Privy Chamber

A Privy chamber was the private apartment of a royal residence in England. The gentlemen of the Privy chamber were servants to the Crown who would wait and attend on the King and Queen at court during their various activities, functions and entertainments.

Six of these gentlemen were appointed by the Lord Chamberlain, together with a peer, and the Master of the Ceremonies, to publicly attend to all foreign ambassadors. Their institution was owed to King Henry VII. As a singular mark of favour, they were empowered to execute the King's verbal command without producing any written order; their person and character being deemed sufficient authority.

The Privy chamber was the most influential department in an English royal household. It contained the king's 'privy lodging,' consisting of bedroom, library, study, and lavatory. What was known as the Chamber was later divided into a Privy chamber (distinguished from bedchamber in 1559), and outer chamber (often styled Presence chamber), and the Great Hall.

"While entry to the Presence Chamber was strongly contested by many, the key to real influence lay in access to the Privy Chamber." In fact, maintaining verbal contact with the King effectively required access to and control of the King's private lodgings; in other words, the Privy chamber.

Originating in Henry VII's reign (1485–1509), the Privy chamber, by the time his son Henry VIII had ascended the throne, had become quite institutionalized, with a regular staff of its own, such as gentlemen, ushers, grooms, and pages. The Privy chamber developed further under the reign of Henry VIII, through a winding process of reform and reorganization, particularly from 1518 to 1536.

The Gentlemen who dominated the Privy chamber were servants of the Crown and usually "shared two characteristics: the King's religion and the King's personal favour." Apart from playing an "increasingly important role in the handling of the crown's cash," the Privy chamber also played a military role, providing an "army-within-an-army." Often, the gentlemen in the Privy Chamber were peers of Henry or figures of importance in the government, who shared their duties with the Groom of the Stool and the Chief Gentleman of the Chamber, with overall responsibility for all staff. These people usually organized hunting expeditions, in King Henry’s case, or games, in the case of the boy King Edward VI who succeeded him, as a form of entertainment and as a way to create time for bonding.

The duties of the gentlemen of the Privy chamber or "gentlemen weyters" (later these gentlemen waiters would belong to the chamber) were required to "dilligently attend upon... [the king's] person... doeing humble, reverent, secrett and lowly service". In other words, this service consisted primarily in giving company to the sovereign and in dressing and undressing him, although they performed a variety of chores.

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