CHAMBER, THE KING'S, the camera regis, was, in the later middle ages, an important financial office. In origin it was the king's bedroom, with cupboards and chests for clothes and valuables. The servants in charge of this room, the king's cham berlains as they were called (see CHAMBERLAIN), were in such close touch with the king that they were often consulted and employed by him on matters not strictly within their province. Thus, the king's chamber was, from the beginning, something more than mere sleeping-quarters. It was an office where the king at tended to private and public business alike, the greater part of which related to finance, and a storehouse for jewels, money and archives. From it, the first department to grow up within the royal household (q.v.), there sprang many mediaeval and mod ern ministries of State. Not only in England but throughout western Europe kings and magnates had their chamber, the cham bre des comptes of the kings of France and the camera apostolica of the Popes being cases in point.
In England the reconstruction following on the Norman Con quest provided the monarchy with a regular income from taxation, the collection and administration of which threw upon the cham ber so much extra work that it became concerned primarily with finance. A hierarchy of clerical and lay officials came into being to assist the original staff. But, whereas in Europe generally, for example in the papacy and in France, the camera curiae, the chamber of the court, was the sole treasury of the State, in Eng land by the 12th century, the king's chamber had developed a branch to deal with the finances of the kingdom as opposed to the more personal finances of the king. This was the exchequer (q.v.), the first department of the household to become a public office. It soon superseded the chamber, which then found itself once more a simple domestic and court office, although certain moneys continued to be paid to it rather than to the exchequer. The activities of the chamber were curtailed still further in the 13th century by the growth of a second off-shoot, the king's wardrobe (see WARDROBE), by which it was ultimately replaced as the chief financial and administrative office of the household. Yet the chamber persisted, responsible to the king alone and overlapping the jurisdiction of both exchequer and wardrobe. Though its former power had been whittled down to authority over only the intimate financial needs of the king, there were several attempts to give it a foremost position in administration. Some of them, especially those of Edward II., Edward III. and Henry VII., achieved considerable success.
Faced by a hostile baronage which sometimes dominated the chief public offices and interfered in the government of the royal household, Edward II. turned to the chamber to secure inde pendence of aristocracy, parliament and exchequer. To finance it adequately he allotted to it the management and income of certain lands which fell into his hands. The forfeited estates of the Tem plars (q.v.) were the first large block of lands to be brought under the authority of the chamber (13o9). In 1322 the confiscation of the possessions of certain rebellious magnates, known as the "contrariants," put into Edward's power many more lands, which were soon reserved to the chamber, although only for a few months. The chamber staff was increased to discharge the duties involved in the care of an estate, and the secret seal fostered by Edward II. in opposition to the privy seal (see SMALL SEALS), which the barons strove to control, was entrusted to it. In the schemes of the younger Hugh Despenser, made king's chamberlain in 1322, the chamber played a leading part, but its progress was checked by Edward II.'s deposition, and its lands transferred to the exchequer.
In 1332 Edward III. revived the chamber on the lines indicated by Despenser, and gradually placed a large number of lands at its disposal. A special seal, the griffin (see SMALL SEALS), was set up for their service and the regular staff was again augmented. Edward III.'s need, however, differed from that of his father. Instead of an alienated baronage to contend with, Edward III. had a foreign enemy, France, against whom all parties were united. Consequently he had less inducement to cultivate the chamber for purely prerogative purposes. His chamber seems to have met little unfriendly criticism, and, in the first phase of the Hundred Years' War, had a fair opportunity of proving its worth. During the early campaigns, its chief officers took a conspicuous share in administration at home as well as with the armies abroad. But the estate upon which it largely relied disappointed expectations, most of the proceeds being swallowed up by the costs of its administration. Without considerable funds the chamber was crippled. In 1355-56, therefore, the estate was given up, and for it an annual sum of 1 o,000 marks 46,666. 13s.4d.) payable by the exchequer, was substituted. This, the certum (fixed amount), was supplemented, as before the estate revenue had been, by casual receipts from the exchequer and elsewhere. Although the chamber was still answerable only to the king, its utility as an instrument of prerogative was diminished by this close dependence upon the exchequer. A further limitation was its total lack of skilfully devised, well-tried machinery to enforce its authority, for the griffin seal and the organization set up to administer the lands disappeared along with the estate. If, for the rest of Ed ward III.'s reign, the chamber occupied a recognized, amply en dowed place in the administration, it was definitely subordinated to the exchequer. It was the royal privy purse, and a means whereby the king's will could be communicated to other depart ments, but little more.
On the accession of Richard II., a child with few personal ex penses, the king's chamber suffered a natural relapse. When, in 138o, it was restored to something of its old dignity, the policy of 1355-56 was adopted, and a yearly allowance was granted to it, first from the customs, then, two years later, from the exchequer. On this certum, at most not more than two-thirds of that en joyed under Edward III., the chamber was mainly dependent to the end of the 14th century, though in some years large casual payments were received. Such an office was valueless to a des potically minded king, and Richard II. seems never to have thought of making it a chief instrument of his prerogative. Yet chamber officials figured prominently among his confidants, and it was in his reign that the office of king's secretary (see SECRE TARY OF STATE) assumed definite shape, the final result being the withdrawal from the chamber of the secretary and his seal, the signet (see SMALL SEALS), the successor to the secret seal.
Of chamber history in the greater part of the 15th century little is known, but the office lived on. Then, in the restoration of financial stability after the Wars of the Roses (q.v.), Henry VII. advanced it to a position of supreme importance. Although he began to put the exchequer into working order, he wanted some less rigid, less elaborate machinery to supply him at once with the steady income necessary to strengthen Government and throne. Like Edward II. and Edward III. he had recourse to the chamber as the most suitable instrument and one that was, be sides, entirely in his control. Forfeited estates and Crown lands were once again reserved to it, and other moneys were paid to it instead of to the exchequer. A new staff grew up, and to the daily labours of the regenerated office the king gave constant oversight. Unlike the Edwards, Henry was able to make the chamber ef fective, for, although he too diverted to the chamber revenues ordinarily paid and accounted for to the exchequer, and imposed upon it functions technically belonging to the exchequer, the ex chequer's extreme weakness, due to civil war, prevented remon strance from that quarter.
Soon after the death of Henry VII., however, the exchequer, grown stronger, tried to insist that issues formerly paid to it, and accounts customarily rendered to it for audit, should still follow those rules, and not go to the chamber. In reply to this claim Henry VIII. induced parliament to recognize his father's system. Thus the chamber, already possessing wider influence than in the 14th century, seemed well on the way to recapturing its original position in the State. But Henry VIII., hard-working as he was, attended less to the routine of government than Henry VII., and the exchequer slowly deprived the chamber of all its newly given power. When the exchequer had recovered from the effects of the Wars of the Roses, not even Henry VIII. himself could maintain for the chamber the supremacy won under the guidance of Henry VII. Yet it was not until Mary's reign that the exchequer regained its traditional status, and then it was an exchequer changed at heart. Although many of the old forms were kept, with them were incorporated some of the more effi cient methods of the chamber. Dependent upon the sovereign for existence, from the end of the 13th century the chamber's rise and fall was chiefly determined by the weakness or strength of the exchequer. By taking over the best the chamber had to offer, the exchequer rendered it harmless for all time. There was no subsequent attempt to revive the administrative work of that department, and only a memory of past glory is preserved in the office of the modern lord chamberlain (q.v.).
BIBLIOGRAPHY. See T. F. Tout, The Place of the Reign of Edward Bibliography. See T. F. Tout, The Place of the Reign of Edward II. in English History (1914, bibl.) ; A. P. Newton, "The King's Chamber, under the Early Tudors," English Historical Review, xxxii. (1917) ; T. F. Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Mediaeval England (vols. i.—ii., 192o, vols. iii.—iv., 1928, vol. v. in preparation) . (D. M. B.)