ncil.

The Privy Council in England is a body of great importance. Its nature
and its functions are, of course, entirely different from those of the
two houses of Parliament. _They_ represent, or are intended to
represent, the nation. The Parliament is, in theory, the nation,
assembled at the king's command, to give him their advice. The Privy
Council, on the other hand, represents the king. It is the king's
Privy Council. They act in his name. They follow his directions when
he chooses to give any. Whatever they decide upon and decree, the king
signs--often, indeed, without any idea of its nature. Still he signs
it, and all such decrees go forth to the word as the king's orders in
council. The Privy Council, of course, would have its meetings, its
officers, its records, its rules of proceeding, and its various
usages, and these grew, in time, to be laws and rights; but still it
was, in theory, only a sort of expansion of the king, as if to make a
kind of artificial being, with one soul, but many heads and hands,
because no natural human being could possibly have capacities and
powers extensive and multifarious enough for the exigencies of
reigning. Charles thus had a council who took charge of every thing,
except so far as he chose to interpose. The members were generally
able and experienced men. And yet Buckingham was among them. He had
been made Lord High Admiral of England, which gave him supreme command
of the navy, and admitted him to the Privy Council. These were very
high honors.

This Privy Council now took the direction of public affairs, attended
to every thing, provided for all emergencies, and kept all the
complicated machinery of government in motion, without the necessity
of the king's having any personal agency in the matter. The king might
interpose, more or less, as he was inclined; and when he did
interpose, he sometimes found obstacles in the way of immediately
accomplishing his plans, in the forms or usages which had gradually
grown into laws.

For instance, when the king began his reign, he was very eager to have
the war for the recovery of the Palatinate go on at once; and he was,
besides, very much embarrassed for want of money. He wished,
therefore, in order to save time, that the old Parliament which King
James had called should continue to act under his reign. But his Privy
Council told him that that could not be. That was _James's_
Parliament. If he wanted one for his reign, he must call