“The Court of the King's Wards” was established by statute of 32 Henry VIII, cap. 46; the office of the Liveries was annexed to it by the statute of 33 Henry VIII, cap. 22, whence it was known as the Court of Wards and Liveries. It was abolished by vote of Parliament, February 24, 1645–46, confirmed by 12 Charles II, cap. 24, when all tenures by knights' service and in capite were converted into free and common socage.

Wardship was an essential element of feudal tenure. The feudal lord owed to his vassal protection, justice, assistance; the vassal, for his part, was in the position of a hereditary official of the lord, bound to administer the fief in such wise that from its income he could render the lord military or other service according to need and custom. If accident of succession brought the inheritance to one reckoned incapable of giving such service because of tender age or mental defect, the lord had the right to take over the care of ward and fief during the period of incapacity. After making provision for the proper maintenance of the ward, he appropriated the surplus income to his own use. When the ward came to the required age, he might sue out his writ for livery (possession), whence “Liveries” in the title of the court. The Court of Wards and Liveries, then, had the charge and administration, in accordance with the above principles, of all heirs who held directly (in capite) from the king and of their properties. In practice the “wardship of the body” and “lease of the lands” were assigned, together or separately, on the payment of fees, to one or more persons, often, but not necessarily, kin of the ward. The following pages illustrate the types of legal questions that came before the court, and to some extent, its procedure.

The officers of the court, as established by Parliament, were master of the wards, surveyor, attorney, receiver-general, and auditors. These together were the judges of the court. There were also one or more clerks; 2while the master was directed to appoint “all and singular particular Receivers, Feodaries, and Surveyors in every Shire.” The master also exercised the power, as appears from Vol. I. 340, of appointing the attorneys who were permitted to conduct cases in the court. Winthrop was given one of these attorneyships January 20, 1626–27, or within a very few days thereafter (Vol. I. 340). Between June 18 and 20, 1629, he writes, “My Office is gone, and my chamber, and I shalbe a sauer in them both.” He thus served about two and a half years. There appear to have been but three of these positions in his time, the other two being filled by Emmanuel Downing, Winthrop's brother-in-law, and John Pickarell (1596–1646), a Norfolk man, educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn.

Winthrop's “Notebook,” or collection of papers and memoranda relating to this court, is now in the British Museum, Additional MS. 35, 124. This collection is referred to by Robert Charles Winthrop, L. and L. , I. 217. Robert Charles Winthrop, Jr., in our Proceedings for 1898 (XXXII. 146), speaks of his recent gift of these papers to the British Museum. They had been “laid aside,” he says, “as of no importance and difficult to decipher. On examination, however, by officials of the Public Record Office and other experts, it appears that they possess some local and genealogical value, besides throwing, here and there, additional light upon English customs in the early Stuart period.” The “Notebook” comprises four main parts. First (fos. 1–8), matter relating to early cases, 1622–26, and schedules of charges. Secondly (fos. 9–14), a docket of cases, beginning January 26 of Hilary term, 1626–27, and extending into Hilary term of the next year. At the top of fo. 15 the list originally was continued: “paid. Pake ad s. Lucas, paid. Lattie v. Wright”; then Winthrop, we may suppose, decided upon some change in his book-keeping, for he crossed out the two items and went on, thirdly (fos. 15–19), with a series of cases where the charges are given in detail. Fourthly and finally (fos. 20–29), we have miscellaneous documents relating to some of Winthrop's later cases.

The surviving papers of the Court of Wards are kept in the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane. Some account of them is given in the Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth Reports (1843–47) of the Deputy-Keeper of the Public Records. The most helpful for the chronology and details of Winthrop's labors as attorney are the Order Books, which are not complete for this period, although the catalogues printed and in use convey no hint of the fact: 541 ends September 21, 1626; 542 extends from August 17, 1627, to March 20, 1628, the pages being numbered 1011–1556; 543 begins April 30, 1628, and 3ends April 14, 1629, having 935 pages; 544 runs from April 14, 1630, to April 26, 1631. Thus the first three and the last two of Winthrop's eleven terms as attorney are not covered, while his own docket of cases, as we have seen, extends only into his fifth term, and the cases of later date separately entered in the “Notebook” are few in number. Still, the sources are in a measure complementary. Each supplies gaps in the others, and casts light on the parts which remain.

If, in Winthrop's day, it were no longer true that an English gentleman learned law as he learned sword-play, one in John Winthrop's position needed some knowledge of the law for his manorial and magisterial duties. Cotton Mather states that Winthrop was made a justice of the peace at the unusually early age of eighteen. But according to Adam Winthrop's diary it was on October 25, 1609, when John Winthrop was twenty-one years old, that he “kept his first Court at Groton Hall where a Recouery was sued against Ed. Robertson” (I. 103). He was admitted to Gray's Inn on October 25, 1613, in the same year when he acquired “freedome from a superior will and liberall maintenance” by the death of his wife's father (I. 168). It is curious that among the remaining family papers no reference to Winthrop's connection with Gray's Inn has yet been found. Doubtless his legal training was derived largely from his father's instruction, private study, and practical experience at the bench and bar.

We have sought to annotate the “Notebook” in such manner as to elucidate Winthrop's work as a lawyer, and to identify his clients and associates in the court; in other words, to show the kinds of people and sorts of questions with which he had to deal. In a booklet, John Winthrop as Attorney (Cambridge, Mass., 1930), Mr. Robinson has printed passages in the Order Books referring to Winthrop, for which place could not be found in the footnotes of the present volume.

Hilary term began January 23 and ended February 12; Easter term began on Wednesday, seventeen days after Easter, and ended twenty-six days later, on Monday following Ascension Day; Trinity term began on Friday following Trinity Sunday, and, being nineteen days in length, ended Wednesday fortnight after; Michaelmas term began October 9 and ended November 28. During the years from 1623 to 1630 inclusive, Easter fell successively on April 13, March 28, April 17, April 9, March 25, April 13, April 5, March 28. In 1625 January 23 and October 9 were Sundays, hence term began on the following day.