The 305

of England, written in the of IV., was set

forth the theory of the Council, set

with emphasis, for Fortescue the Council

should play a great role in government. he

the end of the Lancastrian of the Council's

greatness, and he understood how the Council con-
tributed to its own downfall by

purposes and by injecting into a public body much

business of a personal and sort. He sought to

picture a Lancastrian Council purged of its greatest evils,
The story of the complete and sudden rehabilitation and
reorganisation of the Council under Henry VII.
Henry VIII. and its prominence all through the Tudor
period is a great story, but it not in

book.x Yet it may be remarked that the Tudor Council
was always a Council under royal control that its

1 To the end of the middle ages the one word Council the
oftenest applied to this body, although a number of adjectives descriptive
of its traits occasionally accompanied the noun arid even gained some
official recognition. Among these, "secret" and "private" appear, evi-
dently contrasting the smaller and more confidential council with the
summoned great council or Parliament, But the modrrn term Privy
Council did not become a common or accepted name until the Tudor
period and resulted from a change which belonged to that period, bi:t a
change which had roots in the past. The medieval king travelled much.

It reappeared under Henry VII., and was recognised and organised by
Henry VIII. The great pressure of business was bound to produce
such differentiation. At the same time a distinction was being
between ordinary counsellors and privy counsellors. The more regular
and intimate counsellors and those of higher rank were the latter; those
of lower rank and used for their more technical knowledge in various
lines were the former. The group around the king when it consisted
mainly of privy counsellors, as was generally the case, was called the
privy council; the bulk of the Council was at the star chamber in West-
minster. As the more important counselling functions lav with the newly
organised group which followed the Mng—the groupt which became more
regularly called the privy council—the larger Council, the direct deriva-
tive of the Council of earlier days was little more than the Council acting
in its judicial capacity, that is, the Court of Star Chamber. For the smaller
and more definite Star Chamber membership prescribed by Henry VII fs
statute of 1487 (see A. and S., document 136) did not outlast the early
years of Henry VIII. *s reign. When, then, the Court of Star Chamber
was abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641, the only Council left was
the Privy Council, the branch organised tinder Henry VIII. This is the
origin in substance and in name of the Privy Council of modem times.