The Development of the Cabinet, 1688-1760

Abstract

THE English made its appearance in the seventeenth century at a time when the Privy Council was declining in importance.1 During the eighteenth century it superseded the Privy Council as the important advisory body of the sovereign. In the long course of its development, which may be traced from the beginning of the reign of Charles I., and more dimly, perhaps, in the reign of his father, its origin in connection with the waning of the Privy Council was understood and acknowledged by contemporaries. As the offices of the law , says Roger North, out of clerkships, spawn other offices, so this council was derived from the Privy Council, which, originally, was the same thing.2 The exact process, however, by which it developed from the Privy Council has not been clear. It may have begun as a secret body of advisers called together by the king rather as intimate friends than officials, and hence have gone on for some time in parallel development with the council; or it may have originated as a standing committee.3 More probably its origin is to be sought in both of these sources, but until the Privy Council Register has been studied in connection with the sombre piles of state papers and the numerous miscellaneous manuscripts of the Stuart period, no certain conclusion can be drawn. In I6I7 James I. created a secret committee of the Privy Council to deal with questions relating to the proposed Spanish match.4 Somewhat before this time Bacon had made his famous allusion to cabinet counsels , excellent, indeed, for secrecy and despatch, yet a remedy worse than the disease .5 The Spanish Committee was continued until the end of the reign.6 On the accession of Charles I., the Foreign Committee was instituted, and continued at least until March, I640.7 These committees were not bodies supervising