294 The Period of Constitution Making
ought along with you to counsel me"—r language that is
bound to suggest that the king had a group in mind whose
function was counselling, and that probably a group more
restricted than the whole body of vassals who owed
him counsel. What determined who these were, who
should remain behind when the summoned meeting was
at an end? The officials remained and some others, but
there are no distinctive marks by which it can be told
just who the others were. The king's will, their own wiU
and convenience, the business on hand, the part of the
country where the king happened to be—such things as
these probably determined. It was a group very subject
to change. The chronicles of Henry II. 's reign are full
of references to the household of the king, evidently the
official household in most instances. It seems to have
been most actively engaged in public business; it traveled
with the king; in it were the household officers already
on their way to becoming state officials; from its member-
ship he appointed the five who became "the bench/' the
beginning of the Court of Common Pleas.2 Whether
this household was the core of the counselling group or
the whole body it is hard to teU from the language used,
but it certainly did much work. Perhaps all that can
be generalised for the period down to the death of John is
that the officials were in practically continuous discharge
of their duties; that the king had with them at frequent
intervals, if not in permanent session, others who for the
time were regarded as his counsellors; that this body was
becoming less feudal both in make-up and business; and
that in it were already beginning to appear groups with
more specialised functions—gradual and unconscious
differentiations such as itinerant justices or Exchequer,
or conscious creations like "the bench."
1 Sttibbs, Select Charters, p. 120.
3 A chronicle states, "by the advice of the wise men of Ms realm he
chose five, two clerks and three laymen, and they were all of his private
household" (de privata familia sua). Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 155. The
rather frequent use of this term "private household" in this reign, in
cases where it evidently does not mean the royal family, may indicate
the presence of an inner, more confidential group of advisers.