. During the confusion of the Restoration the Keeper nearly lost this valuable addition to his income, for a Groom of the Chambers, named Coronell (Colonel?) Blage, annexed the right and offered the appointment to Alderman Backwell for £800. The Alderman, however, hearing that the right of appointment had heretofore belonged to the Keeper of the Jewel House, drew back and informed the Keeper. That officer at once intervened with such emphasis that “Mr. Blage deserted his pretensions,” and the £800 went to its lawful assignee. The Keeper no longer appoints the Court Jewellers, and nobody gets the £800 for doing so.
The Court Jewellers and Goldsmiths, according to ancient custom, made to the Keeper a present of £20 in gold when he signed their annual bills. This was in the bad old days doubtless a bribe, so that the bill might not be too closely scrutinised. We may also be well assured that the £20 did not come out of the Jeweller’s pocket, but was fully covered by adding a little here and there to each item in the bill. It is refreshing to learn that as early as the seventeenth century, some Keepers recognising the questionable nature of this £20 present, refused absolutely to take it, and checked the bills honestly. Needless to say that at the present day the Keeper is put into no such invidious position; in fact he never sees a bill, all these being discharged by the Lord Chamberlain, who, it is hardly necessary to mention, does not receive a £20 honorarium from Messrs. Gerrard, the Court Jewellers, for doing so.
In the days when the Keeper of the Regalia followed the King wherever he went, rooms were reserved for him, his officers, and his servants, in all the King’s palaces. Then breezes, as might now, arose amongst the various Court officials as to the apportioning of the available accommodation. Thus we find the Keeper recording that, in 1660, the lodgings provided for him at the Palace in Whitehall were rude, dark, and intermixed with those of the Queen’s Household. The dining-room was “a kind of wild barn, without any covering beside rafters and tiles. The Keeper’s lodgings were two ill chambers, above stairs, and the passage to them dark at noon-day.”
Perhaps naturally under these mixed conditions, and tempers being shortened by the rain pouring through the tiles during dinner, the relations between the Keeper, who was a member of the King’s Household, and the members of the Queen’s Household, became colder and colder, till at length each flew to their titular heads. The Queen’s Household no doubt had excellent grounds of complaint, as had also doubtless the Keeper, and thus both were even. But the Keeper, being an astute person, played a final tramp card; he said he could not be responsible for the King’s plate and treasure with so many people in and out who were not under his orders. It was really not safe, he said; it was absolutely essential that he should have the whole set of lodgings to himself. So out went the Queen’s Household, and the Keeper and all his officers were installed in a compact and unassailable mass.