These offices
were usually milked for fees and employed deputies, clerks, and
scribes who worked for long hours at very modest wages. Most
people believed that the offices of power and influence in the
realm belonged to the nobility and gentry as indubitably as the
throne belonged to the king. Assaulting, wounding, striking, or
trying to kill a member of the Privy Council engaged in his duties
was punishable by death without benefit of clergy. Civil and
military commissions, patents, grants of any office or employment,
including Justice of Assize, Justice of the Peace, court writs,
court proceedings continued in force for six months after a king's
death, unless superceded in the meantime.
The king's ministers were those members of his Privy Council who
carried out the work of government. By distributing patronage, the
ministers acquired the influence to become leading members of the
House of Commons or the House of Lords. They made policy, secured
the king's consent, and then put through the necessary
legislation. The king was to act only through his ministers and
all public business was to be formally done in Privy Council with
all its decisions signed by its members. The king gradually lost
power. The last royal veto of a Parliamentary bill was in 1708. By
1714, the Privy Council ceased making decisions of policy. Instead
a cabinet not identified with any particular party was chosen by
the Queen, who presided over their meetings, which were held every
Sunday.
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