424 ADVICE TO SIR GEORGE VILLIERS. 



there ; that would render it less esteemed when it 

 is become common : besides, it may sometimes make 

 the counsellors not be so free in their debates in his 

 presence as they would be in his absence. 



10. Besides the giving of counsel, the counsellors 

 are bound by their duties &quot; ex vi termini,&quot; as well as 

 by their oaths, to keep counsel ; therefore are they 

 called &quot; de privato consilio regis,&quot; and &quot; a secretiori- 

 bus consiliis regis.&quot; 



1 1 . One thing I add, in the negative, which is 

 not fit for that board, the entertaining of private 

 causes of &quot; meum et tuum ;&quot; those should be left to 

 the ordinary course and courts of justice. 



12. As there is great care to be used for the 

 counsellors themselves to be chosen, so there is of 

 the clerks of the council also, for the secreting of 

 their consultations : and methinks, it were fit that 

 his majesty be speedily moved to give a strict charge, 

 and to bind it with a solemn order, if it be not al 

 ready so done, that no copies of the orders of that 

 table be delivered out by the clerks of the council 

 but by the order of the board ; nor any, not being a 

 counsellor, or a clerk of the council, or his clerk, to 

 have access to the council books : and to that pur 

 pose, that the servants attending the clerks of the 

 council be bound to secrecy, as well as their masters. 



13. For the great offices and officers of the king 

 dom, I shall say little ; for the most part of them are 

 such as cannot well be severed from the counsellor- 

 ship ; and therefore the same rule is to be observed 

 for both, in the choice .of them. In the general, only, 



