^{page 95 note 1} Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council, ed. N. H. Nicolas (Record Comm., 1834–37).

^{page 95 note 2} They are to be found particularly in three collections: Exchequer, T. R., Council and Privy Seal, Chancery Warrants–Council Warrants, and Ancient Petitions.

^{page 96 note 1} Baldwin, J. F., The Kin' Council in England during the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1913).Google Scholar

^{page 96.note 2} Kirby, J. L., ‘Councils and Councillors of Henry IV, 1399–1413’, ante 5th Ser., xiv (1964), pp. 35–65;Google ScholarBrown, A. L., ‘The Commons and the Council in the Reign of Henry IV, Eng. Hist. Rev., lxxix (1954), pp. 1–30;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Lander, J. R., ‘The Yorkist Council and Administration, 1461 to 1485’, Eng. Hist. Rev., lxxiii (1958), pp. 27–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar and ‘Council, Administration and Councillors, 1461 to 1485’, Bull. Inst. Hist. Res., xxxii (1959), pp. 138–80.Google Scholar

^{page 96 note 3} For example Professor Elton, G. R., relying on what medievalists had written, speaks of the council ‘grown out of Richard I' professional executive body, captured by an oligarchy of magnates as a result of the weakness of Henry I' position, Henry ' complaisance, and Henry V' minority’ being overthrown in the 1440's. The Tudor Revolution in Government (Cambridge, 1953), p. 18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 96 note 4} The debate is surveyed in Elton, G. R., ‘Why the history of the Early–Tudor Council remains unwritten’, Annali della Fondazione Italiana per la Storia Amministrativa, i (1964), pp. 268–96.Google Scholar

^{page 96 note 5} Baldwin, pp. 489–504.

^{page 97 note 1} Great councils were discussed by Plucknett, T. F. T., ‘The Place of the Council in the Fifteenth Century’, ante, 4th Ser., i (1918), pp. 157–89, and in his London M.A. thesis.Google Scholar

^{page 98 note 1} P.R.O., Exchequer Accounts, bundle 96, no. 1. This statement is a simplification of a detailed and interesting account.

^{page 99 note 1} Procs. and Ords., v and vi.

^{page 99 note 2} Oeuvres de Froissart, ed. Lettenhove, Kervyn de (Brussels, 1867–1877), xvi, pp. 366–77.Google Scholar

^{page 103 note 1} Barber, M., ‘John Norbury (c. 1350–1414): an esquire of Henry IV’, Eng. Hist. Rev, lxviii (1953), pp. 66–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Some of these men served as speakers and have figured in the valuable series of biographies by Professor Ros–Kell, J. S.. See his The Commons and their Speakers in English Parliaments, 1336–1523 (Manchester, 1965).Google Scholar

^{page 104 note 1} I have discussed this at greater length in my article on ‘The Commons and the Council’.

^{page 106 note 1} In April, 1415 the king in a great council announced the names of the councillors by whose advice Bedford would act. They were Archbishop Chichele, Bishops Beaufort and Langley, the earl of Westmorland, the prior of the hospital, Lords Grey of Ruthin, Berkeley, Powys and Morley, but as far as is known not one of these laymen ever attended a meeting and several in fact went with Henry to France. The moral is beware of lists of councillors. Procs. and Ords., ii, 157.

^{page 106 note 2} Storey, R. L., Thomas Langley and the Bishopric of Durham, 1406–1437 (London, 1961).Google Scholar

^{page 107 note 1} Procs. and Ords., iii, pp. 231–42; Chrimes, S. B. and Brown, A. L., Select Documents of English Constitutional History 1307–1485 (London, 1961) pp. 258–59.Google Scholar It must be said that Professor B. Wilkinson has a quite different interpretation of these documents. See for example his ‘Fact and Fancy in Fifteenth–Century History’, Speculum, xlii (1967), pp. 673–92.Google Scholar

^{page 109 note 1} Procs. and Ords., iii, p. 155.

^{page 109 note 2} Roskell, J. S., ‘The problem of the attendance of the lords in medieval parliaments’, Bull. Inst. Hist. Res., xxix (1956), p. 184.Google Scholar

^{page 110 note 1} Rot. Parl., iv, pp. 326–27; Chrimes and Brown, pp. 260–62.

^{page 111 note 1} Procs. and Ords., vi, pp. 312–15; Chrimes and Brown, pp. 275–6.

^{page 111 note 2} Council and Privy Seal, file 65.

^{page 111 note 3} Dr Storey, R. L. has surveyed this period very perceptively in his book, The End of the House of Lancaster (London 1966).Google Scholar

^{page 112 note 1} Sudeley was Sir Ralph Butler, Bedfor' chamberlain, kin' knight, chief butler, and a man prominent in the household who was created a peer in 1441.

^{page 112 note 2} See Jacob, E. F., ‘Archbishop John Stafford’, ante, 5th Ser., xii (1962), pp. 1–23.Google Scholar

^{page 113 note 1} For example the decision to grant an allowance of clothes to a chamberlain of the exchequer was signed by eighteen councillors including York and four earls. Procs. and Ords., vi, p. 172.

^{page 113 note 2} Bootle and Peter Taster, dean of St Severin in Bordeaux, were two men who came to the council in 1451 and 1452 and were given salaries, and served actively into Edward I' reign.

^{page 113 note 3} It seems to me an indication of a failure on Henry V' part that none of these bishops had served in any of the three great offices, and that only one bishop, Beckington of Bath, had done so in 1454.

^{page 114 note 1} Cited above, p. 96, n. 2.

^{page 116 note 1} See for example the Handbook of British Chronology, Somerville, R., History of the Ducky of Lancaster (London, 1953),Google Scholar and Kirby, J. L., ‘The Rise of the Under–Treasurer of the Exchequer’, Eng. Hist. Rev., 1xxii (1957), pp. 666–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 117 note 1} I should not pass over the fact that a contemporary, Sir John Fortescue, writing about 1470, complained that ‘the olde counsell in Englonde …was mooste of grete lordis that more attended to their owne matieres than to the good universall profute’ and put forward a plan for a council of twelve clerks and twelve laymen to which four spiritual and four lay peers and the officers might be added.The Governance of England, ed. Plummer, C. (Oxford, 1885)., pp. 349–51. This remark and his longer remarks on the same subject have often been quoted, but clearly they require interpretation. The self– centredness of councillors is a common complaint, but the magnate element is clearly exaggerated. Fortescue was an exile who had lived through abnormal times, the minority, the dominance of a court group, and the decade of armed politics in the ‘fifties, when great lords had exercised unusual and overmuch influence, and his remarks must not be taken literally.Google Scholar