Royal Households of the United Kingdom


The Royal Households of the United Kingdom are the collective departments that support members of the British royal family. The Royal Household supports the Sovereign. Other members of the royal family who undertake public duties have separate households; they vary considerably in size, from the medium-sized household that supports the Prince and Princess of Wales to those supporting junior working royals.
In addition to the royal officials and support staff, the sovereign's own household incorporates representatives of other estates of the realm, including the government, the military, and the church. Government whips, defence chiefs, clergy, scientists, musicians, poets, and artists hold honorary positions within the Royal Household. In this way, the Royal Household may be seen as having a symbolic, as well as a practical, function: exemplifying the monarchy's close relationship with other parts of the constitution and of national life.
The offices of the Royal Household are some of the oldest administrative entities in the UK, from which over time the other principal offices of State emerged: for example, HM Treasury was, in its pre-conquest origins, a strong-box kept for safety in the king's bedchamber, where it was overseen by one of the chamberlains. Parts of the Royal Household continued to play a central role in the government of the country up until the 1530s, and the four Great Officers of the Household routinely had a seat in the Cabinet until the mid-18th century.

Terminology

The term 'Househoulde' first appears in English in 1382, and it began to be used for the king and his entourage shortly afterwards. Prior to this date Latin terms were used or hospitium regis ); Latin terms continued to be used, alongside English ones, until the 1550s. The word 'court' first appears in the 12th century, but, together with the word 'courtier', only came into common use in this context in the late 1470s, foreshadowing the more lavish and public displays of courtly life that characterised the Tudor period.
The terminology of 'Hall' and 'Chamber' appears from an early date; in time they came to refer not only to significant and sizeable rooms in the royal palaces but also to the principal administrative divisions of the Royal Household ; the equivalent "outdoor" office was the Stables. Over time, lesser rooms likewise became metonyms for departments of the Household that, in their time, wielded significant powers.
In the 15th century, however, the two principal divisions had come to be referred to as the Household and Chamber respectively, ; this usage only began to recede following the formation of the Lord Steward's Department and the Lord Chamberlain's Department in the late 18th century.

History

In the medieval period, there was little, if any, distinction made between the public and private capacities of the monarch: "The land, the people, the law-courts, the army were as much the King's own personal possessions as were his various demesne manors or the furniture of his palaces". Thus, under the Norman kings of England, the Curia Regis was engaged in every aspect of the management of State affairs - financial, administrative, legislative, judicial, diplomatic - as well as in providing for the day-to-day needs of the monarch and his entourage.
In the twelfth century, the Curia Regis began to disintegrate. Key departments to separate themselves from the Curia Regis were the Exchequer and the Chancery. The Exchequer and Chancery soon became the principal accounting and administrative offices of The Crown, overseen by two high officials: the Treasurer and the Chancellor. Both these officials predated the establishment of their departments: within the Court, the Chancellor had kept the King's official seal since before the Norman conquest; while the office of Treasurer dated from the reign of William I, when the Treasury found a more permanent home in Winchester Castle. Their offices also had a judicial character, as seen in the parallel development of the Court of Exchequer and the Court of Chancery; other courts of law continued to emerge from the Curia Regis in the thirteenth century: first the Common Bench and later the King's Bench.
References to the King's Household, as a distinctive aspect of Court, served initially to differentiate the body of courtiers that continued to serve the immediate needs of the monarch, and to travel with him, as distinct from those more closely identified with what became departments of State with a settled existence 'out of Court'.

Anglo-Saxon period (871–1066)

The royal household has roots in the Comitatus that provided military support to early Anglo-Saxon kings. Household members included noble thegns, who were expected to commit a portion of their time and resources to royal service as a condition of their social status and in return for certain privileges. In addition to thegns, the household would have included clergy and a large staff of domestic servants. The daily life of the king's household was focused around the stig or hall; the other main spaces were the chapel and the búr or chamber: a more private space, where the king slept and where his clothes, jewels and important documents were kept.
The highest-ranking officers were:
  • Dish-bearers and butlers in Anglo-Saxon England in charge of food provisions; later referred to as seneschals.
  • Burthegns, bedthegns and hræglthegns who between them supervised the royal chamber/bedchamber and wardrobe ; later referred to as chamberlains.
  • Dish-bearers and butlers in Anglo-Saxon England in charge of drink provisions; later referred to as butlers.
Typically, each office had three holders who served on a rotating basis.
King Eadred bequeathed eighty gold coins each to his dish-thegns, raiment-thegns and butlers upon his death in AD 995. His household also included stigweardas, attached to the hall, to whom he bequeathed thirty gold coins each.
Another high officer was the horse-thegn, who was in charge of the king's horses, the royal stables and household travel. When the country was on a war footing, the royal stables took on a military character and function, and the horse-thegn's role adapted to it accordingly.
Cnut the Great introduced two new offices to the household: staller and housecarl. The stallers were close to the king and very wealthy. There were as many as eight stallers in post at any one time, and there is uncertainty as to their precise duties; they had a supervisory role, and thus 'staller' may have been a generic term for any of chief officials of the king's household. The housecarls were professional soldiers who, among other things, functioned as royal bodyguards.
The household included several priests, who also probably had noble backgrounds, and service in the royal chapel could be a stepping stone towards becoming a bishop. Priests in the household not only performed religious duties but also acted as royal secretaries: writing letters, charters, and other official documents. By the reign of Edward the Confessor, the chapel's writing office had custody of the great seal, used to authenticate writs; during his reign the office of chancellor first makes an appearance within the English court.
Even though it travelled constantly with the king as an itinerant court, the royal household was the centre of the Anglo-Saxon government. Initially, household officers performed domestic tasks. As the king's administrative and judicial responsibilities expanded, public duties were delegated to the household officers, making them state officers as well.
On the continent of Europe, the Merovingian and Carolingian royal households had similar offices, and there is evidence that these influenced their English counterpart. However, there was no English equivalent to the powerful office of major domus, and English kings maintained ultimate authority over their households.

Anglo-Norman period (1066–1154)

After the Norman conquest the ducal household of Normandy appears to have been replicated in England and merged into the English court. The Anglo-Norman French term 'seneschal' came to be translated as 'steward' in English.

''Constitutio Domus Regis''

The Constitutio domus regis, dating from the end of the reign of King Henry I, provides the earliest surviving account of the household. The senior figures were:
The above six office-holders were paid five shillings per day; the chancellor received this invariably, but the others' pay was reduced on days when they ate in hall at the king's expense.
The office of chancellor was still comparatively new, but it appears from his remuneration that he held a degree of seniority within the household. The chancellor was a senior churchman and head of the Chapel; he also had custody of the great seal, used to validate documents issued in the king's name. Working under him were the master of the writing office, the chaplain keeper of the chapel and relics, and several clerks. The clerks drafted official documents and also served in the chapel, which saw to the king's spiritual needs: there they said mass, heard confessions, and kept custody of the royal relics. The chancellor's department was named after the screen which separated the clerks from the main body of the hall.
The seneschals and the butler between them provided food and drink for the king's hall. They oversaw various subsidiary officers who, although they received a lower wage, were far from being menial servants, as evidenced by the example of one Roger, who served as larderer to Henry I and was afterwards appointed Bishop of Hereford.
The chamber saw to the king's personal needs and was the main financial office of the government. It had two divisions: the royal bedchamber and the chamber of the court. The latter chamber handled the finances; albeit by this time the treasurer is named alongside the master chamberlain, serving as head of an emerging new department. Under the master chamberlain were lesser chamberlains and others, who undertook various practical duties.
The constables oversaw the outdoor staff and the familia militaris. The outdoor staff included huntsmen, houndsmen, and foresters. The military household were knights who received wages and formed the backbone of the army. Historian C. W. Hollister likened it to "something between a royal bodyguard and a small standing army."
Also listed is the master marshal. It is known from later references that the master marshal was responsible for preserving order within the verge of the king's court ; similarly, at time of war he had charge of military discipline. He also had financial duties: keeping a tally of certain household expenditures, and in wartime functioning as paymaster of the military. Assisting the master marshal were four other marshals.