[1] A complete description of these houses will be found in _The
Evolution of the English House_, by S. O. Addy.
HOUSEHOLD, ROYAL. In all the medieval monarchies of western Europe the
general system of government sprang from, and centred in, the royal
household. The sovereign's domestics were his officers of state, and the
leading dignitaries of the palace were the principal administrators of
the kingdom. The royal household itself had, in its turn, grown out of
an earlier and more primitive institution. It took its rise in the
_comitatus_ described by Tacitus, the chosen band of _comites_ or
companions who, when the Roman historian wrote, constituted the personal
following, in peace as well as in war, of the Teutonic chieftain. In
England before the Conquest the _comitatus_ had developed or
degenerated into the thegnhood, and among the most eminent and powerful
of the king's thegns were his dishthegn, his bowerthegn, and his
horsethegn or staller. In Normandy at the time of the Conquest a similar
arrangement, imitated from the French court, had long been established,
and the Norman dukes, like their overlords the kings of France, had
their seneschal or steward, their chamberlain and their constable. After
the Conquest the ducal household of Normandy was reproduced in the royal
household of England; and since, in obedience to the spirit of
feudalism, the great offices of the first had been made hereditary, the
great offices of the second were made hereditary also, and were
thenceforth held by the grantees and their descendants as
grand-serjeanties of the crown. The consequence was that they passed out
of immediate relation to the practical conduct of affairs either in both
state and court or in the one or the other of them. The steward and
chamberlain of England were superseded in their political functions by
the justiciar and treasurer of England, and in their domestic functions
by the steward and chamberlain of the household. The marshal of England
took the place of the constable of England in the royal palace, and was
associated with him in the command of the royal armies. In due course,
however, the marshalship as well as the constableship became hereditary,
and, although the constable and marshal of England retained their
military authority until a comparatively late period, the duties they
had successively performed about the palace had been long before
transferred to the master of the horse. In these circumstances the
holders of the original great offices of state and the household ceased
to attend the court except on occasions of extraordinary ceremony, and
their representatives either by inheritance or by special appointment
have ever since continued to appear at coronations and some other public
solemnities, such as the opening of the parliament or trials by the
House of Lords.[1]
The materials available for a history of the English royal household are
somewhat scanty and obscure. The earliest record relating to it is of
the reign of Henry II. and is contained in the _Black Book of the
Exchequer_. It enumerates the various inmates of the king's palace and
the daily allowances made to them at the period at which it was
compiled. Hence it affords valuable evidence of the antiquity and
relative importance of the court offices to which it refers,
notwithstanding that it is silent as to the functions and formal
subordination of the persons who filled them.[2] In addition to this
record we have a series of far later, but for the most part equally
meagre, documents bearing more or less directly on the constitution of
the royal household, and extending, with long intervals, from the reign
of Edward III. to the reign of William and Mary.[3] Among them, however,
are what are known as the _Black Book of the Household_ and the
_Statutes of Eltham_, the first compiled in the reign of Edward IV. and
the second in the reign of Henry VIII., from which a good deal of
detailed information may be gathered concerning the arrangements of the
court in the 15th and 16th centuries. The _Statutes of Eltham_ were
meant for the practical guidance merely of those who were responsible
for the good order and the sufficient supply of the sovereign's
household at the time they were issued. But the _Black Book of the
Household_, besides being a sort of treatise on princely magnificence
generally, professes to be based on the regulations established for the
governance of the court by Edward III., who, it affirms, was "the first
setter of certeynties among his domesticall meyne, upon a grounded rule"
and whose palace it describes as "the house of very policie and flowre
of England"; and it may therefore possibly, and even probably, take us
back to a period much more remote than that at which it was actually put
together.[4] Various orders, returns and accounts of the reigns of
Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., Charles II., and William and Mary throw
considerable light on the organization of particular sections of the
royal household in times nearer to our own.[5] Moreover, there were
several parliamentary inquiries into the expenses of the royal household
in connexion with the settlement or reform of the civil list during the
reigns of George III., George IV. and William IV.[6] But they add little
or nothing to our knowledge of the subject in what was then its
historical as distinguished from its contemporary aspects. So much,
indeed, is this the case that, on the accession of Queen Victoria,
Chamberlayne's _Present State of England_, which contains a catalogue of
the officials at the court of Queen Anne, was described by Lord
Melbourne the prime minister as the "only authority" which the advisers
of the crown could find for their assistance in determining the
appropriate constitution and dimensions of the domestic establishment of
a queen regnant.[7]
In its main outlines the existing organization of the royal household is
essentially the same as it was under the Tudors or the Plantagenets. It
is now, as it was then, divided into three principal departments, at the
head of which are severally the lord steward, the lord chamberlain and
the master of the horse, and the respective provinces of which may be
generally described as "below stairs," "above stairs" and "out of
doors." The duties of these officials, and the various officers under
their charge are dealt with in the articles under those headings. When
the reigning sovereign is a queen, the royal household is in some other
respects rather differently arranged from that of a king and a queen
consort. When there is a king and a queen consort there is a separate
establishment "above stairs" and "out of doors" for the queen consort.
She has a lord chamberlain's department of her own, and all the ladies
of the court from the mistress of the robes to the maids of honour are
in her service. At the commencement of the reign of Queen Victoria the
two establishments were combined, and on the whole considerably reduced.
On the accession of Edward VII. the civil list was again reconstituted;
and while the household of the king and his consort became larger than
during the previous reign, there was a tendency towards increased
efficiency by abolishing certain offices which were either redundant or
unnecessary.
The royal households of such of the continental monarchies of Europe as
have had a continuous history from medieval times resemble in general
outlines that described above. There are, common to many, certain great
offices, which have become, in course of time, merely titular and
sometimes hereditary. In most cases, as the name of the office would
suggest, they were held by those who discharged personal functions about
the sovereign. Gradually, in ways or for reasons which might vary in
each individual case, the office alone survived, the duties either
ceasing to be necessary, or being transferred to officers of less
exalted station and permanently attached to the sovereign's household.
For example, in Prussia, there are certain great titular officers, such
as the Oberstmarschall (great chamberlain); the Oberstjagermeister
(grand master of the hunt); the Oberstschenk (grand cup-bearer) and the
Obersttruchsess (grand carver), while, at the same time, there are also
departments which correspond, to a great extent--both as to offices and
their duties--to those of the household of the English sovereigns. This
is a feature which must necessarily be reproduced in any monarchical
country, whatever the date of its foundation, to a more or less limited
extent, and varying in its constitution with the needs or customs of the
particular countries.
See also LORD STEWARD; LORD CHAMBERLAIN; MASTER OF THE HORSE; PRIVY
PURSE; and CIVIL LIST.