of the Privy Council in Wales and the Marches. During this period the dignity of the Council increased, and its organization became fixed; but the cases with which it dealt were less serious than in earlier years, and by the end of the sixteenth century its decline had commenced. In the seventeenth century it was mainly a Court for the settlement of petty suits, and the elaborate establishment which had descended from the days when Princes had kept Court at Ludlow seemed unnecessary.
The Council sat permanently at Ludlow, but met also occasionally at other places. It held Sessions at Hereford, Bewdley, Shrewsbury, Worcester, Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Hartlebury, Bridgnorth, Oswestry, and Wrexham. Bishop Lee, that "stowte travellinge president," went further afield in his duty, for he scoured Wales as well as the Marches in his search for criminals. Lee was President of the Council from 1534 to 1543. In company with Sir Thomas Englefield, the Chief Justice of Chester, he travelled through the country, studied its men and manners, discerned the secret roots of disorder, and set himself to pluck them out. The power of inflicting the death sentence was so lavishly exercised under his rule that it was said that within the space of six years over five thousand men were hanged. It was on his advice that the penal acts of 1534, which have already been noticed, were passed.[1] Another great President was Sir Henry Sydney (1559-1586), famous for his justice and mercy.
The area of the Council's jurisdiction was a debatable point, constituting the historical legal controversy of the seventeenth century, which, although in form concerned with the jurisdiction over the four English border counties, really raised the question of discretionary governments in general. In this, as in so many other cases, broad constitutional issues were argued on the narrowest legal grounds.
- ↑ See Hist. MSS. Commission, 1898; Report on Welsh MSS. i. p. 10; and "Political History of England," vol. v. p. 376.
