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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4]
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 Oberstjägermeister (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.
HOUSEL, the English name, until the time of the Reformation,
for the Eucharist. The word in O. Eng. was húsel. Its proper
meaning is “sacrifice,” and thus the word hunsl appears in
Ulfilas’ Gothic version of Matt. ix. 13, “I will have mercy and
not sacrifice.” The ultimate origin is doubtful. The New
English Dictionary connects it with a Teutonic stem meaning
“holy”; from which is derived the Lithuanian szweńtas, and
Lettish swéts. Skeat refers it to a root meaning “to kill,”
which may connect it with Gr. καίνειν.
HOUSELEEK, Sempervivum, a genus of ornamental evergreen
plants belonging to the natural order Crassulaceae. About
30 species are known in gardens, some of which are hardy
perennial herbs, and grow well in dry or rocky situations; the
others are evergreen shrubs or undershrubs, fit only for cultivation
in the greenhouse or conservatory. The genus Sempervivum
is distinguished from the nearly allied Sedum by having more
than five (about 12) petals, and by the glands at the base of the
ovary being laciniated if present. The common houseleek,
S. tectorum (Ger. Hauswurzel, Fr. joubarbe), is often met with in
Britain on roofs of outhouses and wall-tops, but is not a native.
Originally it was indigenous in the Alps, but it is now widely
dispersed in Europe, and has been introduced into America.
The leaves are thick, fleshy and succulent, and are arranged
in the form of a rosette lying close to the soil. The plant propagates
itself by offsets on all sides, so that it forms after a time
a dense cushion or aggregation of rosettes. The flowering stem,
which is of rather rare occurrence, is about 1 ft. high, reddish,
cylindrical and succulent, and ends in a level-topped cyme, reflexed
at the circumference, of reddish flowers, which bloom
from June to September. The houseleek has been known
variously as the houselick, homewort or great houseleek. Sedum
acre (stone-crop) is styled the little houseleek. In Germany it is
sometimes called Donnerkraut, from being supposed to protect
the house on which it grows from thunder. The leaves are said to
contain malic acid in considerable quantity, and have been eaten
as salad, like Portulaca. S. glutinosum and S. balsamiferum,
natives respectively of Madeira and the Canary Islands, contain
a very viscous substance in large quantity, and are used for the
preparation of bird-lime; fishermen in Madeira, after dipping
their nets in an alkaline solution, rub them with this substance,
rendering them as tough as leather. S. montanum, indigenous
in Central Europe, according to Gmelin, causes violent purging;
S. arboreum, τὸ μἐγα ἀείζωον of Dioscorides, is employed in
Cyprus, the East, and northern Africa as an external remedy for
malignant ulcers, inflammations and burns, and internally for
mucous discharges.
HOUSING. The housing of the poorer classes has become
a pressing problem in all populous Western countries, and has
engaged, in a varying but constantly increasing measure, the
attention of legislative and administrative bodies and of philanthropic
individuals and societies. The general interest was
- ↑ Liber niger domus Regis Edward IV. and Ordinances for the Household made at Eltham in the seventeenth year of King Henry VIII., A.D. 1526, are the titles of these two documents. The earlier documents printed in the same collection are Household of King Edward III. in Peace and War from the eighteenth to the twenty-first year of his reign; Ordinances of the Household of King Henry IV. in the thirty-third year of his reign, A.D. 1455, and Articles ordained by King Henry VII. for the Regulation of his Household, A.D. 1494.
- ↑ The Book of the Household of Queen Elizabeth as it was ordained in the forty-third year of her Reign delivered to our Sovereign Lord King James, &c., is simply a list of officers’ names and allowances. It seems to have been drawn up under the curious circumstances referred to in Archaeologia (xii. 80-85). For the rest of these documents see Ordinances and Regulations, &c., pp. 299, 340, 347, 352, 368 and 380.
- ↑ Burke’s celebrated Act “for enabling His Majesty to discharge the debt contracted upon the civil list, and for preventing the same from being in arrear for the future, &c.,” 22 Geo. III. c. 82, was passed in 1782. But it was foreshadowed in his great speech on “Economical Reform” delivered two years before. Since the beginning of the 19th century select committees of the House of Commons have reported on the civil list and royal household in 1803, 1804, 1815, 1831 and 1901.
- ↑ Torrens’s Memoirs of William, second Viscount Melbourne, ii-303.
