ABSTRACT
The post of Master of the Court of Wards was one which, throughout its history, attracted to its service the greatest men in England. It was often combined with, or led to, the Lord Treasurership and it tended to go to a privy councillor who enjoyed the special confidence of the monarch, for the Master played a dual part in the life and government of Elizabethan society. In the intimate business of appointing a guardian, his decisions, given out on the queen’s behalf, would be taken as a measure of Tudor paternalism and show to the world how seriously the queen took her duties towards the orphans whom the accidents of land tenure had confided to her care. A failure on the Master’s part to fulfil his obligations would confirm the judgement of the critics that the Court of Wards was a squalid organ for profiting from the misfortunes of the helpless.
