236 WRIGHT— POSITION OF FOREIGN RELATIONS 



entirely conducted by the courts and the justices of the peace.^^ 

 Not until the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did the great 

 ministries for dpmestic administration develop,^^ and not until this 



25 The English Government has been undergoing continuous functional 

 differentiation throughout its history. Locke and Montesquieu caught the 

 process at a particular time and crystallized it in the theory of separation of 

 powers. In the period of the Norman and Angevin kings the functions of 

 government were: (i) Military, controlled by the king under restrictions of 

 feudal and customary law, and naval, exercised at first through the Cinque 

 ports with their Warden, and later delegated to the Lord High Admiral; (2) 

 Financial, in which the Crown was gradually forced to rely on parliamentary 

 grants, merely retaining control of the administrative machinery for collecting 

 and disbursing, exercised through the Justiciar later supplanted by the Treas- 

 urer and through the Exchequer with its chancellor; (3) Judicial, in which 

 the Crown delegated authority to the central courts of Common Pleas, King's 

 Bench and Exchequer, which, though appointed by the Crown, tended to ac- 

 quire an independence from its control. A certain residuum of judicial 

 power, however, remained on the one hand in the House of Lords and on 

 the other in the Crown, who exercised it through the Lord Chancellor and 

 the Privy Council. 



As time went on, relations of a peaceful kind with foreign nations were 

 established and the making of treaties and sending and receiving of diplo- 

 matic officers were added to the military functions of the Crown. These 

 were conducted by the Secretary of State. Parliament soon began to 

 insist that, in exchange for its grants of money, the King should reform 

 abuses, first requested by petition, but tending to assume the form of definite 

 bills. Thus in addition to taxation. Parliament acquired the function of 

 legislation. As population increased and the problems of local administration 

 became more complex, the courts, and especially the Justices of the Peace, 

 added to their judicial functions much of an administrative character. Thus 

 by the time of the Revolution of 1688 the functions of government were dis- 

 tributed among three fairly distinct departments. The Crown controlled mili- 

 tary, naval and foreign affairs, the administration of finances and power of 

 appointment. Parliament controlled the raising and appropriation of revenue 

 and the enactment of general laws. The Courts and Justices of the Peace 

 administered criminal and civil laws and performed practically all functions 

 of domestic administration, except finance. This division of power was de- 

 scribed by John Locke, taken from him by Montesquieu and Blackstone and ' 

 from them by the American Constitutional Fathers. (See Medley, English 

 Constitutional History, 2d ed., pp. 112, 231, 367, 392.) 



26 Before 1782 the important ministerial offices were Lord Chancellor, 

 Lord High Admiral in Commission, Secretary at War, two Secretaries of 

 State, one each for northern and southern Europe, Lord Treasurer in Commis- 

 sion, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Board of Trade. None of these really 

 concerned domestic administration except finances. The Secretary of State 

 for Home Affairs was created in 1782; Board of Works and Public Build- 



