But they were unable to persist long in the latter course, and the freedom, which they at first gained by the use of a privy seal for certain purposes, was soon lost, for this seal also passed into the custody of a member of the council, called the Lord Privy Seal. This office eventually attained great importance, since it became gradually established that the chancellor could not affix the great seal to any document, except under the authority of the privy seal, and therefore with the cognizance of the officer who had the custody of it. To this authority that of the royal signet was at one time added, in order to insure that the proceeding took place with the king's knowledge and under his sanction. For the sovereign was no longer an habitual attendant at the deliberations of the council. He had originally been always present at its meetings, and all its determinations had been in fact his own, arrived at with the assistance of his councillors. But from the close of the fourteenth century the ordinary debates of the council, when there was no special business of importance to be transacted, were carried on in his absence, and his consent to their decisions was given by means of the royal seals. The power of the council was, of course, considerably enhanced by this change; and under the Lancastrian kings it was further expressly extended by regulations passed in Parliament, and by a royal ordinance, which required that the consent of the council should be given to all grants made by royal writ or letter. Besides its judicial functions noticed in the preceding chapter, it had the direction of the finances, of trade both domestic and foreign, of the fortifications of the realm, of the preservation of the peace, and of the relations between the Church and the State, and generally regulated the administration of public affairs.

Privy Council. From the reign of Hen. 6 the

right of taking part in the deliberations of the Council, and of exercising its powers, was withdrawn from the whole body of persons composing the Ordinary Council, and became confined to the small number amongst them who attended regularly, and who acquired the name of the Privy Council, and absolute secrecy was enjoined upon these as to what passed at their council board. As late as Hen. 8's reign, we find ordinary councillors as distinguished from privy councillors, and though the distinction of name was subsequently abandoned, and all were in later times termed privy councillors, the real difference was, as we shall see, revived after the Restoration in another form; and at the present day the fact of being appointed a privy councillor confers no right on a person to take part in the proceedings of the council, or any of its committees, without a summons to do so.

Growing Power of Commoners.-Another important alteration in the balance of the executive power was at the same time in progress, being nothing less than the admission of commoners to a share-and eventually a preponderating share-in the exercise of it. Their only avenue to power had originally been through holy orders, by elevation to an ecclesiastical peerage. But the gradual introduction of lay commoners into the king's council has been already noticed (pp. 177, 8); and, though they naturally at first held a subordinate position in it, their power speedily increased, either through their own superior abilities, or through a preference on the part of the king to entrust authority to a man of humble extraction without influence or property, who would be entirely dependent on his favour, and towards whom he could have no cause for jealousy, rather than to a powerful and independent noble. Moreover the diminution in the numbers and power of the nobility during the wars of

the Roses no doubt contributed to this result. It is to be noticed that this growth of the commoners' influence in the executive was marked, not by their promotion to higher offices, but by the elevation in point of importance and authority of the offices which they originally filled. Thus the secretary (for there was at first only one officer of that name) was in old times merely the king's clerk, possessing no political influence unless he chanced to be one of the council. After a time two were appointed, and the dignity of the office increased. Beckington, secretary under Henry VI., was a diplomatist of considerable reputation. In the following reign many bills and warrants were made to pass through the secretary's hands. Dr Fox, one of Henry VII.'s secretaries, became Bishop of Exeter, and to his successor in the secretariate was entrusted the duty of signing a treaty with Portugal. In Hen. 8's reign the office was held by Cromwell, before he was advanced to be Lord Privy Seal; and the chief secretary became ex officio a member of the Privy Council, and ranked as a baron of the realm, taking precedence, if he was himself a baron or bishop, of the other peers of the same rank.

4. Ecclesiastical Supremacy.-The kings of England, with few exceptions, had, in every age, more or less successfully asserted the independence of this country and its Church as against the see of Rome. But the final acquisition by them of that control over English ecclesiastical affairs, for which the Papal Court had long struggled, took place at the Reformation. The assumption of ecclesiastical supremacy by Henry VIII. involved the recognition of the sovereign as head of the Church, not only in matters of legislation and judicature (see pp. 191, 214), but also in reference to the appointment of Church

officers, and the exercise of administrative functions by them. The nomination of the bishops and deans of the English Church has, since 1533, except during Mary's reign, rested exclusively with the sovereign; but, when once appointed, the sacred character of their office preserves them from being removed, like the holders of state offices, at the will of the sovereign. The ecclesiastical supremacy of the Crown was at one time delegated by Henry VIII. to Cromwell, whom he appointed his vicegerent to administer all matters connected with the church. The supremacy was entirely renounced by Mary, but was resumed by Elizabeth upon her accession. The Crown does not in general interfere in the administration of Church affairs; but the sovereign in council has the power, which is exercised on extraordinary occasions, of prescribing the observance of days of national fasting and thanksgiving, the use of special forms of prayer, and other matters of ecclesiastical detail; and the whole of the episcopal, cathedral, and other landed property of the Church is now vested in a body of ecclesiastical commissioners constituted in 1836, and consisting of the archbishops and bishops, and certain ministers of state and judges (provided they belong to the Church of England), as ex officio members, and other persons from time to time nominated by the Crown. These commissioners dispense the revenues of the property entrusted to them under the sanction and control of the queen in council.

Power of the Crown in Civil Matters.-In state affairs the Tudor and Stuart monarchs recovered and retained in their own hands much of that administrative and executive authority which the Council had wrested from their predecessors. The sovereign resumed his place at the meetings of the council, and James I. even assisted at the exercise of its judicial functions in its Court of

ENG. INST.

Star Chamber. The name of the council was still associated with that of the king in the government of the State; but, instead of this being carried on almost entirely by that body as a whole, the various branches of it were for the most part directed by the king himself through his ministers the members of the council holding offices of state—each of whom thenceforth was occupied with his own department, and interfered comparatively little with those of his colleagues. In Edw. 6's time the council was divided into five committees, to which separate functions were assigned; and Elizabeth carried on the government mainly through her secretaries, or Secretaries of State, as they were now called in reference to the increased importance of their office.

Control of Parliament.-The struggle between the first two Stuarts and the Parliament, which was for a long time mainly confined to the regions of legislation, judicature, and taxation, was ultimately extended to the domain of the executive, and the determination of Parliament to obtain the control of the militia was the immediate cause of the civil war. Previously to this, however, the power of the Crown to grant monopolies had been restrained (see p. 33), its right to billet soldiers on the people, and to inflict arbitrary imprisonment, had been repudiated, and Parliament had begun to exercise an indirect but effectual control over the general government of the country, by refusing or stinting the supplies so long as measures which it disapproved were persisted in. After the Restoration, the right of the Crown to have the command of the militia, and of the other naval and military forces, and the fortresses of the kingdom, was reaffirmed (see p. 37), and the executive power of the sovereign was in other respects reinstated. Parliament remained, as it had been before the commencement of the