320 The Period of Constitution Making
success, and then In 1234 began Henry's great experiment
to bring all the baronial-national departments which had
split off back under the royal-household-personal control.
The barons triumphed in the Barons' Wars, keeping in
1258, as always, most of the machinery which had devel-
oped In earlier'times of royal control. Henry had been
maMng much use of the privy seal, and during the
Chancellor's abeyance, the^great jeal jwas_oftenJkept jn
the Wardrobe/" "How Henry sought to fight the Provisions"
of "Oxford with the small seal, an interesting comment
upon the relation of that seal to the great seal now again
kept by a baronial Chancellor. There is evidence that
the validity of Henry's grants during the troublous years,
whatever seal he used, was later regarded with suspicion,
and many documents it was thought best to have re-
sealed. x The privy seal had become distinctly the Ward-
robe seal and was in the custody of Wardrobe clerks.
The vigorousjDei^q^^ em-
phasised'^every phase of household administration and
retarded any tendency of the Wardrobe to^sgHt^off and
become a separate department of state. Indeed Edward
main^in^ Chancery, and even
the Exchequer. Yet it was a time of rapid development.
Early ISrthe reign the Wardrobe attained a stable^organ-
isation, with officers and staff;2 though still travelling
much, it was corn5ig"to Have headquarters in London,
with a storehouse or treasury distinct of course from that
of the Exchequer;3 and Wardrobe officials were becoming
very influential in general government, sometimes forming
a kind of Inner ring In Council or Parliament, and,,incur-
rijij^ the opposition of the barons who were seeking to
1 About this time there is occasional mention of a "royal ring" used for
some kinds of authentication—possibly a foreshadowing of the "signet"
of the fourteenth century.
2 Its head was the Treasurer or Keeper, not to be confused with the
Exchequer Treasurer. The Controller of the Wardrobe, head of its sec-
retarial department, became the keeper of the privy seal, now less a per-
sona! seal of the king than formerly.
*In this reign its treasury passed from Westminster to the Tower.
TMs is how the regalia got to the Tower, never to leave.