keep the king's counsel secret, and to assist in the execution of what should be resolved on, and were paid salaries of considerable amount. About the time of Hen, 6 a distinct line of demarcation was drawn between the sworn and paid counsellors and the occasional members of the council, the former being constituted into the Privy Council, and monopolising all the administrative and executive duties.

4. The Council under the Tudors and Stuarts. -The distinction between privy councillors and ordinary councillors is met with in Hen. 8's reign, and it is one which, in fact, exists to the present day; for although all persons appointed to the council are sworn and considered as privy councillors, they do not attend the council board unless specially summoned. The ordinary councillors of Hen. 8's time and subsequent reigns were qualified to take part in the judicial business of the council in its court of Star Chamber, but not in its administrative functions. In Hen. 8's reign increased importance was given to the office of president of the council, and an Act was passed to fix the order of precedence in Parliament, and in the council, of the person who held this position, and of the other principal officers of state (31 Hen. 8, c. 10). In Edw. 6's reign the council consisted of 40 persons, of whom 22 were commoners, and was divided into five commissions or committees, to which different judicial and administrative functions were assigned. Under this arrangement the committee "for the state," composed of one-half of the whole number, was in fact the Privy Council, while those who were not upon it were in the position of ordinary councillors. The numerical proportion and influence of commoners in the council was maintained by Elizabeth, but declined in favour of the

nobility in the reigns of the first two Stuarts. After the Restoration, when the Star Chamber, and with it the judicial functions of the Privy Council, had been abolished, the reason for the existence of ordinary as distinct from privy councillors no longer existed. From that time, therefore, all the councillors were sworn as privy councillors; but, while Charles II. largely increased their number, he introduced the practice of summoning only a limited number of them to deliberate on state affairs. Thus was originated the Cabinet, of which more will be said in ch. ix.

5. The Council since the Revolution.-Although, since the Revolution, the whole administrative functions of the council have been monopolised by the Cabinet, the council has continued to exist as the legally recognised body to which those functions are entrusted, and of which the Cabinet is, in the eye of the law, merely a committee, like the committee "for the state" of Edw. 6's reign. Thus it was against a foreigner, even though naturalised, becoming a privy councillor, and not merely against his being a member of the Cabinet, that a clause of the Act of Settlement of 1700 was directed; it was a privy councillor, an assault upon whom when in discharge of his duties was made felony, without benefit of clergy, in Queen Anne's reign; and it was the whole Privy Council, and not the Cabinet only, which, by a statute of the same reign, was empowered to continue and act for six months after a demise of the sovereign, having previously been ipso facto dissolved upon that event.

6. Committees of the Council.-The Cabinet, as at present constituted, usually consists of the 15 leading members of the ministry for the time being. There are,

besides, other committees of the Privy Council for dealing with special subjects. After the suppression, in 1782, of the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, the supervision of mercantile and colonial affairs, formerly entrusted to them, was transferred to a committee of the council called the Board of Trade. In 1833, when appellate judicial powers of large extent were restored to the council, it was provided that they should be exercised by a committee called the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. And, early in Queen Victoria's reign, when the practice had been commenced of making annual parliamentary grants for educational purposes, a "Committee of Council on Education" was appointed by the Crown to superintend the distribution of the money voted. A few years afterwards, the Poor Law Commissioners, appointed in the preceding reign, were superseded by the Poor Law Board, of which four cabinet ministers were to be ex-officio members. This Board, however, was not obliged to be exclusively composed of privy councillors; but in 1871 it was in turn abolished, and its functions, as well as the powers previously vested in the Privy Council at large, the Board of Trade, and the Home Secretary, in reference to public health and other matters, were transferred to a new committee of the council, consisting of cabinet ministers, and styled "The Local Government Board." All privy councillors, whether at the time serving on any of its committees and boards or not, are distinguished by the title of "Right Honourable." The fact that they enjoy this title in common with the peers, the members of the Upper House, which, as has been stated, is the present representative of the old Great Council, is a vestige of the close connection which formerly existed between that body and the king's smaller council.

PART III.

Central Government.

CHAPTER VII.

LEGISLATION.

But

1. Pre-Norman Legislation.-In the English constitution the king has ever theoretically been vested with the supreme legislative as well as executive powers. in the exercise of his legislative functions a certain number of his subjects have been almost always, at least nominally, associated with him. In the early times the king frequently, perhaps in the majority of cases, took the initiative in legislation; but all the laws were expressed as made with the counsel and consent of the witan. Elfred, for instance, in the preface to his code, states that he had introduced into it many former laws which appeared to him good, while those old laws which he disapproved he had rejected by the counsel of his witan ; and that, having made his compilation, he had shown it to all his witan, who had expressed their approval of it. The above remarks apply to ecclesiastical and civil legislation alike; for the king, with the advice of the lay and spiritual members of the Witenagemot, made laws upon religious no less than upon secular subjects.

2. Early Norman Legislation.-During the reigns of the Conqueror and his sons the laws were put forth in the form of charters granted or promulgated by the king, which, however, always contained an expression to the effect that they were made with the counsel and consent of the nobles. The same was the case with the assizes or constitutions, as they were called, of Hen. 2's reign. Magna Carta was granted by the counsel of the archbishops, bishops, and nobles, and other faithful subjects; and we know that as regards this instrument such was the actual fact: but probably in many of the enactments of John's predecessors the expression of consent was no more than a form, or if the consent of the nobles was actually asked for, it was granted as a matter of course, without any option on their part to withhold it. And in many cases the utmost that the words can be taken as implying is, that the decree received the assent of the Concilium Ordinarium; for whilst the meetings of the Great Council were infrequent, the former body no doubt possessed considerable legislative as well as executive power. This is evident from the fact that in Edw. 1's reign, when Parliaments, which had taken the place of Great Councils, began to meet regularly, and enact statutes in due form, there were issued, distinct from these parliamentary statutes, articles and ordinances expressed as made by the king and his council. There are a few laws in our statute book in which the mention even of the council is omitted, and which therefore ostensibly rest on the authority of the king alone.

Early Parliamentary Legislation.

The admission.

into Parliament of all three estates of the realm1 did not at once lead to the distribution of the legislative power among all. The main object of the presence of the clergy 1 See note 1, p. 138.