Chapter V: Book I: The Court (2)

[Footnote 19: S. Pegge, _Curialia_ (1806); R. Needham and A. Webster, _Somerset House, Past and Present_ (1905). Elizabeth was there in 1558, 1562, 1571, 1573, 1582, 1583, 1585, 1587, 1588, 1589, 1590, 1593, 1594, and 1599. She gave lodgings there to Somerset's son, the Earl of Hertford, and amongst other guests were the Duke of Holstein (1560), Cornelius de la Noye, an alchemist (1567), the Duke of Montmorency (1572), and the Duke of Mayenne (1600). Conferences were held there with Alençon's commissioners in 1581. In 1574 (_Berkeley MSS._ 223) the keepership was given to Henry Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain, who took up his residence there, and after his death to Lady Hunsdon. In early documents of the reign, the name Strand House (_P. C. Acts_, Jan. 1563; _Procl._ 496) or Strand Place (_Procl._ 497) occurs; in the patent of Hunsdon's predecessor John West in 1559 (_Berkeley MSS._ 218) it is 'Somersett Place _al._ Strande House _al._ Somersett House'.]

[Footnote 20: M. A. S. Hume, _A Palace in the Strand_ in _The Year after the Armada_ (1896), 263; Nichols, _James_, i. 75; Clapham and Godfrey, 151; T. N. Brushfield, _The History of Durham House, London_, in _Trans. of Devon. Assoc._ xxxv. 539. Elizabeth was there in 1565 or 1566. Lodgings were assigned to Alvaro de la Quadra, the Spanish ambassador (1559-63), Cecilia of Sweden, Margravine of Baden (1565), Walter, Earl of Essex (1572), Sir Walter Raleigh (1584-1603), Sir Edward Darcy (_c._ 1600-3). In 1603 James turned Raleigh and Darcy out and restored the freehold to Toby Mathew, Bishop of Durham, who retained the river front, and leased the Gatehouse on the Strand. The lease passed to Lord Salisbury, who built there the New Exchange or Britain's Burse in 1609.]

[Footnote 21: L. Hendriks, _The London Charterhouse_ (1889); W. F. Taylor, _The Charterhouse of London_ (1912). The Charterhouse, after temporary use as a storehouse for the Tents (cf. _Tudor Revels_, 13), was granted to Sir Edward North, afterwards Lord North of Kirtling, in 1545 and the grant was confirmed by Mary in 1554. Elizabeth visited him there in Nov. 1558 and July 1561. After his death in 1564 the second lord kept a house in Charterhouse Square, which passed to the Earls of Rutland and as Rutland House became the scene of Davenant's _First Day's Entertainment_ in 1656. The main building was bought in 1565 by Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and called Howard Place. Elizabeth visited him there in 1568. On his attainder in 1572, she lodged the Portuguese ambassador in the house, but afterwards granted it to Norfolk's son Thomas, Lord Howard of Walden, whom she visited there in Jan. 1603. In 1611 Thomas Sutton bought the Charterhouse from Howard for a hospital. On the Blackfriars and Whitefriars, cf. ch. xvii.]

[Footnote 22: Clapham and Godfrey, 165; cf. ch. iii.]

[Footnote 23: E. Sheppard, _Memorials of St. James's Palace_ (1894). Elizabeth was there in 1561, 1564, 1566, 1571, 1572, 1575, 1576, 1581, 1583, 1584, 1588, and 1593.]

[Footnote 24: _V. H. Surrey_, iii. 478. Elizabeth was there in 1560, 1562, 1564, 1567, 1569, 1570, 1574, 1577, 1580, 1582, 1583, 1584, 1585, 1587, 1589, 1590, 1591, 1593, 1600, and 1602.]

[Footnote 25: _V. H. Surrey_, iii. 266; _Gent. Mag._ viii. (1837) 139; Clapham and Godfrey, 3. Elizabeth was there in 1559, 1563, 1565, 1567, 1574, 1580-5 (yearly), 1587, 1589, 1591, 1592, 1593, 1594, 1595, 1596, 1598, 1599, 1600. The house was begun by Henry VIII and finished by Lord Lumley, son-in-law of the Earl of Arundel, to whom the property was alienated in 1556. Elizabeth bought the house about 1590-2. 'Nonsuch, which of all other places she likes best,' wrote Rowland White in 1599 (_Sydney Papers_, ii. 120).]

[Footnote 26: For Eltham (visits in 1559, 1560, 1576, 1581, 1596, 1597, 1598, 1599, 1601, 1602), once an important palace, cf. J. C. Buckler, _Account of Eltham_ (1828), Chapman, 1, Clapham and Godfrey, 47; for Havering (visits in 1561, 1568, 1572, 1576, 1578, 1579, 1591, 1597), Nichols, _Eliz._ iii. 70, Clapham and Godfrey, 145; for Hatfield (visits in 1558, 1566, 1568, 1571, 1572, 1575, 1576), _V. H. Herts._ iii. 92; for Reading (visits in 1568, 1570, 1572, 1574, 1576, 1592, 1601), J. B. Hurry, _Reading Abbey_ (1901), T. J. Pettigrew in _Journal of Brit. Arch. Ass._ xvi. 192; for Woodstock (visits in 1566, 1572, 1574, 1575, 1592), E. Marshall, _Early Hist. of Woodstock Manor_ (1873), and ch. xxiii, s.v. Lee. Elizabeth was at Enfield in 1561, 1564, 1568, 1572, 1587, 1591, 1594, 1597, and at Winchester in 1560, 1574, 1591.]

[Footnote 27: Schedules of royal houses and other possessions to which places of profit were attached form part of the Fee Lists described in the _Bibl. Note_ to ch. ii. That of 1598 (_H. O._ 262) includes 37 castles under constables, keepers, or porters, 17 other houses, 11 forests, and 8 parks, together with the Fleet prison under a warden keeper, the Baths (at Bath) under a keeper, the Haven of the Duchy of Cornwall under a havenor, the Honour of Tutbury under a steward, and Paris Garden under the keepers of Bears and Mastiffs (cf. ch. xvi, s.v. Hope); in all 78.]

[Footnote 28: Occasionally it was still used as a guesthouse. The Constable of Castile was lodged here in 1604, the Danish ambassador in 1605, Christian of Denmark in 1606 and 1614. Fuller, _Church History_, vii. 46, says that the name Denmark House was adopted by proclamation in honour of King Christian, but I can find no such proclamation. Arthur Wilson (_Compleat Hist._ ii. 685) dates the change _c._ 1610, and says that the new name 'continued her time among her people; but it was afterwards left out of the common calendar, like the dead Emperor's new-named month'. On the other hand I find Cecil dating from 'Queens Court' on 6 March 1605 (_S. P. D._ xiii. 15), Chamberlain writing in Feb. 1614 of the performance of Daniel's _Hymen's Triumph_ that it was in a 'little square paved court' at 'Somerset House or Queens Court, as it must now be called' (W. W. Greg in _M. L. Q._ vi. 59, from _Addl. MS._ 4173, ff. 368, 371), and plays acted by Anne's men 'at Queenes Court' in 1615 (cf. App. B). The reason suggested in the text for the second attempt to change the name seems to me a plausible conjecture. Perhaps 'Denmark House' was tried at Christian's second visit in 1614. In any case, neither novelty permanently established itself. The first use of 'Denmark House' I have noticed is in 1615; that of 'Somerset House' was resumed under Charles I.]

[Footnote 29: Lodge, iii. 62; Birch, i. 279; Devon, 63, 176; _V. P._ x. 87; xiii. 81; _S. P. D., Jac. I_, xxvii. 31; lxv. 79, 80; _V. H. Surrey_, iii. 478; _V. H. Herts._ iii. 447; Goodman, i. 174; J. E. Cussans, _Hist. of Herts._, pts. ix, x. 209; Nichols, _James_ ii. 127. Theobalds, in Cheshunt, had been often visited by Elizabeth; cf. App. A. James had already been there yearly in 1603-1606, and found it convenient for Waltham Forest.]

[Footnote 30: Green, 7; _V. P._ x. 71.]

[Footnote 31: Green, 8, 17; _V. P._ xii. 194; Pory to Sir Thomas Puckering (3 Jan. 1633) in _Court and Time of Charles I_, ii. 213: 'In case the Queen [of Bohemia] do come for England, I hear that her lodging appointed in court is the Cockpit, at Whitehall, where she lay when she was a maid.' On the Cockpit, cf. ch. vii.]

[Footnote 32: Birch, _Life of Henry_, 330; Cunningham, viii; _V. P._ xii. 194, 207; Devon 153, 164, 179; _S. P. D., Jac. I_, viii. 104; Marshall, _Woodstock_, 174.]

[Footnote 33: Devon, 37, 80; _V. P._ xiii. 81; Birch, i. 41.]

[Footnote 34: James was at Richmond in 1605, 1606, 1607, and 1611, at Oatlands in 1604, 1606, 1607, 1608, 1610, 1611, 1613, and 1615, and at Woodstock in 1603, 1604, 1605, 1610, 1612, and 1614. Some of his hunting trophies are still preserved at Ditchley Park; cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Lee. Theobalds, like Royston, he visited several times a year. Evidently it was more his than Anne's. In 1607 and 1615 his departure from London is spoken of as going 'home' (Birch, i. 68, 298).]

[Footnote 35: _V. H. Herts._ iii. 253.]

[Footnote 36: _Abstract_, 52.]

[Footnote 37: T. F. Ordish in _L. T. R._ viii. 6. The road crossed Holborn at Kingsgate.]

[Footnote 38: Law, _Hampton Court_, i. 1.]

[Footnote 39: At the wedding of Princess Elizabeth in 1613 (Rimbault, 163) James went 'from his Privie Chamber, throughe the presence and garde chamber, and throughe a new bankettinge house erected of purpose for to solemnenize this feast in, and so doune a paire of stayers at the upper end therof hard by the Courte gate, wente alonge uppon a stately scaffold to the great chamber stayers, and throughe the greate chamber and lobby to the clossett, doune the staiers to the Chappell'; cf. Pegge, i. 68. Traces of the Great Chamber at Whitehall possibly still exist, over the building known as Cardinal Wolsey's cellar (_L. T. R._ vii. 40).]

[Footnote 40: Davison to Leicester (1586, _Hardwicke Papers_, i. 302): 'I found her majesty alone, retired into her withdrawing chamber'; Lord Talbot to Anon. (1587, _Rutland MSS._ i. 213): 'She had my wife called in to the withdrawing chamber, where no one but the Queen, my Lord, and Secretary Walsingham were'; Sussex to Burghley (1573, 2 Ellis, iii. 27): 'The Queen sate in the grete Closette or Parler [at Greenwich]'; R. Cecil to Essex (1596, Devereux, i. 347), reporting that Sir A. Shirley was 'used with great favour, both in the privy and drawing chambers'. The 'Withdrawing Chamber' of Law's Hampton Court plan appears to be the Privy Chamber. They were certainly distinct at Richmond in 1600, for Vereiken was taken through the Privy Chamber for an audience in the Withdrawing Chamber (_Sydney Papers_, ii. 170).]

[Footnote 41: Cf. ch. iv.]

[Footnote 42: _H. O._ 154 (1526); _Procl._ 962 (1603).]

[Footnote 43: Pegge, i. 68.]

[Footnote 44: _V. P._ vii. 91 (1559, Montmorency); ix. 531 (1603, Scaramelli).]

[Footnote 45: Cf. App. F. Von Wedel (_2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans._ ix. 250) describes the ceremony at Hampton Court in 1584.]

[Footnote 46: _V. P._ x. 46, 121; xi. 430; xii. 273, 547; Gawdy, 132; Birch, i. 69; Sully, _Mémoires_, 469. Von Wedel, however, saw Elizabeth dine in state at Greenwich in 1584 (loc. cit., 262).]

[Footnote 47: Cf. ch. vii.]

[Footnote 48: The position of the Hall at Whitehall can be fairly well identified as extending across Horse Guards Avenue; cf. _L. T. R._ vii. 41.]

[Footnote 49: _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 189; Reyher, 336.]

[Footnote 50: _Tudor Revels_, 17; _Hatfield MSS._ i. 92, from which it appears that there was one house only, with a kitchen, and also stands in Hyde and Marylebone Parks.]

[Footnote 51: _V. P._ vii. 91; Holinshed, iii. 1510; Machyn, 203: 'The x day of July was set up in Greenwich park a goodly banketting-house made with fir powlles, and deckyd with byrche and all manner of flowers of the feld and gardennes, as roses, gelevors, lavender, marygolds, and all maner of strowhyng erbes and flowrs'; Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 81: 'Robert Trunckewell ... woorking ... vppon toe modells of the Masters device for a rowfe and a cobboorde of a bancketinge howse', 97, 106.]

[Footnote 52: Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 163: 'The Banketting House made at Whitehall for thentertaynement of the seide duke did drawe the charges ensving for the covering therof with canvasse: the decking therof with birche & ivie: and the ffretting, and garnishing therof, with fflowers, and compartementes, with pendentes & armes paynted & gilded for the purpose. The ffloore therof being all strewed with rose leaves pickt & sweetned with sweete waters &c.' The details include £9 14_s._ 4_d._ 'for flowers broughte into the Cockpitt at White hall with other necessaries, viz. fflowers of all sortes taken vp by comyssion & gathered in the feeldes', while William Hunnis, who was keeper of the gardens at Greenwich, as well as Master of the Chapel, provided 79 bushels of roses, with pinks, honeysuckles, and privet flowers.]

[Footnote 53: Holinshed, iii. 1315, from _Harleian MS._ 293, f. 217: 'A banketting house was begun at Westminster, on the south west side of hir maiesties palace of White hall, made in maner and forme of a long square, three hundred thirtie and two foot in measure about; thirtie principals made of great masts, being fortie foot in length a peece, standing vpright; betweene euerie one of these masts ten foot asunder and more. The walles of this house were closed with canuas, and painted all the outsides of the same most artificiallie with a worke called rustike, much like to stone. This house had two hundred ninetie and two lights of glasse. The sides within the same house was made with ten heights of degrees for people to stand upon: and in the top of this house was wrought most cunninglie upon canuas, works of iuie and hollie, with pendents made of wicker rods, and garnished with baie, rue, and all maner of strange flowers garnished with spangles of gold, as also beautified with hanging toseans made of hollie and iuie, with all maner of strange fruits, as pomegranats, orenges, pompions, cucumbers, grapes, carrets, with such other like, spangled with gold, and most richlie hanged. Betwixt these works of baies and iuie, were great spaces of canuas, which was most cunninglie painted, the clouds with starres, the sunne and sunne beames, with diuerse other cotes of sundrie sortes belonging to the queenes maiestie, most richlie garnished with gold. There were of all manner of persons working on this house, to the number of three hundred seuentie and fiue: two men had mischances, the one brake his leg, and so did the other. This house was made in three weekes and three daies, and was ended the eighteenth daie of Aprill; and cost one thousand seuen hundred fortie and foure pounds, nineteene shillings and od monie; as I was crediblie informed by the worshipfull maister Thomas Graue surueior vnto hir maiesties workes, who serued and gaue order for the same, as appeareth by record.' Stowe, _Annales_, 688, copies Holinshed; cf. _Sp. P._ iii. 91. Von Wedel (_2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans._ ix. 236) saw the house in 1584, and was told that birds sang in the bushes overhead, while entertainments were in progress. A Record Office was constructed below the banqueting house in 1597 (_Hatfield MSS._ vii. 431).]

[Footnote 54: Camden, _Annalium Apparatus_, 6 (c. 12 Oct. 1607), 'Camera convivialis de novo construitur apud Whitehall'; Stowe, _Annales_, 688, 892, 910, 'the beautiful room at Whitehall'; Devon, 44, 302, 'James Acheson ... hath, by our direction, formed a model for the roof of our Banqueting-house at Whitehall'; _V. P._ xi. 86, 'At the close of the ceremony [mask of Jan. 1608] he said to me that he intended this function to consecrate the birth of the Great Hall which his predecessors had left him built merely in wood, but which he had converted into stone'. But James had been displeased with the building when he first saw it about 16 Sept. 1607 (_S. P. D._ xxviii. 51). Goodman, ii. 176, says that the City had to bear the cost in return for the transfer to them of Blackfriars, Whitefriars, and other liberties (cf. ch. xvii, s.v. Blackfriars).]

[Footnote 55: Chamberlain to Carleton (Birch, ii. 124): 'One of the greatest losses spoken of is the burning of all or most of the writings and papers belonging to the offices of the Signet, Privy Seal, and Council Chamber, which were under it'; cf. Reyher, 342; Goodman, ii. 175, 187.]

[Footnote 56: _V. P._ xii. 533; Stowe, 916; Birch, i. 229; Finett, 11; cf. p. 14.]

[Footnote 57: Stowe, 787, 789, 791; Von Wedel in _2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans._ ix. 256; P. P. Laffleur de Kermaingant, _Mission de Jean de Thumery_, i. 368, both describing the procession at length; _Mission de Christophe de Harlay_, 252, 'la coustume a tousjours esté, et mesmes du temps de la feue Royne de trés heureuse memoire, que les ambassadeurs residens en Angleterre sont priez d'accompagner les roys, lorsqu'ilz retournent en leur ville de Londres, après leur progrès'; Goodman, i. 164, 'The Queen's constant custom was a little before her coronation-day to come from Richmond to London, and to dine with my lord Admiral at Chelsea, and to set out from Chelsea at dark night, where the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen were to meet her'. Precepts by the Lord Mayor and other records of civic expenditure on the receptions are in Arber, i. 510; v. lxxvii; Kitto, 538; Young, _Barber Surgeons_, 108; Welch, _Pewterers_, ii. 33.]

[Footnote 58: Camden, 191, 'Anno iam regni Elizabethae duodecimo feliciter exacto, in quo aureum ut vocarunt diem creduli Pontificii sibi ex ariolorum predictione expectabant, boni omnes per Angliam laetanter triumphabant et xvii Novembris Anniversarium regni inchoati diem, gratiarum actionibus, concionibus per Ecclesias, votis multiplicatis, laetisona campanarum pulsatione, hastiludiis, et festiva quadam laetitia celebrare coeperunt, et in obsequiosi amoris testimonium, dum illa viveret, non destiterunt'; La Mothe, v. 204; Arber, i. 561, 566, 578; _Sydney Papers_, i. 371, 'the Triumphes of her Coronation'; Ellis, II. iii. 160, citing _Pauls Cross Sermon_ of T. Holland on 17 Nov. 1599, published 1601, with a _Defence of the Church of England for keeping Queen's Day_, for the origin at Oxford under Vice-Chancellor Cooper, which is perhaps confirmed by the records of the tilt (cf. ch. iv). But the City churches rang their bells on the day before 1570; cf. _Westminster_, 18 (1568), 'ringing for the prosperous reign of the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth'; Kitto, 248, 'ringing for the quene the xvij of November 1569', 269 (1572), 'ringing at the quenes maᵗᶦᵉˢ chaunginge of her raign', &c. _The Chamber Accounts_ for 1595-6 use the term 'Raigne day'. Goodman, i. 98, notes the Jacobean revival.]

[Footnote 59: Birch, _Eliz._ i. 92.]

[Footnote 60: _Sp. P._ iv. 494; cf. Kitto, 407: 'Pᵈ ye iijᵈ of November to yᵉ Parritoʳ for a warrant to kepe holy yᵉ xixᵗʰ day At wᶜʰ tyme heʳ maᵗᶦᵉ should a gone to Powles'. The ceremony, however, was deferred to 24 Nov. There was also a tilt on 19 Nov. in 1590. Von Wedel (_2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans._ ix. 236, 256) says in 1584 that this was a regular day for tilting; but he also says it was the royal birthday, which was 7 Sept.]

[Footnote 61: I find no prolonged stay at Whitehall between May 1584 and Jan. 1589. If her presence in London was necessary during this period Elizabeth seems to have preferred St. James or Somerset House. She opened Parliament in Feb. 1586 from Lambeth; there were other visits to Lambeth and the Lord Admiral's house (Hance's) in Westminster.]

[Footnote 62: _V. P._ vii. 374 (6 Jan. 1566). Machyn, 273, records a visit to the court of a lord of misrule from the city in 1561.]

[Footnote 63: Cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 238. Nichols, _Eliz._ i. 108; ii. 65, 249; iii. 1, 445, prints rolls of gifts to and from the Queen for 1562, 1578, 1579, 1589, and 1600 from manuscripts in the British Museum and in private hands. A roll for 1585 is noticed in _Arch._ i. 11. Those for 1563, 1577, 1598, and 1603 appear to be among the _Miscellaneous Rolls of Chancery_ in the R. O. (Scargill-Bird², 363), but are unprinted. Nichols also prints shorter lists of jewels given to the Queen for a number of years.]

[Footnote 64: Machyn, 195, 232, 257, 280, 305; _V. P._ vii. 74; Hawarde, 74, 109; _Sydney Papers_, ii. 44; cf. E. Ashmole, _The Institution of the Order of the Garter_ (1672); N. H. Nicolas, _Orders of Knighthood_ (1841); G. F. Beltz, _Memorials of the Order of the Garter_ (1841). Henri IV was installed by proxy in Apr. 1600, and the attendance of the Admiral's men perhaps implies a play (_Hatfield MSS._ x. 118, 269; Henslowe, i. 120). There are Garter allusions in _Merry Wives of Windsor_.]

[Footnote 65: Cf. Appendix A. The Chamber Accounts show an annual payment for a bonfire on Midsummer Day.]

[Footnote 66: _Westminster_, 19 (1579), &c., and Kitto, 364 (1584), &c., record the ringing of London bells. It can hardly have been a day for tilting (cf. p. 19) as the Court was usually in progress.]

[Footnote 67: _V. P._ xi. 57, 59, refers to an 'old custom' of keeping All Saints' Day in the city (i.e. Westminster) with the Knights of the Garter and the court; cf. Nichols, _James_, ii. 155. It can only have been a Jacobean custom, for Elizabeth did not as a rule reach Westminster by 1 Nov.]

[Footnote 68: Cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 124, 248. _V. P._ xii. 237, notes ringing on 5 Nov. 1611. Williams, _Founders_, 86, prints a guild order of 1611 for sermons at Paul's Cross and dinners on 'Coronation' day, 5 Aug. and 5 Nov., as days 'of meeting for the kings majesties sarves'.]

[Footnote 69: Cf. ch. iv.]

[Footnote 70: Camden, _Annalium Apparatus_, 2 (Aug. 1603), 'Indicitur ut hic dies festus celebretur ob Regem à Gowriorum conjuratione liberatum'; cf. Goodman, i. 3; Boderie, i. 283; _V. P._ xii. 26, 196, 409. The question as to the bona fides of the plot commemorated is discussed by A. Lang, _James VI and the Gowrie Mystery_ (1902).]

[Footnote 71: Goodman, i. 247.]

[Footnote 72: _S. P. D._ xii. 13; _V. P._ x. 81, 90, 95, 195, 218; xi. 276; xii. 41, 381; Lodge, iii. 41, 108, 110, 141; Sully, 455, 458; Boderie, i. 310; Winwood, iii. 182.]

[Footnote 73: _V. P._ vii. 23, describes the ceremony in 1559, and Von Wedel, _2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans._ ix. 260, in 1584.]

[Footnote 74: Cf. ch. iv and App. A. In 1612 the Elector Palatine attended the banquet on Lord Mayor's Day; Henry's illness kept him away.]

[Footnote 75: _Conspiracy of Byron_, iv. 25. An undated letter from Elizabeth to Henri regrets that in spite of 'nostre sejour en deux lieux si proches l'un de l'autre ... nous sommes tous deux empeschez de passer la mer'; she adds, 'je me resoudray dans peu de jours de m'en retourner à Londres' (Sully, 364; Berger de Xivrey, _Lettres missives de Henri IV_, v. 464). This was doubtless written early in Sept. 1601 when Elizabeth was at Basing and Henri at Calais. Sully, followed by Strickland, 678, has an elaborate account of the business, including an interview between himself and Elizabeth at Dover, but the itinerary (cf. App. A) makes it impossible that she can have gone to Dover.]

[Footnote 76: _V. P._ viii. 496; cf. ch. v.]

[Footnote 77: Cf. ch. v for Harington's description of a drunken mask at Theobalds; there is confirmatory evidence in _V. P._ x. 386; Boderie, i. 241, 283, 297.]

[Footnote 78: Cf. ch. xiii, s.v. King's.]

[Footnote 79: Gilles de Noailles, Abbé de Lisle (1559), Michel de Seurre (1560-2), Paul de Foix (1562-6), Jacques Bochetel, Sieur de la Forest (1566-8), Bertrand de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (1568-75), Michel de Castelnau, Sieur de Mauvissière (1575-85), Guillaume de L'Aubespine, Baron de Chasteauneuf (1585-9), Le Sieur de Beauvoir (de La Nocte) (1589-98?), Le Sieur Thumery de Boissise (1598-1601), Christophe de Harlay, Comte de Beaumont (1601-5), Antoine Le Fèvre, Sieur de la Boderie (1606-11), Samuel Spifame, Sieur des Bisseaux (1611-15), Gaspard Dauvet, Sieur des Marets (1615-18). Complete lists of lieger and extraordinary ambassadors, with notes of the manuscripts containing their dispatches, are given by A. Baschet in _Reports of Deputy Keeper of the Records_, xxxvii, App. 1, 188; xxxix, App. 573; and C. H. Firth and S. C. Lomax, _Notes on the Diplomatic Relations of England and France_, 1603-88 (1906); cf. _General Bibl. Note_, s.v. Beaumont, Boissise, La Boderie, La Mothe.]

[Footnote 80: The Spanish ambassadors during 1558-84 were Don Gomez Suarez de Figueroa, Count of Féria (Jan. 1558-May 1559), Don Alvaro de la Quadra, Bishop of Aquila (May 1559-Aug. 1563), Don Diego Guzman de Silva (Jan. 1564-Sept. 1568), Don Guerau de Spes (Sept. 1568-Dec. 1571), Don Bernardino de Mendoza (March 1578-Jan. 1584); their dispatches are in _Colección de Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de España_, lxxxvii, lxxxix-xcii, and are calendared, with those of Antonio de Guaras, a merchant who acted as agent 1573-7, in M. A. S. Hume, _Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, preserved principally in the Archives of Simancas_ (1892-9, cited as _Sp. P._). The ambassadors 1603-16 were Don Juan de Taxis, Count of Villa Mediana (Aug. 1603-July 1605), Don Juan Fernandez de Velasco, Duke of Frias and Constable of Castile, and Alessandro Rovida, Senator of Milan (extraordinary as commissioners, with John de Ligne, Prince of Brabançon and Count of Aremberg, Juan Richardot, Councillor of State, and Ludovic Verreyken, Audiencier, representing the Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella of Flanders, for the treaty of Aug. 1604), Don Pedro de Zuniga (July 1605-May 1610), Don Fernando de Giron (extraordinary, 1608-9), Don Alonzo de Velasco (May 1610-Aug. 1613), Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, afterwards Conde de Gondomar (Aug. 1613). Their dispatches are not in print, but a _Relacion de la Jornada del Excᵐᵒ Condestable de Castilla_ is in the _Colección de Documentos Inéditos_, lxxi. 467.]

[Footnote 81: The Venetian ambassadors were Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli (Secretary, Feb.-Nov. 1603), Pietro Duodo (extraordinary, 1603), Nicolò Molin (Nov. 1603-Dec. 1605), Giorgio Giustinian (Dec. 1605-Oct. 1608), Marc' Antonio Correr (Oct. 1608-Apr. 1611), Francesco Contarini (extraordinary, 1610), Antonio Foscarini (Apr. 1611-Dec. 1615), Gregorio Barbarigo (Sept. 1615-May 1616). Reports of the state of England by Molin, Contarini, and Correr are in N. Barozzi e Guglielmo Berchet, _Le Relazioni degli Stati Europei ... nel secolo decimosettimo_, iv (1863). The current dispatches are calendared in _Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs ... in Venice and ... Northern Italy_ (cited as _V. P._). A report to the Senate by Zuanne Falier and others who visited England privately in 1575 states that they were advised by a Bolognese groom of the privy chamber, favoured by Elizabeth as an excellent musician [? Alfonso Ferrabosco], to suggest the desirability of an embassy (_V. P._ vii. 524). Retiring Venetian ambassadors were sometimes knighted and given a lion of England to quarter on their shields (_V. P._ xii. 163; xiv. 85).]

[Footnote 82: _Sp. P._ i. 382, 385, 403, 451, 545.]

[Footnote 83: _S. P. D., Jac. I_, vi. 21; xii. 16; Winwood, iii. 155; P. L. de Kermaingant, _Mission de Christophe de Harlay_, 173, 252; De la Boderie, _Ambassades_, i. 240, 262, 271, 277, 291, 353; iii. 1-192 _passim_; _V. P._ x. 139, 149, 212, 234, 388, 408; xi. 83, 86, 212. I have given some details in relation to the masks in ch. xxiii; cf. also ch. vi. There is a connected narrative of the Franco-Spanish disputes in M. Sullivan, _Court Masques of James I_, which perhaps lays insufficient stress on incidents occurring at state ceremonies and tilts as distinct from masks.]

II

THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD

[_Bibliographical Note._--There is no systematic history of the
household, but the growing tendency, notable in such recent
works as those of Professor Baldwin and Professor Tout, to
dwell on the administrative, as distinct from the
'constitutional', aspect of politics suggests that the gap may
some day be filled. A useful short study is R. H. Gretton, _The
King's Government_ (1913). Of the numerous books bearing more
or less directly on the subject, I give here mainly those which
I have found of practical value in writing this chapter.
Professor Tout's _Chapters in the Administrative History of
Mediaeval England_, of which the first two volumes have
subsequently (1920) appeared, is of course of fundamental
importance. The best worked section is that of mediaeval
origins. The general surveys of W. Stubbs, _The Constitutional
History of England in its Origin and Development_ (1880), and
W. R. Anson, _The Law and Custom of the Constitution_
(1886-92), may be supplemented for the earliest period by L. M.
Larson, _The King's Household in England before the Norman
Conquest_ (1904); for the eleventh to thirteenth centuries by
H. W. C. Davis, _Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum_, i (1913), T.
Madox, _History and Antiquities of the Exchequer_ (1769), R. L.
Poole, _The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century_ (1912), J. H.
Round, _The King's Serjeants and Officers of State_ (1911), and
L. W. Vernon Harcourt, _His Grace the Steward and the Trial of
Peers_ (1907); for the fourteenth century by T. F. Tout, _The
Place of the Reign of Edward II in English History_ (1914), J.
C. Davies, _The Baronial Opposition to Edward II_ (1918), F. J.
Furnivall and R. E. G. Kirk, _Life Records of Chaucer_
(1875-1900), and J. R. Hulbert, _Chaucer's Official Life_
(1912); for the fifteenth century by C. Plummer, _Sir John
Fortescue's Governance of England_ (1885), and by the 'courtesy
books' or treatises on domestic service and etiquette in F. J.
Furnivall, _The Babees Book_, &c. (1868, _E. E. T. S._), _Queen
Elizabeth's Achademy_, &c. (1869, _E. E. T. S._), and R. W.
Chambers, _A Fifteenth-Century Courtesy Book_ (1914, _E. E. T.
S._); for the Privy Council by N. H. Nicolas, _Proceedings and
Ordinances of the Privy Council_ (1834-7), J. R. Dasent, _Acts
of the Privy Council_ (1890-1907), A. V. Dicey, _The Privy
Council_ (1887), J. F. Baldwin, _The King's Council in England
during the Middle Ages_ (1913), T. F. T. Plucknett, _The Place
of the Council in the Fifteenth Century_ (1918, _4 R. Hist.
Soc. Trans._ i. 157), E. Percy, _The Privy Council under the
Tudors_ (1907), and C. Hornemann, _Das Privy Council von
England zur Zeit der Königin Elisabeth_ (1912); and for the
Star Chamber, W. P. Baildon's edition of John Hawarde's
_Reportes del Cases in Camera Stellata_ (1894), and C.
Scofield, _The Court of Star Chamber_ (1900). Some of the above
extend to the sixteenth century; but in the main the
Tudor-Stuart period has received less attention than it
deserves. Even the lists of the great officers, as given in the
ordinary books of reference, are generally incorrect. The most
valuable summary is the quite recent one of E. P. Cheyney,
_History of England from the Defeat of the Armada to the Death
of Elizabeth_, i (1914). Samuel Pegge set out to write an
account of the Hospitium Regis and published four sections, on
the Esquires of the Body, the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber,
the Gentlemen Pensioners, and the Yeomen of the Guard as a
first volume of _Curialia; or an Historical Account of the
Royal Household_ (1791). From the material left at his death,
J. Nichols published two more, on Somerset House and the
Serjeants at Arms, in a second volume of _Curialia_ (1806), and
some fragments in _Curialia Miscellanea_ (1818). Other special
studies are F. S. Thomas, _Notes of Materials for the History
of Public Departments_ (1846), and _The Ancient Exchequer of
England_ (1848), N. Carlisle, _An Inquiry into the Place and
Quality of the Gentlemen of his Majesty's Most Honourable Privy
Chamber_ (1829), E. K. Chambers, _The Elizabethan Lords
Chamberlain_ (1907, _Malone Soc. Collections_, i. 31), W.
Nagel, _Annalen der Englischen Hofmusik_ (1894, _Beilage zu den
Monatsheften für Musikgeschichte_, 26), H. C. De Lafontaine,
_The King's Musick_ (1909), _Lists of the King's Musicians_
(_Musical Antiquary_, i-iv, _passim_). A. P. Newton's valuable
paper on _The King's Chamber under the Early Tudors_ (1917, _E.
H. R._ xxxii. 348) appeared after my paragraphs on the
Treasurer of the Chamber were written, but has helped me to
revise them. An account of the post-Restoration household is
given in J. Chamberlayne, _Angliae Notitiae, or The Present
State of England_ (1669), which became an annual; and this,
with the works of Pegge and Carlisle, were drawn upon for the
historical part of W. J. Thoms, _The Book of Court_ (1838). The
modern household is the subject of W. A. Lindsay, _The Royal
Household_ (1898). A summary, useful for comparison, of the
sixteenth-century French household, is in L. Batiffol, _The
Century of the Renaissance_ (1916, tr.), 92.

There is, of course, ample material for the historian of the
Tudor-Stuart Household when he presents himself. The personal
references of annalists, diplomatists, and letter-writers (cf.
_Bibl. Note_ to ch. i) help out the more formal documents
preserved in large numbers in the Record Office (cf. S. R.
Scargill-Bird, _Guide to Various Classes of Documents in the
Public Record Office_³, 1908) and the British Museum (cf.
sections on _Public Revenue and State Establishments in
Classified Catalogue of Manuscripts_), of which a few have been
printed in _A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the
Government of the Royal Household_ (_Society of Antiquaries_,
1790, cited as _H. O._), in J. Nichols, _Progresses and Public
Processions of Queen Elizabeth_² (1823), and _Progresses,
Processions, and Festivities of James I_ (1828), and elsewhere.
The Record Office, in addition to many records, such as those
of the Auditors of Prests (cf. App. B), which relate to the
Household, contains the special archives of the Lord
Chamberlain's Department and the Lord Steward's Department
themselves; both, however, are very fragmentary. The earlier
documents of the Lord Chamberlain's Department mainly relate to
the Wardrobe. The Warrant books only begin about the reign of
Charles I; a selection of entries bearing upon the stage is
given by C. C. Stopes in _Jahrbuch_, xlvi. 92. The papers in
the British Museum are partly official records which have
strayed from their proper custody, partly the collections of
antiquaries, and partly the administrative memoranda of
ministers such as Lord Burghley, Lord Salisbury, and Sir Julius
Caesar. Similar collections in private hands are calendared in
the reports of the _Historical Manuscripts Commission_, and in
particular in the _Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis
of Salisbury_ (1883-1915, cited as _Cecil MSS._ or _Hatfield
MSS._). The most important documents for tracing the history of
the household consist (_a_) of account-books, (_b_) of royal
ordinances and of ceremonials either for the household as a
whole or for some branch of it, to the more comprehensive of
which are sometimes attached schedules of offices with the fees
and other allowances belonging to them, and (_c_) lists of the
actual occupants of offices drawn up from time to time for
various administrative purposes. The most complete lists seem
to be those of officers receiving liveries at coronations and
funerals. These are appended to the special _Accounts_ of the
Masters of the Wardrobe for such ceremonies, and copies,
covering _inter alia_ the coronation (1559) and funeral (1603)
of Elizabeth, the coronation (1604) and funeral (1625) of
James, the funeral (1612) of Henry, and the funeral (1619) of
Anne, are preserved as precedents in _Lord Chamberlain's
Records_, ii. 4-6. On the other hand, it is necessary to
exercise caution in using the very numerous lists which bear
some such title as 'A Generall Collection of all the Offices in
England with their Fees in her Maiesties Gift'. Of these I have
noted the following: _Stowe MS._ 571, f. 6 (1552); _Harl. MS._
240 (1545-53); _Stowe MS._ 571, f. 133 (1575-80); _Stowe MS._
571, f. 159 (1587-90); _Lansd. MS._ 171, f. 246ᵛ (1587-91);
_Cotton MS._, _Titus_ B iii, f. 163ᵛ (1585-93); _S. P. D._,
_Eliz._ ccxxi (1588-93); _Lord Chamberlain's Records_, v. 33
(1593); _Hargrave MS._ 215 (1592-5); _Stowe MS._ 572, f. 26
(1592-6); _Harl. MS._ 2078, f. 6 (1592-6); _H. O._ 241
(misdated 1578) from Peck, i. 51 (1598); _Addl. MS._ 35848
(1605-7); _Addl. MS._ 38008 (1605-7); _Archaeologia_, xv. 72
(1606); _Stowe MS._ 574 (_temp._ Jac. I); _Stowe MS._ 575
(1616). The dates are mostly approximate, rendered possible by
the fact that the occupants of a few of the chief posts are
usually named. The list of 1552 alone has all the names and is
in the full sense an Establishment List. The rest should
probably be regarded not as official lists but as convenient
handbooks prepared for courtiers seeking patronage. Errors of
transcription are frequent, and often recur in several
manuscripts. _Stowe MS._ 574 is interesting, because a second
hand has corrected several errors. It seems pretty clear that
the names of offices were sometimes retained on these lists
after the offices were in fact obsolete. They are not limited
to Household Offices, but are usually arranged in four
sections, Courts of Justice, Household (1, Household proper, 2,
Standing offices; cf. p. 49), Military Posts, Keeperships (cf.
p. 11). They include fees payable in the household, as well as
at the Exchequer; and have prototypes, in less fixed form, in
lists _temp._ Hen. VIII (Brewer, ii. 873; iii. 364; iv. 868). A
more careful list, of somewhat similar type, with names
appended, but limited to fees payable at the Exchequer, is to
be found in the abstract of revenue and expenditure in 1617
printed with the pamphlet _Truth Brought to Light and
Discovered by Time_ (1651, cited as _Abstract_).

But there are no comprehensive ordinances for the Tudor-Stuart
Household, which must largely be studied from its origins. The
best text of the _Constitutio Domus Regis_ of Henry I (_c._
1135) is in T. Hearne, _Liber Niger Scaccarii_² (1774), i. 341;
a less good one in H. Hall, _The Red Book of the Exchequer_
(1896, Rolls Series), iii. 807. For Edward I we have unprinted
ordinances of 1279 (_Addl. MS._ 4565 H; _Lord Steward's Misc._
298), and the description of the palace jurisdictions by a
contemporary lawyer (_c._ 1290) in John Selden's edition of
_Fleta, seu Commentarius Juris Anglicani_ (1685); for Edward II
ordinances of 1318 and 1323 edited from the French original in
Tout, 267, and from a translation by Francis Tate (1601) in
_Life Records of Chaucer_, ii. 1, together with related
Exchequer ordinances in Hall, iii. 908, 930. Ordinances of
Edward III, not known to be extant, are referred to by the
compiler of the _Liber Niger Domus Regis Angliae_ in the reign
of Edward IV. Of the _Liber Niger_ a large number of
manuscripts exist (_Lord Steward's Misc._ 299; _Exchequer T. of
R. Misc._ 230; _Harl. MSS._ 293, f. 19; 298, f. 41; 369, f.
56ᵛ; 610, f. 1; 642, f. 196ᵛ; _Soc. Antiq. MS._). It is not
certain from which of these the bad text in _H. O._ 13 is
printed; probably it used the last two. The _Liber Niger_ is
less an ordinance than an unfinished literary treatise by a
household clerk, probably motived by the actual ordinances of
1478, of which an unprinted copy is in _Exchequer T. of R.
Misc._ 206. An ordinance of Henry VII (1493) and a ceremonial
of the same reign are in _H. O._ 107. The documents of Henry
VIII's time are complicated. There appear to be three sets of
ordinances: (_a_) the Eltham Articles drawn up by Wolsey
(Halle, ii. 56) in Jan. 1526 (_Lord Steward's Misc._ 299, ff.
158, 163; _Exchequer T. of R. Misc._ 231; _H. O._ 137-61, from
_Harl. MS._ 642); (_b_) ordinances related to a 'new book of
household', _c._ 1540 (_H. O._ 228-40); (_c_) scattered
ordinances, _c._ 1532-44 (_H. O._ 208-27). Subsidiary lists and
documents of about the period of (_a_) are in _Lord Steward's
Misc._ 299, and, perhaps with some of other dates, in Brewer,
IV. i. 860. Those printed from a _Dunch MS._ in _Genealogist_,
xxix, xxx, appear to belong to the 'new book' of (_b_). A third
set, of _c._ 1544-6, are in _H. O._ 165-207. Much other
material is scattered through the twenty-one volumes of the
_Calendar of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the
Reign of Henry VIII_ (1862-1910, cited as Brewer), including
some of earlier date than the Eltham Articles.--I need hardly
add that for the purposes of this chapter I have rarely been
able to go beyond printed sources.]

The ordering of court life and ceremonial was in the hands of a group of departments which made up the somewhat complicated establishment of the royal Household. But the Household, at a time when the personal capacity of the Crown was as yet imperfectly differentiated from its national capacity, was not merely a domestic organization; it was still to a large extent an instrument of central executive government. It must in fact be regarded as the direct descendant of the eleventh-century _curia regis_, through which all the important functions, deliberative, judicial, financial, and administrative, had been carried out. The _curia_ had consisted partly of the territorial magnates, earls, and barons, who had been, or whose fathers had been, the King's _comitatus_ in battle; partly of knights still in attendance upon the King's person, and hoping some day, in reward for their services, to become territorial magnates in turn; partly, and to an increasing extent as government became more complicated and difficult, of clerks whose trained skill with the pen and with figures made them more practically useful than the lay knights in all those branches of affairs which entailed book-keeping and correspondence. All the members of the _curia_, in smaller or greater numbers, according to the magnitude of the business to be transacted and the willingness of the lords to leave their estates, sat with the King from time to time, and advised him as his _consilium_; but except on great occasions of state it was left to the knights to wait at his table and order his servants about, and to the clerks to write and send his letters, and to act as his assessors or his deputies in the exercise of justice or the collection and spending of his revenue. In course of time some of the functions of the original _curia_ had become specialized in distinct departments, which acquired a permanent habitation at Westminster, ceased to follow the King's wanderings, and were no longer regarded as part of the personal Household. Thus the _curia_ as a judicial body became the Courts of Law; the _curia_ as a financial body became the Exchequer; while at a somewhat later date the Chancery undertook the double function of issuing royal grants and other formal correspondence of the Crown, and of supplementing the Courts of Law by exercising an equitable jurisdiction in cases which ordinary law was inadequate to cover. To the central _curia_ or Household, still composed of lay and clerical officers lodged in the King's palace and eating in his hall, wherever that might happen to be, three things were left. It ministered to the material well-being and splendour of the Sovereign himself; it exercised under his personal direction such functions of administration, for example the control of foreign policy and war, as had not passed to the specialized departments; and, perhaps most important of all, it remained potentially able to resume at his will the exercise of functions precisely analogous to those which had so passed. This paradox of the duplicate exercise of royal functions, through the specialized departments and through the Household, lies at the bottom of an understanding of mediaeval government.

The differentiation of the Courts of Law, the Exchequer, and the Chancery from the Household was complete by the thirteenth century; but the same tendency towards the budding off of quasi-independent departments of state from the administrative nucleus continued to manifest itself in a minor degree up to and even, for all their centralizing instinct, within the period of the Tudors. Moreover, as the scale of the Household became larger and its individual ministers began to require assistance, there grew up a corresponding tendency towards the formation of separate offices within the nucleus itself. The staffing of these offices with servants of various grades, their responsibilities and interrelations, and the control of them through the chief officers of the Household, were determined by royal ordinances, which go into minute detail, and reveal a complex organization, based upon long-standing tradition, and at the same time flexible in its capacity of adaptation to shifting circumstances. The main structure of the Household, as we find it under Elizabeth, appears to have been already fixed in the time of Edward IV and even in that of Edward II, although minor changes had been introduced, largely through Tudor imitation of the French _hôtel du roi_, just as there had been minor changes under Richard II and his Lancastrian successors, some of which are noted to our advantage by a clerk of literary tastes, who about 1478 bethought him to compile in the so-called _Liber Niger_ a systematic account or _rationale_ of the establishment in which doubtless he played a part. And the beginnings of the same structure can be traced back farther still, through ordinances of Edward I in 1279 to the _Constitutio Domus Regis_ as it stood at the end of Henry I's reign in 1135, and even perhaps, so far as the principal officers are concerned, to the Normanized Anglo-Saxon Court of pre-Conquest days. And after Elizabeth's reign the structure lasted, again with modifications of detail, for nearly two centuries more, until it was somewhat severely overhauled, in a moment of reforming zeal, by what is known as Burke's Act of 1782.[84] This conservatism of structure may perhaps justify us in finding an explanation of the tripartite character which the organization of the Household at every stage displays, as arising naturally out of the local arrangement of a primitive royal habitation. The palace stood in a court-yard, and it consisted essentially of a hall where the King feasted and took counsel with his _comitatus_, and of a chamber where he retired to sleep and to be private, and where he probably kept his treasure-chest. The duties of his personal servants fell either in the court-yard or in the hall or in the chamber. In the court-yard the _constabularii_ drilled the royal body-guard and the _marescalli_ looked after the horses; in the hall the _dapiferi_ and the _pincernae_ ministered food and drink; in the chamber the _camerarii_ or _cubicularii_, aided as time went on by the _clerici_, watched the King's treasure and his bed, and stood ready to receive and transmit his personal mandates. Originally, it would seem, there were several officers of each class. Afterwards they were reduced to one, or one was chosen as _magister_ over the rest; whatever the process, a single chief officer, with a group of subordinates beneath him, emerges as representative of each of the three departments. Perhaps the change was assisted by the demand of the barons, jealous of the rise in their absence of new men at Court, to have Household posts conferred upon them as part of their hereditaments. By the middle of the twelfth century there were already a hereditary Great Chamberlain, a High Steward, a High Constable, a Chief Butler, and an Earl Marshal.[85] But, obviously, if the King was in the habit of appointing two chamberlains or two stewards, he could make one of each pair hereditary, and still have another at his own appointment. And he could call on the hereditary officer to officiate on state occasions and the appointed officer to officiate in daily life. The hereditary man would have the greater dignity and the appointed man the greater power. This, rather than deputation by the hereditary officers, seems to be the explanation of the existence of a Chamberlain of the Household side by side with the Lord Great Chamberlain and of a Steward of the Household side by side with the Lord High Steward. It is really only another example of the duplication of functions, through officers of state on the one hand, and Household officers on the other, to which attention has already been called; with the added feature that in this case the officers of state seem to have had sinecures from the beginning.

The tripartite organization is traceable clearly enough in the Household of Elizabeth, as in that of her predecessors. There was, of course, a close co-operation at many points between the different departments; and, indeed, the simplicity of the original scheme had inevitably been interfered with, as the sovereigns began more and more to retire from their hall and to subdivide their chamber in order to adapt it to the complicated needs of an increasingly luxurious private life. The department of the court-yard, moreover, would appear, long before Elizabeth's time, to have shed many of what must be supposed to have been its original functions. The hereditary Lord High Constable had left no _constabularius_ behind him at court, and although the Earl Marshal, also hereditary, continued to exercise certain functions, such as an oversight over the heralds, he was in no sense the head of a Household department. The Knight Marshal, who exercised a jurisdiction over breaches of peace within the verge (_virgata_) of twelve leagues round the court, was nominally at least his deputy, but the only other marshals in the Household were officers of the Hall. Similarly the oversight of the guard seems to have passed to the Chamberlain. Nor had the Marshal any longer the responsibility for the stable which the etymology of his name suggests.[86] The Stable was, indeed, still a distinct department, but its head was the Master of the Horse, who, although he ranked as one of the three chief officers of the Household, was of comparatively recent origin.[87]

By a somewhat troublesome variation in the use of terms, the Lord Steward's department is sometimes called the 'Household' in a very narrow sense, which excludes the Chamber and the Stable. The author of the _Liber Niger_ distinguishes it as the _domus providentiae_ from the Chamber as the _domus magnificentiae_.[88] Roughly speaking, it concerned itself with the material necessities, the food and drink, the lighting and the fuel, of the Sovereign and his court, while all else that ministered to his personal life and the dignity of his state, his lodging and his apparel, his entertainments, his study and his recreations, fell within the sphere of the Chamber. Its original nucleus was still represented under Elizabeth by the officers of the Hall, Marshals, Sewers, and Surveyors; but the Hall had shrunk in importance since the Sovereign had ceased to dine in it, and some of these posts had long been duplicated within the Chamber itself, and even there were tending to become honorific rather than effective.[89] The real functions of the department were now exercised in the subsidiary offices of provision, which had grown up round the Hall. Of these there were twenty, each under a Serjeant or other head with an appropriate staff of clerks, yeomen, grooms, pages, and children. They were the Kitchen, the Bake-house, the Pantry, the Cellar, the Buttery, the Pitcher-house, the Spicery, the Chandlery, the Wafery, the Confectionery, the Ewery, the Laundry, the Larder, the Boiling-house, the Accatry, the Poultry, the Scalding-house, the Pastry, the Scullery, and the Woodyard. The department also included the Almonry under a Lord High Almoner, who was an ecclesiastic, and the Porters. Administrative control was exercised by the Board of Green Cloth, consisting of the Treasurer and Comptroller of the Household, and the Cofferer or household cashier.[90] These had the assistance of a staff of clerks and clerk comptrollers, known as the Counting House. Above all was the chief officer of the department, the Lord Steward of the Household. The Steward, whose name seems to be an exact equivalent for both the Latin terms _dapifer_ and _Senescallus_, is not likely to have had in the beginning any priority over the _camerarius_; but historical reasons had brought him to the forefront towards the end of the thirteenth century, and thereafter he continued to rank as first officer of the Household. Henry VIII, following a French analogy, had renamed him Grand Master of the Household, but the new term had not permanently succeeded in establishing itself. Under Elizabeth the post was sometimes left vacant. But it was always filled during the session of a Parliament, for it was the ancient custom for the lords of Parliament to dine at the Lord Steward's table in the court.[91] In the absence of a Lord Steward, the department was managed, under some general supervision from the Lord Chamberlain, who then became first officer, by the Treasurer and Comptroller, who were important personages with seats on the Privy Council. The original _dapiferi_ had had as colleagues the _pincernae_, but the Chief Butlership was now an hereditary sinecure, and the duties were divided between the subordinate office of the Cellar and the Cupbearer, who was an officer of the Chamber.