19. The Privy Council.—The times of the Tudors and of the early Stuarts have been designated with aptness the period of "government by council." Parliament continued to exercise a certain control over legislation and taxation, but it was in and through the Privy Council, together with certain subordinate councils, that the absolute monarchy, in the main, performed its work. The Privy Council—or simply "the Council"—comprised ordinarily about seventeen or eighteen persons, although under Henry VIII. its membership at one time approached forty. The councillors were almost invariably members of one or the other of the two houses of Parliament, an arrangement by which was facilitated the control of the proceedings of that body by the Government, but which did not yet involve any recognized responsibility of the executive to the legislative branch. After Queen Mary the councillors were, with few exceptions, laymen. Technically, the function of the Council was only advisory, but in practice even those sovereigns, as Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, who were most vigilant and industrious, were obliged to allow to the councillors large discretion in the conduct of public business, and under the early Stuarts the Council very nearly ruled the realm. Representing at all times the sovereign, who was supposed invariably to be present at its deliberations, the Council supervised the work of administration, regulated trade, granted licenses, controlled the press, kept an eye on the law courts, ferreted out plots, took measures to suppress rebellion, controlled the movements of the fleet, assisted in the management of ecclesiastical affairs, and, in short, considered and took action upon substantially all concerns of state. By virtue of its right to issue orders or ordinances it possessed a power that was semi-legislative; through its regulation of trade, its management of loans and benevolences, and its determination of military obligations, it participated actively in the control of taxation; and, under the presidency of the crown, it possessed the functions of a supreme tribunal, whose jurisdiction, in part original and in part appellate, was widespread and peculiarly despotic.[19]
20. Other Councils: The Star Chamber.—In 1487 there was created a special tribunal, consisting at the outset of seven great officials and members of the Council, including two judges, to take special cognizance of cases involving breaches of the law by offenders who were too powerful to be reached under the operation of the ordinary courts. This was the tribunal subsequently known, from its meeting-place, as the Court of Star Chamber. In effect it was from the beginning a committee of the Privy Council, empowered to exercise a jurisdiction which in truth had long been exercised extra-legally by the Council as a whole. The relation of the two institutions inclined in practice to become ever closer, and by the middle of the sixteenth century the Star Chamber had been enlarged to include all of the members of the Council, together with the two chief justices; and since the Star Chamber possessed a statutory sanction which the Council lacked, the judicial business of the older body was despatched regularly by its members sitting under the guise of the newer one. The tendency of the Tudor régime toward the conciliar type of government is manifested further by the creation of numerous subsidiary councils and courts whose history cannot be recounted here. Most of these were brought into existence during the reign of Henry VIII. Those of principal importance were (1) the Council of the North, set up in 1539; (2) the Council of Wales, confirmed by statute of 1542; (3) the Court of Castle Chamber, reproducing in Ireland the principal features of the English Star Chamber; (4) the Courts of Augmentation, First Fruits and Annates, and Wards; and (5) the Elizabethan Court of High Commission.[20]
VII. Parliament under the Tudors
21. Control by the Crown.—By the Tudors generally, and especially Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, Parliament was regarded as a tool to be used by the crown, rather than as in any sense an independent, co-ordinate power in the state. When innovations were to be introduced, such as those carried through by Henry VIII., it was Tudor policy to clothe them with the vestments of parliamentarism, to the end that they might be given the appearance and the sanction of popular measures; and when subsidies were to be obtained, it was recognized to be expedient to impart to them, in similar manner, the semblance of voluntary gifts on the part of the nation. It was no part of Tudor intent, however, that Parliament should be permitted to initiate measures, or even to exercise any actual discretion in the adoption, amendment, or rejection of proposals submitted by the Government. There were several means by which the crown contrived to impede the rise of Parliament above the subordinate position which that body occupied at the accession of Henry VII. One was the practice of convening Parliament irregularly and infrequently and of bringing its sessions to an early close. Another, employed especially during Thomas Cromwell's ministry under Henry VIII. and during the reign of Elizabeth, was that of tampering with the freedom of borough and county elections. A third was the habit, also notorious under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, of dictating and directing in all that was essential in the proceedings of the chambers. Henry VIII. bullied his parliaments systematically; Elizabeth, by cajolery, flattery, deceit, and other arts of which she was mistress, attained through less boisterous methods the same general end. Measures were thrust upon the chambers accompanied by peremptory demand for their enactment; objectionable projects originated by private members were stifled; and the fundamental parliamentary privileges of free speech, freedom from arrest, and access to the sovereign were arbitrarily suspended or otherwise flagrantly violated.
22. The Independence of the Crown.—Finally must be mentioned certain devices by which the crown was enabled to evade limitations theoretically imposed by Parliament's recognized authority. One of these was the issuing of proclamations. In the sixteenth century it was generally maintained that the sovereign, acting alone or with the advice of the Council, could issue proclamations controlling the liberty of the subject, so long as such edicts did not violate statute or common law. As a corollary, it was maintained also that the crown could dispense with the action of law in individual cases and at times of crisis. The range covered by these prerogatives was broad and undefined, and in the hands of an aggressive monarch they constituted a serious invasion of the powers of legislation nominally vested in Parliament. It is true that the act of 1539 imparting to royal proclamations the force of law was repealed in 1547; but proclamations continued, especially under Elizabeth and James I., not only to be numerous, but to be enforced relentlessly by penalties inflicted through the Star Chamber. The most important power of Parliament in the sixteenth century was still that of voting supplies. But in respect to finance, as in respect to legislation, the crown possessed effective means of evading parliamentary control. In the first place, the sovereign possessed large revenues, arising from crown lands, feudal rights, profits of jurisdiction, and ecclesiastical payments, with which Parliament had nothing whatever to do. In the second place, the great indirect taxes—customs duties and tonnage and poundage—were, in the sixteenth century, voted at the accession of a sovereign for the whole of the reign. It was only in respect to extraordinary taxes—"subsidies" and "tenths and fifteenths"—that Parliament was in a position effectually to make or mar the fiscal fortunes of the Government; except that, of course, it was always open to Parliament to criticise the financial expedients of the crown, such as the sale of monopolies, the levy of "impositions," and the collection of benevolences, and to influence, if it could, the policy pursued in relation to these matters.
23. The House of Lords in 1485.—Despite the numerous strictures that have been mentioned, Parliament in the Tudor period by no means stood still. The enormous power and independence exhibited by the