4 - The Chester Council and Exchequer: Powerful Local Institutions

Summary

The importance of the palatinate in the day-to-day politics of Cheshire is also demonstrated by a study of the earl of Chester’s council operating in Chester and the development from this council of an equity court, the exchequer. The Chester palatinate will be seen to be a vital institution, not just in the background of political ideas or in relatively infrequently-levied taxation, but in the informal flow of lordship in the shire.

The earl and his councils

Potentially the dominant influence on the political life of the county palatine of Chester was its earl.The pattern of his lordship in the county, supported by his property, rights and other powers there, was so dense that his influence might easily exceed that of a lord elsewhere in England. This potential was fulfilled most completely when the earl was an adult, as under the Black Prince or Henry of Monmouth, but at no time during the period of this study was this the case. Edward, son of Edward IV, was invested with the principality of Wales and the earldom of Chester in July 1471, when he was less than one year old. When he succeeded to the throne in 1483 he was just twelve. Edward, the son of Richard III, was born in 1473 and invested in September 1483, only to die in April 1484. The creation of Arthur Tudor occurred in November 1489, when he was just three years old, and his investiture followed late in February 1490. Arthur came closest of all the earls of this period to reaching his majority, but died on 2 April 1502. His brother Henry, born in 1491, was created earl in February 1504. He was nearly eighteen when he became king but was never invested with the lands of his earldom. Although the future Edward VI was widely called prince of Wales and his creation was believed imminent in 1536–7, 1543 and 1546–7, none of Henry VIII’s sons (or daughters) was ever created prince or earl, perhaps because of uncertainty over the settlement of Wales until 1543.

There was, therefore, a titular earl of Chester for only just over twenty-one of the eighty-one years from 1480 to 1560.