Wardrobe (government)

The wardrobe, along with the chamber, made up the personal part of medieval English government known as the king's household. As a result, the wardrobe often appropriated large funds from the exchequer, the main financial government office. During the reign of Edward I, Edward II and Edward III, there were several conflicts over the confusion of authority between these two offices. The conflict was largely resolved in the mid-fourteenth century when William Edington, as treasurer under Edward III, brought the wardrobe in under the financial oversight – if not control – of the exchequer. In the sixteenth century the wardrobe lost much of its former importance. This was due both to the growing sophistication and size of government making it less mobile, and to the lower frequency of military campaigns led by the king in person.

There were in fact two wardrobes for a period - around 1300 the great wardrobe had split away from the more senior household wardrobe, which remained responsible for financing the king's personal expenditure and his military operations, but the two were reunited aroung 1360. The chief official went under the title of Master or Keeper of the Wardrobe. Under the keeper were lesser official such as the controller. Several keepers of the great wardrobe, such as future bishop John Buckingham, were promoted to the household wardrobe.

Keepers of the Household Wardrobe

• c1200: Robert of Braybrooke
• 1213–1215: Odo
• 1222–1232: Walter of Brackley (later Bishop of Ossory) (jointly)
• 1224–1231: Walter of Kirkham (later Bishop of Durham) (jointly)
• 1224–1227: Ranulph le Breton (jointly)
• 1232–1234: Peter de Rivaux
• 1234–1236: Walter of Kirkham
• 1236–1240: Geoffrey the Templar
• 1240–1241: Peter of Aigueblanche (later Bishop of Hereford) and William de Burgh
• 1241–1254: Peter Chaceporc
• 1255–1257: Artaud of Saint-Romain
• 1257–1258: Peter de Rivaux
• 1258–1261: Aubrey of Fecamp
• 1261–1261: Peter of Winchester
• 1261–1263: Henry of Ghent
• 1264–1265: Ralph Sandwich
• 1265–1268: Nicholas of Lewknor
• 1268–1272: Peter of Winchester
• 1272–1274: Philip Willoughby
• 1274–1274: Antony Bek (later Bishop of Durham)
• 1274–1280: Thomas Bek (later Bishop of St Davids)
• 1280–1285: William of Louth
• 1285–1287: Hamo de la Legh
• 1287: Roger de Lisle
• 1290–1295: Walter Langton
• 1322–1327: Roger Waltham
• 1328–1329: Richard Bury
• 1329–1331: Thomas Garton
• 1331–1334: Robert Tawton
• 1334–1337: Edmund Ferriby
• 1337–1338: Edmund de la Beche
• 1338–1340: William Norwell
• 1340–1341: William Cusance
• 1341–1344: William Edington
• 1344–1347: Walter Wetwang
• 1347–1349: Thomas Clopton
• 1349–1350: William Cusance
• 1350–1353: William de Retford
• 1353–1357: John Buckingham
• 1357–1358: William de Retford
• 1358–1359: Henry Walton
• 1359–1360: William Farley

Keepers or Masters of the Great Wardrobe

The Master of the Great Wardrobe was a position in the British Royal Household. The holders were responsible for running the confusingly-named Great Wardrobe, an office which provided clothing and textiles to the British Royal Family. Below is a list of known holders until the abolition of the office in 1782.

• 1295–1307: John Droxford ((1291–1295) Comptroller of the Wardrobe)
• 12??–1300: John Husthwaite
• 1300–1320: Ralph Stokes
• 1320: William Cusance
• 1321: Gilbert Wigton
• 1323: Thomas Ousefleet
• 1327–1329: Thomas Ousefleet
• 1329–1334: William de la Zouch (later Archbishop of Canterbury)
• 1334–1335: Edmund de la Beche
• 1335–1337: William Norwell
• 1337: John Charnels
• 1337: Thomas Cross
• 13??: Thomas de Brantingham, later Lord Treasurer on three occasions (1369–1371; 1377–1381; and 1389)
• 1349–1350: William de Retford (later made Baron of the Exchequer in 1354)
• 1350–1353: John Buckingham (later Bishop of Lincoln)
• 1353–1353: Robert Wingerworth
• 1353–1358: William Dalton
• 1359–1361: John Newbury
• 1360–1361: John Ferriby
• 1361–1371: Henry Snaith
• 1371–1376: John Sleaford
• 1376–1377: Walter Ralphs
• 1377–1390: Alan Stokes
• 1390–?1398: Richard Clifford
• 1398–1399: John de Macclesfield
• 1399: William Loveney
• 1412: Thomas Ringwood (later made High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1419)
• 144?: Sir John Norreys
• c1458–1460 John Wood
• 1460: Thomas Vaughan
• 1476–1478: Sir John Say
• 15??: Thomas Maynman (Keeper of the Wardrobe at East Greenwich)
• 1510–1511: Sir Andrew Wyndesore
• 1515: John Patey (Keeper of the Wardrobe at Richmond)
• 1545: Sir Ralph Sadleir
• 1563: Sir Hugh Underhill (Keeper of the Wardrobe at East Greenwich)
• 1603–1611: George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar
• 1613–1618: James Hay, 1st Earl of Carlisle
• 1619–1622: William Feilding, 1st Earl of Denbigh
• 1660: Sir Edward Montagu
• 1671: Sir Ralph Montagu
• 1685: Richard Graham, 1st Viscount Preston
• 1688: Brig. Gen. Sir James Douglas-Hamilton , Earl of Arran
• 1689: Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu
• 1709: John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu
• 1749: Sir Thomas Robinson
• 1754: William Barrington, 2nd Viscount Barrington
• 1755: Sir Thomas Robinson
• 1760: Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Gower
• 1763: Francis Dashwood, 15th Baron le Despencer
• 1765: John Ashburnham, 2nd Earl of Ashburnham
• 1775: Thomas Pelham, 2nd Baron Pelham of Stanmer

Deputy Masters of the Great Wardrobe

The Deputy Master of the Great Wardrobe was a position in the British Royal Household, the chief subordinate to the Master of the Great Wardrobe. Holders enjoyed a salary of £200 (fixed in 1674), reduced to £150 in 1761. The post seems to have developed into a sinecure, and by 1765, the office of Assistant to the Deputy Master had become established. The post was abolished with the other offices of the Great Wardrobe in 1782.

• 1660: Thomas Townshend
• 1680: Robert Nott
• 1685: Thomas Robson
• 1689: Robert Nott
• 1695: Charles Bland
• bef. 1707: Thomas Dummer
• 1750: William Robinson
• 1754: Hon. Daines Barrington
• 1756: Sir William Robinson, Bt
• 1760: Thomas Gilbert
• 1763: Paul Whitehead
• 1765–1782: William Ashburnham

See also

• Richard of Pudlicott, burgled the king's wardrobe in 1303.

Bibliography

• Database of Court Officers
• Steel, Anthony Bedford (1954), The receipt of the Exchequer, 1377-1485, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Tout, T. F. (1920–33). Chapters in the Administrative History of Mediaeval England: the Wardrobe, the Chamber and the Small Seals, 6 vol. Manchester: Manchester University Press.