Fifteen of the members of this new council were to be great officers of State. The other fifteen were to be independent noblemen and gentlemen of the greatest weight in the country. In appointing them particular regard was to be had to the amount of their property. The whole annual income of the counsellors was estimated at 300,000l. The annual income of all the members of the House of Commons was not supposed to exceed 400,000l. The appointment of wealthy counsellors Temple describes as “a chief regard, necessary to this constitution.” This plan was the subject of frequent conversation between the King and Temple. After a month passed in discussions to which no third person appears to have been privy Charles declared himself satisfied of the expediency of the proposed measure, and resolved to carry it into effect. It is much to be regretted that Temple has left us no account of these conferences. Historians have, {65}therefore, been left to form their own conjectures as to the object of this very extraordinary plan, “this Constitution,” as Temple himself calls it. And we cannot say that any explanation which has yet been given seems to us quite satisfactory. Indeed, almost all the writers whom we have consulted appear to consider the change as merely a change of administration, and so considering it, they generally applaud it. Mr. Courtenay, who has evidently examined this subject with more attention than has often been bestowed upon it, seems to think Temple’s scheme very strange, unintelligible, and absurd. It is with very great diffidence that we offer our own solution of what we have always thought one of the great riddles of English history. We are strongly inclined to suspect that the appointment of the new Privy Council was really a much more remarkable event than has generally been supposed, and that what Temple had in view was to effect, under colour of a change of administration, a permanent change in the Constitution.