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Councils and Councillors of Henry IV, 1399–1413

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

J.L. Kirby
J.L. Kirby
Affiliation:
History Faculty Library, Merton Street, Oxford.
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Extract

The one important, indeed invaluable, source for the history of the council in the early-fifteenth century is the Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, 10 Richard II–33 Henry VIII, edited by Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas and published by the Record Commission in seven volumes in the years 1834 to 1837, but in so far as the title of this work implies a formal and continuous record of proceedings it is misleading, for, unlike parliament, the council left no regular account of its activities. The Rolls of Parliament, even though their account of the proceedings is one-sided, official and incomplete, do at least record such bare facts as the dates of meeting, the names of the Speakers, and usually the dates of adjournment; but there are no similar rolls for the council. The phrase ‘privy council’ in Nicolas's title is also something of an anachronism, at least for the early part of the period covered. At this time the future privy council was generally known simply as the council or the king's council, although it was sometimes called the continual council to distinguish it from the larger body known to contemporaries as the great council. This distinctionis usually made in official records, but chroniclers often referred indifferently to either body as the council, and the differences are not now always apparent to us.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 14 , December 1964 , pp. 35 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1964

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References

page 36 note 1 Proc[eedings] and Ord[inances of the Privy Council, ed. Nicolas, N.H.], i (Record Comm., 1833), pp. 159–64.Google Scholar Similar, but shorter, lists appear ibid., ii, pp. 85–89, 98–99.

page 36 note 2 Neale, J.E., in Tudor Studies presented to A. F. Pollard(London, 1924), p. 261.Google Scholar

page 37 note 1 Plucknett, T.F.T., ‘The Place of the Council in the fifteenth century’, Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc, 4th Series, i (1918), p. 176.Google Scholar

page 37 note 2 Rot[uli] Parl[iamentorum], iii, p. 530 (Mar. 1404); p. 572 (22 May 1406); p. 585 (22 Dec. 1406); pp. 632, 634 (2, 9 May 1410).

page 37 note 3 Proc. and Ord., i, pp. 237–38, 243–44, 295.

page 37 note 4 All manuscripts to which reference is made below are in the Public Record Office. The Issue Rolls for the reign (Exchequer of Receipt), are numbered E.403/564–611.

page 38 note 1 Proc. and Ord., i, ii, passim.

page 38 note 2 Chiefly in Chancery, Parl[iamentary] and Council Proc[eedings] (C.49), files 13, 48; Chancery Warrants (C.81), files 1540, 1541; Exchequer T.R., Council and Privy Seal Files (E.28), 7–29; and Anc[ient] Pet[itions] (S.C.8).

page 38 note 3 Anc. Pet. 7312.

page 38 note 4 Anc. Pet. 5650.

page 39 note 1 Plucknett, op. cit., pp. 171–74.

page 39 note 2 Madeleine Barber, ‘John Norbury (c. 1350–1414): an Esquire of Henry IV, ’ Eng[lish] Hist[orical] Rev[iew], lxviii (1953), pp. 66–76.

page 39 note 3 Rot. Parl., ii, p. 322.

page 40 note 1 Fortescue, Sir John, The Governance of England, ed. Plummer, C. (Oxford, 1885), pp. 145–46.Google Scholar

page 40 note 2 Lewis, N.B., ‘The Continual Council in the early years of Richard II, Eng. Hist. Rev., xli (1926), pp. 246–51;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Rot. Parl., iii, pp. 6, 55.

page 40 note 3 Chronicon Henrici Knighton, ed. Lumby, J.R. (R[olls] S[eries], 1895), pp. 223–24.Google Scholar

page 40 note 4 Edwards, J.G., The Commons in Medieval English Parliaments (Creighton Lecture, 1957), p. 8, n. 2.Google Scholar

page 41 note 1 Rot. Parl., ii, pp. 416–24. Similar ‘representative’ councils may be found in the 14th century in France, and even more clearly in Castile; see Lot, F. et Fawtier, R., Histoire des institutions françaises au moyen âge, ii (Paris, 1958), pp. 75–82;Google Scholar Torreánaz, Conde de, Los consejos del rey durante la Edad Media … en Europa, y singularmente en Castilla, i (Madrid, 1884), pp. 125, 137–40.Google Scholar

page 41 note 2 C[alendar of]C[lose] R[olls], 1396–99, pp. 512, 522, 589.

page 41 note 3 Eulogium Historiarum, ed. Haydon, F.S., iii (R.S., 1863), p. 407.Google Scholar

page 42 note 1 For lists of the principal councillors in each chancellorship, see below, Appendix.

page 43 note 1 Anglo-Norman Letters and Petitions, ed. Legge, M. Dominica (Oxford, 1941), p. 422.Google Scholar

page 43 note 2 For Prophet, see Ruthven, J. Otway, The King's Secretary in the fifteenth century (Cambridge, 1939), pp. 163–65.Google Scholar

page 44 note 1 For Cheyne, see Roskell, J.S., ‘Sir John Cheyne of Beckford’, Trans. Bristol and Gloucs. Archaeol. Soc, Ixxv (1956), pp. 43–72.Google Scholar

page 44 note 2 Chancery, Charter Rolls (C.53) nos 168–79.

page 45 note 1 Proc. and Ord., ii, pp. 102–6.

page 46 note 1 Chancery, Parl. and Council Proc, 48/1.

page 46 note 2 Issue Roll no. 564, under 7 April.

page 46 note 3 Proc. and Ord., i, pp. 107–12, 117–20.

page 46 note 4 Exchequer T. R., Council and Privy Seal file 7.

page 46 note 5 Proc. and Ord., i, pp. 121–22.

page 47 note 1 Selected Documents of English Constitutional History, 1303–1485, ed. Chrimes, S.B. and Brown, A.L. (London, 1961), pp. 205–6.Google Scholar

page 48 note 1 Proc. and Ord., ii, pp. 78–79.

page 48 note 2 For Sturmy, see Roskell, J.S., ‘Sir William Sturmy, Speaker in the Parliament at Coventry, 1404’, Trans. Devonshire Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Art, lxxxix (1957), pp. 78–92.Google Scholar

page 49 note 1 Proc. and Ord., i, pp. 159–64.

page 49 note 2 Ibid., i, p. 180.

page 49 note 3 C.C.R., 1399–1402, p. 563.

page 49 note 4 Foedera, ed. T. Rymer (London edn), viii, pp. 257–58, 260–62.

page 51 note 1 Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1401–05, p. 236; Anc. Pet. 9256; for Savage, see Roskell, J.S., ‘Sir Arnald Savage of Bobbing’, Archaeologia Cantiana, lxx (1956), pp. 68–83.Google Scholar

page 51 note 2 Proc. and Ord., i, pp. 213–17.

page 51 note 3 Exchequer T.R., Council and Privy Seal file 12.

page 52 note 1 Rot. Parl., iii, p. 530.

page 52 note 2 Proc. and Ord., i, pp. 237–38, 243–44.

page 53 note 1 Ibid., i, pp. 233–37; Chancery Warrants, 1541/4, 6, 8.

page 53 note 2 Exchequer T. R., Council and Privy Seal file 15.

page 54 note 1 Rot. Parl, iii, pp. 572, 585; Proc. and Ord., i, p. 295.

page 56 note 1 Archbishop Arundel, Bishop Beaufort, the duke of York, and Lords Burnell and Willoughby were paid from 22 Dec. 1405; Lord Roos from 12 Dec. 1404; Bishop Bubwith from 4 Oct. 1406; and Bishop Langley from 30 Jan. 1407: Issue Rolls nos 587–602, passim.

page 57 note 1 Kirby, J.L., ‘The Council of 1407 and the problem of Calais’, History Today (12. 1955), pp. 44–52.Google Scholar

page 58 note 1 Rot Parl., iii, pp. 632, 634.

page 58 note 2 Proc. and Ord., ii, pp. 6–7.

page 59 note 1 On 18 Feb. 1412 the prince was paid 1,000 marks for the time when he was of the council. Unfortunately the rolls are incomplete, and the periods covered by payments are not usually given in the Issue Rolls for the last 3 years: Issue Rolls nos 608–11.

* Note from the Literary Director: When this paper was sent to press, its author was unaware that Dr A. L. Brown was on the point of publishing ‘The Commons and the Council in the Reign of Henry IV, which has now appeared in Eng. Hist. Rev., lxxix (1964), pp. 1–30,CrossRefGoogle Scholar too late to be noticed here.