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The Council of the West

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Extract

Prof. Baldwin has traced the history of the King's Council down to the year 1540 when “the chief problems which affected the institution during the middle ages were practically settled.” There was no longer danger of subservience to private interests; on the contrary, the Council was the means whereby the Tudor monarchy performed its work. So successful was government by Council that it was applied to districts where special difficulties existed; local Councils worked in close connection with the Privy Council.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1921

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References

page 62 note 1 Coke gives the Council a few lines in his Fourth Institute. References to Lord Russell as the first and only President of the Council are to be found in Wiffen's Memoirs of the House of Russell, in Mrs, Rose-Troup's Western Rebellion of 1549, in Lady Radford's article on Tavistock Abbey in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for 1914 (p. 142), and in the article on the first Lord Russell in the Dict. Nat. Biog.

page 63 note 1 This shows that the Council of the West was not “set up by statute in 1540” (Holdsworth, History of English Law, Vol I, p. 278.

page 63 note 2 Cotton MS. Titus, b. i, ff. 172–7.

page 63 note 3 L. and P. Hen. VIII, vol. xiii, pt. i. (1537), No. 1269.

page 65 note 1 L. and P. Hen. VIII, vol. xiv, pt. ii (1539), 190, p. 55. Hoker's Commonplace Book (City of Exeter Muniment Room), f. 344. Jewett's History of Plymouth, p. 88, under date 1538. “Wm. Hawkins again Mayor. The King established a council for the west at Tavistock.”

page 66 note 1 Cotton MS. Titus, B. i, f. 97. L. and P. Hen. VIII, vol. x, 702 and 1015 (26).

page 66 note 2 L. and P. Hen. VIII, vol. xiii, pt. ii, 961.Google Scholar

page 66 note 3 Ibid., vol. xii, pt. i (1537), 1001.

page 66 note 4 Printed in Oliver's Monasticon Dioecesis Exoniensis, p, 116.

page 68 note 1 The article on Russell in the Dict. Nat. Biog. wrongly gives 1540 as the date of his appointment as President.

page 68 note 2 Hoker's History of Exeter (Devon and Cornwall Record Society), p. 236.

page 68 note 3 i.e. Coldfield.

page 69 note 1 L. and P. Hen. VIII, vol. xiv, pt. ii, 342.

page 69 note 2 Ibid., pt. i, 967.

page 69 note 3 Sir Thomas Arundell had acted with Tregonwell as a commissioner for suppression of religious houses and had received the tithes of the Scilly Islands, which had formerly belonged to Tavistock Abbey, also the house and site of the College or Chantry of Slapton. Sir Thomas Denys, who had been much employed by Cromwell, had gained the site of Buckfast Abbey. Sir Piers Edgcombe had tried to secure the temporalities of St. Mary's Priory, Totnes, and also of Cornworthy Abbey. Sir Hugh Paulet was surveyor of lands in various counties in the king's hands through the attainder of Abbot Whiting of Glastonbury; he had a fee of £20 per annum and diets of 13s. 4d. when occupied in the courts or about the accounts. Sir Hugh Pollard, one of the twenty-two children of Judge Lewis Pollard, had been employed to take the surrender of religious houses and had a lease of Torre Abbey. His brother Richard was “an especial favourer of Cromwell” and a visitor of religious houses. As one of the King's general surveyors he superintended the destruction of many monasteries in the North, East and West, he received a grant of Combe Martin, and according to a correspondent of Lord Lisle, he “rules all now in Devonshire”. He had been active in the destruction of the shrines of St. Thomas at Canterbury and St. Swithun at Winchester, and had been the principal witness in 1537 against the Abbot of Glastonbury.

page 70 note 1 L. and P. Hen. VIII, vol. xiv, pt. i, 402.

page 70 note 2 Pat. Roll Hen. VIII, p. 2, m. 21d. and 22.

page 71 note 1 L. and P. Hen. VIII, vol. xiv, pt. i, 590.

page 71 note 2 Ibid., 685.

page 71 note 3 Ibid., 686.

page 71 note 4 Ibid., 928.

page 71 note 5 Ibid., pt. ii, 106.

page 71 note 6 Ibid., 371.

page 72 note 1 L. and P. Hen. VIII, vol. xiv, pt. i, 399.Google Scholar

page 72 note 2 Ibid., 455.

page 72 note 3 Ibid., 530.

page 72 note 4 Ibid., 531.

page 72 note 5 Ibid., vol. xv, 95.

page 72 note 6 Ibid., 180.

page 73 note 1 L. and P. Hen. VIII, vol. xviii, pt. ii, 231, p. 125; cf. vol. xiv, pt. ii, 236 (9) and vol. xvi, pt. i, 745, ff. 32, 33.

page 73 note 2 Ibid., vol. xx, pt. ii, 159, 186, 190.

page 73 note 8 Lipscomb: History of Buckinghamshire, vol. iii, p. 256.

page 73 note 4 Acts of the Privy Council, vol. ii, p. 6.

page 73 note 5 Ibid., p. 11.

page 74 note 1 Ed. 1648, p. 246.

page 74 note 2 It is possible that friction arose between the Council and the civic authorities of Exeter which had been made into a county in 1537, and may well have resented its inclusion within the Council's jurisdiction. Similarly Bristol, in 1561 or 1562, gained exemption from the jurisdiction of the Council of the Marches (Seyer: Memoirs of Bristol, ii, p. 238, § 3).

page 74 note 3 See ante.

page 75 note 1 See Dr. Holdsworth's article in the Harvard Law Review, xxvi, p. 108.

page 75 note 2 Som. Rec. Soc. Star Chamber Cases in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, pp. 230 ff.

page 78 note 1 Vol. xviii of Mr, Chick's transcripts preserved in the Exeter City Library.

page 80 note 1 The grateful acknowledgments of the writer are due for much help and kindness received from the following both before and during her visit to Exeter:—Lady Radford, Mrs. Rose-Troup, Rev. J. F. Chanter, Mr. E. Chick, Miss Easterling, Prof. Harte, and Mr. Lloyd Parry, Town Clerk of Exeter.