HOUSEHOLD, THE ROYAL

HOUSEHOLD, THE ROYAL. In the preface to the Liber Niger Domus Regis Edw. IV., we are told that King Edward III. was "the first setter of certainty among his domesticks upon a grounded rule. He appointed duties to his offices and officers by a formal and more convenient custumate, more certain than was used before his time; he framed his new statutes, commandments, and charges, upon every officer inward and outward." Upon this work King Edward IV., with the advice of his great council, founded his Household Book. The table of the king, and the daily allowance of provisions, fuel, and lights to peers of each rank when in attendance upon the king, and to all his chief officers, attendants, and servants of every degree, on ordinary and on festival occasions, are carefully particularized; as are also the king's alms and gifts, the wages of every class of his servants, and the robes and liveries for his knights, officers, and domestics.

Henry VII. ordained new articles for the government of his household. Henry VIII. found it necessary to make still further regulations, particularly to prevent the court from being overrun by idlers and the retainers of the officers. In the ordinances made in the 31st Hen. VIII., the porters at the gate are enjoined "not only to exclude servants, vagabonds, and rascalls, but alsoe that they doe not suffer any vagabonds, rascalls, or boyes to enter in at the gate at any time, and that one of them shall, three or four times in the day, make due search throughout the house, in case that negligently at any time any boyes or rascalls have escaped by them, and entred the gates, that thereby they may find them out and put them out againe."

In the royal household in feudal times the lowest offices were filled by persons of consideration, unfitted both by their rank and incapacity to perform the duties attaching to them. The supplies for the extensive establishment were made on the system of purveyance and receipt in kind; and the royal purveyors seized provisions wherever they could find them, paid for them only in such manner, and at such prices as the household officers thought proper to fix, and deposited them in the king's magazines.

This system of purveyance, after many previous attempts by statute to moderate its obnoxious uses, was abolished in 12th Chas. II. In 1780 Mr Burke introduced his plan of economical reform, in which the royal household formed a

conspicuous part. He represented it as formed upon manners and customs which had long since expired, and as retaining ancient officers whose duties had long since ceased. He succeeded, two years later, in obtaining an act (22 Geo. III., c. 82) by which the following offices were suppressed:—Principal officer of the great wardrobe, principal officer of the jewel office, treasurer of the chamber, cofferer of the household, officers of the six clerks of the board of green cloth, paymaster of the pensions, master of the harriers and fox-hounds, and master of the stag-hounds.

The household expenses must have been very great. Madox remarks upon the magnificence of the Norman kings; and Stow, in his Annals, relates that "the person of King Richard II. was guarded wheresoever he lay by 200 men; that he had about him thirteen bishops, besides barons, knights, esquires, and others, inasmuch that to the household came every day to meat 10,000 people." The charge for King Edward IV.'s household was L.13,000 yearly. The statutes of Eltham, 7th Hen. VIII., give particular articles of diet, wine, &c., to be served to every person of the household, and the quantity and price of every article, the expenses of the stables, and the salaries of all the members and servants of the establishment. In the Household Book of King William and Queen Mary, 1689, the diet of the household is computed at L.15,000 yearly, and the total charge at L.76,038. Since the reign of King William III., parliament at the commencement of each reign has appropriated a fixed sum for the civil list of the sovereign. Thus—

Of this last the application is thus limited:—Privy purse, L.60,000; household salaries, and retired allowances, L.131,260; household expenses, L.172,500; royal bounty, alms, and special services, L.13,200; leaving an unappropriated balance of L.8040, which may be applied in discharge of any of the other classes of charge.