Archeion, or, A discourse vpon the high courts of iustice in England. Composed by William Lambard, of Lincolnes Inne, Gent

The Officers of the Star-Chamber.

THe Officers, or Ministers that I finde, were then the Vsher, the Serjeant at Armes, the Atturneyes, and the Clarke. The Vsher, for the keeping of the roome, the proclai∣ming of silence, the calling of names, and other base services, and the Serjeant, as well to beare the Mace, for the honor of the Lord Chancellor, as to arrest and bring such as he was commanded.

Touching the Atturneyes, I wot not whether their Service might then be called a standing office, or no, because they were at large, some two or three at once being recei∣ved, to follow for one Clyent; in so much, as there were above thirtie severall persons imployed therea∣bouts, during onely the first and se∣cond yeares of King Hen. 7.

The Office of the Clarke of the Councell, was to Take, Endorse, Enter, Keepe, and Certifie the Bills, Plea∣dings, Records, Rules, and Decrees of the Court. And as it is not to bee doubted, but there hath beene from time to time, a Clarke of the Coun∣cell, considering that such a Court could not be without the service of such a Minister, (albeit happily his authoritie, in examining of Wit∣nesses, taking of Affidavits, and ad∣mitting men by Atturney, was by little and little enlarged): So I doe not finde it expressed, who was the Clarke during the minority of King Hen. 6. or at any time before it; For the very first of whose name I have read, was Thomas Kent, a Doctor of the Law, to whom King Henry the sixt, by his Letters Patents, dated the fifteenth of Iuly, in the two and twentieth yeare of his raigne, gave both that Office for his life, calling

him Clericum Consilii nostri, and the Office of the Secundarie of the Privie Seale; with wages, of a hundred pounds by yeare; and with power, for reasonable cause of absence, to make his sufficient Deputie therein. After him, whether immediately or no, I have not to affirme, because that I suspect that one Langport was betweene, in the first yeare of King Henry the seventh; Iohn Bladswell, a Doctor of the Lawes also, was made Clarke of the Councell, and exercised the same Office: The degrees of which two men, whereof the first was afterwards sworne of the Coun∣cell, doe set forth the dignitie of the place, being (as I suppose) the best Clarkeship of this Land, unlesse you will call the Master of the Rols a Clarke againe; as some former Sta∣tutes are wont to name him.

And these bee the onely named men of that place, with whom I have

yet met, before that Statute made in the third yeare of King Henry the seventh.

After whom, that I may shortly summon them all, there succeeded in the sixt yeare of King Henry the seventh, Robert Riden; in the first yeare of King Henry the eight, Iohn Meutis, Secretarie for the French; and in the fourth yeare of the same King, Richard Eden: during one time of whose sicknesse, Thomas El••ot held the Place: in the 22. yeare of which King also, the Office was up∣on a surrender, granted jointly to that Richard Eden, and Thomas Eden, which last man forthwith exercised the same alone. And in the fifth yeare of King Edward the sixt, it was granted in reversion, after the death of that Thomas Eden, to Thomas Marsh; to whom it fell in possession, in the ninth yeere of her Majestie that now is: In like reversion, after

whose death, it was likewise gran∣ted to William Mills, mine ancient favourer, a man trained up from his youth in the services of that Court; who tooke it in possession the fif∣teenth yeare or her Highnesse Reigne, and how holdeth: By whose good labours and friendships also, I was the better enabled to write some part of this present Discourse.

Notes

• Clarke of the Star-Chamber.