.l8 ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



should be mainly under the control of the council, the main- 

 spring of the central government/ What the privy council 

 of the Tudors " and of the Stuarts attempted to do in rela- 

 tion to the justices of the peace and the enforcement of the 

 poor law,^ is what Edward's council, though of course less 

 systematically, was attempting to do in relation to the jus- 

 tices of labourers and to the statutes which these justices 

 were appointed to enforce. 



^ Mr. J. F. Baldwin has become the authority on the king's council 

 for this early period; see his articles listed in my bibliography. His 

 conception of the council as " a power working with great persistency 

 in legislation and administration, which it would be no exaggeration to 

 call the mainspring of the government" (article in A. H. R., xi, 15), 

 is fully borne out by the traces of its activity in relation to the labour 

 legislation. 



^ Beard, Justice of the Peace, chs. 4 and 5. 



^Leonard, Early Hist, of Eng. Poor Relief, passim. 



