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Lord Burghley as Master of the Court of Wards, 1561–98

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2011

J. Hurstfield
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Extract

A feature of English social life in the sixteenth century which aroused the curiosity of foreigners and the bitterness of Englishmen was the royal right of wardship and marriage. Since 1540 this right had been safeguarded with the full apparatus of a specially constituted court of law under the direction of a high official as its master and judge. Twenty years after the creation of the Court of Wards and Liveries, William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, became its master; and he held that office from January 1561 until his death in August 1598, a period of more than thirty-seven years. The court itself remained in existence, in spite of an increasing volume of criticism, until the Civil War, when it was formally abolished by the Long Parliament in 1646. Thus, for more than a third of its existence of 106 years Burghley was its master; and since, after an interregnum of nine months, he was succeeded by his son Robert, the Cecil family in effect controlled its destinies for more than half a century. In the process they, and the court they directed, left their mark upon the society and economy of their age.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 31 , December 1949 , pp. 95 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1949

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References

1 32 Hen. VIII. c. 46. In 1542 the granting of liveries was brought into the jurisdiction of the Court of Wards (33 Hen. VIII. c. 22).

2 P.R.O. Court of Wards Miscellaneous Books (Wards 9, 104, fos. 114v–115r).

3 Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, ed. Firth, C. H. and Rait, R. S. (1911), i. 833.Google Scholar

1 A Concise History of the Common Law (2nd edn., 1936), p. 477.

2 Cf. D. M. Brodie, ‘Edmund Dudley: minister of Henry VII’ (Trans. R. Hist. Soc., 4th ser. xv (1932), 133–61); Helen M. Cam, ‘The decline and fall of English feudalism’ (History, N.S. xxv (1940–41), 216–33); W. C. Richardson, ‘The surveyor of the king's prerogative’ (Eng. Hist. Rev., lvi (1941), 52–75). I am also indebted to Professor Richardson for lending me the relevant sections of his forthcoming book on early Tudor chamber administration.

3 Cf. the present writer's article on ‘The Greenwich tenures of Edward VI's reign’ (Law Quarterly Review, lxv. 72–81).

1 Brit. Mus., Lansdowne MS. 121, fo. 30r:.

1 If we take the income of the Court of Wards for the first year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the revenues were as follows: sales of wardships, £5,003.10.0; feodaries’ payments (consisting largely of rents for wards’ lands), £10,124.12.5½; fines for leases, £350.10.2½; payments for liveries, £5,760.13.11; mean rates, £624.16.11; sheriffs’ fines, £115.5.6; licences for widows’ marriages, £18; arrears, £404.10.11. The gross revenue thus amounted to £22,401.19.11, the nett revenue, after expenses had been paid, to £20,290.1.10½ (Wards 9,369).

2 13 Eliz. c. 5.

3 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 88, nos. 14–16. One copy of the draft bill (No. 15) has various alterations in Cecil's hand; but the statute dealing with collusion in conveyancing passed in that year (14 Eliz. c. 8) was not the result of this draft bill.

4 27 Eliz. c. 4.

1 Cf. the returns to the enquiries into concealments in the P.R.O. Records of the Exchequer, Augmentations Office (E. 302/1).

2 Court of Wards Feodaries’ Surveys (Wards 5, 11), No. 1960.

3 The Book of John Rome, ed. W. H. Godfrey (Sussex Rec. Soc, xxxiv, 1928), pp. 136–7.

4 Lansdowne MS. 18, fos. 87v–88r.

5 Lansdowne MSS. 43, fos. 61r–62v; 64, fo. 82r.

1 Wards 9, 106, fos. 517v–52Iv; S. P. Dom. Eliz. (Addenda) 24, no. 37.

2 Hist. MSS. Comm., Cal. of Hatfield MSS., ii. 171.

3 E.g. Wards 9,369, fo. 53r; 9,388, fo. 228V; 9,517, fo. 169r.

4 Wards 9,154; Dorset (Strangeways), 27 Aug. 38 Hen. VIII.

5 Records of the Borough of Leicester, ed. Mary Bateson (Cambridge, 1905), iii. 278.

6 Except in the case of Yorkshire, which had one for each riding, and in the case of the smaller counties where two might be joined under one feodary.

1 Above, p. 100.

2 Cal. of Hatfield MSS., ii. 171.

3 The figures in this paragraph are based upon the Receiver-General's Accounts, Series C, Wards 9,369 ff., and are given to the nearest pound. The nett income is obtained by subtracting from the gross income the expenditure upon fees, diet, annuities, jointures and repairs. From the remainder the ‘arrearages’ with which the receiver-general annually ‘charged himself’ have also been deducted, since they were in fact his cash in hand and had been counted in the total for past years. The same applies to the ‘arrearages’ of George Goring, receiver-general from 1584 to 1594, some of whose money was collected after his death. All other debts, since they had not been included in previous years’ totals, are counted as part of the income of the current year.

1 Printed in Peck, Desiderata Curiosa (1732), i. 1–66.

2 Ibid., p. 27.

3 Arthur Hall of Lincolnshire (Wards 9,369, fo. 171v, and 9,187, fo. 115v).

4 Thomas Strickland (Wards 9,373, Rec.-Gen. Accts., Receipts for Wards, 12 Eliz. and Wards 9,380, fos. 33v and 106r).

5 He held this guardianship jointly with the Earl of Sussex, Lord Chamberlain. (Acts of the Privy Council, ed. J. R. Dasent, viii. 282–3: 16 August 1574.) Only the name of Sussex appears in the patent book of the Court of Wards (Wards 9,106, fo. 273r).

1 Dict, of Nat. Biog., xx. 225. Cf. also B. M. Ward, The Seventeenth Earl of Oxford (1928).

2 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 91, no. 22.

3 Dict, of Nat. Biog., xii. 933. See also Burghley's instructions for his conduct when travelling abroad (S. P. Dom. Eliz. 77, no. 6).

4 See below n. 8.

5 Dict, of Nat. Biog., v. 875.

6 Cal. of Hatfield MSS., iii. 365; Dict, of Nat. Biog., xxi. 1055.

7 See, e.g., Rec.-Gen. Accts., Exhibitions, 12 Eliz. (Wards 9,373).

8 Hist. MSS. Comm., Cal. of Rutland MSS., i. 260, 274–5, 283, 293, 327. His ‘marriage’, i.e. the right to marry, was sold to the earl himself for £500 shortly before his twenty-first birthday on 20 November 1597 (Wards 9,159, fo. 43v). The third Earl of Rutland (Wards 9,380, fo. 28v), and the Earl of Oxford (see below, p. 106, n. 6) had similarly bought their ‘marriages’ before coming of age.

1 Cal. of Rutland MSS., i. 95.

2 Ibid., i. 94.

3 Ibid., i. 95.

4 H. Foley, Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (1878), iv. 49 (cited in Stopes, C. C., The Third Earl of Southampton (Cambridge, 1922), p. 86).Google Scholar

5 Thomas Cecil, Burghley's elder son, on one occasion told his father that he could not afford to buy the wardship of Lord Sheffield from the ward's mother for £2,000, and regretted that he would be unable to ennoble his father's descendants in this way (Cal. of Hatfield MSS., ii. 200–1).

6 E.g. S. P. Dom. Eliz. 22, no. 14; 35, no. 45; 36, no. 56; Lansdowne MS. 14, fo. 190r.

7 W. Murdin, State Papers (1759), p. 167.

1 W. Murdin, State Papers (1759), pp. 301–2.

2 Lansdowne MS. 10, fo. 135r.

3 Lansdowne MS. 24, fo. 28r.

4 W. B. Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex (1853), i. 171 and 221; see also the letter for the Earl of Rutland (Lansdowne MS. 57, fo. 188r).

5 Lansdowne MS. 42, fo. 97r.

6 Wards 9,118, fos. 234v–235v. See also J. Strype, Annals (Oxford, 1824), iii, pt. ii, 191–2.

1 Wards 9,106, fos. 263v–264r.

2 Ibid., fos. 522r–523r.

3 Wards 9,107, fo. 29r.

4 Ibid., fos. 4O1v–4O2r.

5 Ibid., fos. 295v–296r.

6 Wards 9,109, fo. 68r.

7 Wards 9,107, fos. 9r–10r and 100r.

8 Ibid., fos. 307r–308r.

9 Wards 9,221, fo. 65r.

10 Wards 9,107, fos. 295v–296r.

11 Wards 9,109, fo. 68r.

12 Wards 9,150 B, Allington (29 Eliz.) and Wards 9,150 A, Bedingfield (37 Eliz.).

13 J. Strype, Annals (Oxford, 1824), iii, pt. ii, 382–3.

14 Lansdowne MSS. 17, fo. 33r; 57, fo. 118r; 107, fo. 142r; 108, fo. 41r.

1 The State of England, 1600, ed. Fisher, F. J. (Camden Miscellany, xvi, 1936, p. 28).Google Scholar Cf. also. Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, i. 27: ‘It was imagined he made infinite gaine by the wards.’

2 S. P. Dom. Eliz. 268, no. 41. Cf. Neale, J. E., The Elizabethan Political Scene (British Academy, Raleigh Lecture on History, 1948), p. 7.Google Scholar

3 All except Henly and Laborn.

1 Professor Neale has shown that he subsequently received four times as much for the wardship from the ward himself (op. cit., p. 7).

2 Lansdowne MS. 84, fo. 137r.

3 Wards 9,159.

4 Cal. of Hatfield MSS., iv. 531.

5 Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 22,925, fo. 28V. I am indebted to Professor Neale for the reference.

6 Lansdowne MSS. 1–122.

1 Lansdowne MSS. 84, fo. 164r; 86, fo. 53r; 87, fo. 39r.

2 Lansdowne MS. 77, fo. 180r: Sedley to Marston.

3 Lansdowne MS. 107, fo. 205r.

4 Lansdowne MS. 98, fos. 215r–217r.

5 Cal. of Hatfield MSS., iv. 529, 531–4; vi. 363; vii. 231, 278.

6 Wards 9,109, fo. 201r (15 July 1598).

7 For a full examination of the political consequences of this system, see J. E. Neale, op. cit.

8 Wards 9,158, fo. 221r.

9 She was even deprived of some of this rent for a time by Coke's servant, who defaulted with the money he should have paid into the court; but Coke made amends (Wards 9,109, fo. 271r).

1 Op. cit.

2 Lansdowne MS. 60, fo. 203r.

3 Wards 9,108, fo. 179r.

4 Lansdowne MS. 17, fo. 41r.

5 Lansdowne MS. 87, fo. 41r. Cf. also the remark of one of Hicks’ correspondents: ‘[The Lord Treasurer] told me howe mich my wyffe was beholdinge unto him in sufferinge her sons office to be found at so lowe a rate, which is a testimonye of his meaninge more then I durst remember in my letter’ (Lansdowne MS. 108, fo. 41r).

1 S.P. Dom. Eliz. 248, no. 84 (cited in M. A. S. Hume, The Great Lord Burghley (1898), p. 455, note).

2 Cal. of Hatfield MSS., vii. 293–4.

3 Lansdowne MS. 102, fos. 215r–216r.

4 Wards 9,86, fo. 62V.

5 Wards 9,109, fo. 14V.

6 He did, nevertheless, act in his official capacity to protect the interests of Lady Roos, who was married to his grandson, William Cecil, against the Countess of Rutland (Cal. of Rutland MSS., i. 260–3, 267–91, 314, 386–8).

7 Peck, Desiderata Curiosa (1732), i. 26.

1 S.P. Dom. Jas. I, 61, no. 6. This ‘reform’ meant, however, that mothers could hardly hope for a wardship if they failed to report it within one month of the father's death. It was thus a means of discouraging concealments.

2 Ibid., 187, no. 51A.

3 John Beaumont, receiver-general in Edward VI's reign, deprived the crown of £21,720 (Wards 9,365, fo. 215r, cited in Dietz, F. C., English Government Finance, 1485–1558 (Univ. of Illinois, 1920), p. 181).Google Scholar Towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, George Goring succeeded in doing the same thing for a similar amount of money (Wards 9,108, fos. 509v–510v).

4 Not all the officers of the Court of Wards were as precise in their estimates of the private profits of their posts as was Hugh Audley, the last clerk of the court before its dissolution. On being asked the value of his office, he replied: ‘It might be worth some thousands of pounds to him who after his death would instantly go to heaven; twice as much to him who would go to purgatory; and nobody knows what to him who would adventure to go to hell’ (The Way To Be Rich according to the Practice of the Great Audley, 1662, p. 12). He became known to contemporaries as ‘rich Audley’.

5 Wards 9,388, fo. 363V.

6 Wards 9,394, fo. 259V.

1 S.P. Dom. Eliz. 268, no. 70.

2 S.P. Dom. Eliz. 274, no. 43.