5io The Period of Constitution Making
In the reign of Henry II. the Exchequer accounting
and auditing was held regularly at Westminster, though
it could then and for long afterwards, upon special occa-
sion, be held elsewhere. The treasury was still at Win-
chester, but it had now become what it was to start with,
a storehouse. But the receipt of much money at West-
minster made a temporary storage there or in London a
necessity; and the packing of it in chests and the carriage
of these to Winchester were burdensome. Quite naturally
the treasury at London came to supersede that at Win-
chester, and this was accomplished by the early part of
Henry's IIL's reign. It was one of the many changes
in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries which
were making London and Westminster the recognised
seat of government. So far as the treasury had been in
any sense a department of government it was now ab-
sorbed by the Exchequer, and there was no treasury as a
separate financial department until after the middle
ages.
By the late twelfth century the Exchequer was manned
largely by skilled specialists in finance, and before long
Its judicial side was specialised, professionalised—the
Barons of the Exchequer were justices of a court of special
competence, not ordinary feudal barons.1 This means
that the Exchequer had gone, or was very rapidly going,
"out of court." It did not follow the king, it was not a
part of his personal entourage or household, its members
were not giving him counsel on general policy or tin-
specialised points of administrative detail. It was
splitting off from the parent stem of the king's court.
In the time of Henry III/s attempted personal govern-
ment there was some effort to reverse this process, but it
had no lasting effect. The Chancellor pretty definitely
left the Exchequer at the beginning of John's reign. His
clerk remained, but hardly as the Chancellor's represen-
tative. The king appointed him. He was keeper
of the Exchequer seal, a duplicate of the king's
1 See above, p. 176 and note 3.