Privy Council of England

The Privy Council of England, also known as His (or Her) Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council
(Latin: concilium familiare, concilium privatum et assiduum[1][2]), was a body of advisers to the sovereign
of the Kingdom of England. Its members were often senior members of the House of Lords and the House
of Commons, together with leading churchmen, judges, diplomats and military leaders.

The Privy Council of England was a powerful institution, advising the Sovereign on the exercise of the
Royal prerogative and on the granting of Royal charters. It issued executive orders known as Orders in
Council and also had judicial functions.

Contents
History
Origin of name
Membership
Other councils
See also
Notes
References

History
During the reigns of the Norman monarchs, the English Crown was advised by a royal court, which
consisted of magnates, clergy and officers of the Crown. This body originally concerned itself with advising
the Sovereign on legislation, administration and justice.[3] Later, different bodies assuming distinct functions
evolved from the court. The courts of law took over the business of dispensing justice, while Parliament
became the supreme legislature of the kingdom.[4] Nevertheless, the Council retained the power to hear
legal disputes, either in the first instance or on appeal.[5] Furthermore, laws made by the Sovereign on the
advice of the Council, rather than on the advice of Parliament, were accepted as valid.[6]

Powerful Sovereigns often used the body to circumvent the courts and Parliament.[6] For example, a
committee of the Council — which later became the Court of the Star Chamber — was during the fifteenth
century permitted to inflict any punishment except death, without being bound by normal court procedure.[7]
During Henry VIII's reign, the Sovereign, on the advice of the Council, was allowed to enact laws by mere
proclamation. The legislative pre-eminence of Parliament was not restored until after Henry VIII's death.[8]
Though the royal Council retained legislative and judicial responsibilities, it became a primarily
administrative body.[9] The Council consisted of forty members in 1553,[10] but the Sovereign relied on a
smaller committee, which later evolved into the modern Cabinet.

The Council developed significantly during the reign of Elizabeth I, gaining political experience, so that
there were real differences between the Privy Council of the 1560s and that of the 1600s.[11]
By the end of the English Civil War, the monarchy, House of Lords and Privy Council had been abolished.
The remaining house of Parliament, the House of Commons, instituted a Council of State to execute laws
and to direct administrative policy. The forty-one members of the Council were elected by the Commons;
the body was headed by Oliver Cromwell, the de facto military dictator of the nation. In 1653, however,
Cromwell became Lord Protector, and the Council was reduced to between thirteen and twenty-one
members, all elected by the Commons. In 1657, the Commons granted Cromwell even greater powers, some
of which were reminiscent of those enjoyed by monarchs. The Council became known as the Protector's
Privy Council; its members were appointed by the Lord Protector, subject to Parliament's approval.[12]

In 1659, shortly before the restoration of the monarchy, the Protector's Council was abolished.[13] Charles II
restored the royal Privy Council, but he, like previous Stuart monarchs, chose to rely on a small committee
of advisers.[14]

The Acts of Union 1707 united England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain, replacing the Privy
Councils of both countries with a single body, the Privy Council of the United Kingdom.

Origin of name
According to the Oxford dictionary the definition of the word "privy" in Privy Council is an obsolete one
meaning "Of or pertaining exclusively to a particular person or persons; one's own",[15] insofar as the
Council is personal to the Sovereign.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, the Council is recorded under the title "The Queens Majesties Most
Honourable Privy-Council".[16]

Membership
The Sovereign, when acting on the Council's advice, was known as the "King-in-Council" or "Queen-in-
Council". The members of the Council were collectively known as "The Lords of His [or Her] Majesty's
Most Honourable Privy Council", or sometimes "The Lords and others of ..."). The chief officer of the body
was the Lord President of the Council, one of the Great Officers of State.[17] Another important official was
the Clerk, whose signature was appended to all orders made.

Membership was generally for life, although the death of a monarch brought an immediate dissolution of the
Council, as all Crown appointments automatically lapsed.[18]

Other councils
The Privy Council of England was one of the four principal councils of the Sovereign. The other three were
the courts of law, the Commune Concilium (Common Council, or Parliament of England) and the Magnum
Concilium (Great Council, or the assembly of all the Peers of the Realm). None of these was ever formally
abolished, but the Magnum Concilium was not summoned after 1640 and was already considered obsolete
then.[19]

The Privy Council of Scotland continued in existence along with the Privy Council of England for more
than a hundred years after the Union of the Crowns. In 1708, one year after the Treaty and Acts of Union of
1707, it was abolished by the Parliament of Great Britain and thereafter there was one Privy Council of
Great Britain sitting in London.[20][21][22] Nevertheless, long after the Act of Union 1800 the Kingdom of
Ireland retained the Privy Council of Ireland, which came to an end only in 1922, when Southern Ireland
separated from the United Kingdom, to be succeeded by the Privy Council of Northern Ireland.[23]
See also
List of Privy Counsellors (1679–1714)
List of Royal members of the Privy Council
Historical lists of Privy Counsellors
Privy Council of Ireland

Notes
1. Macqueen, John Fraser (July 12, 1842). "A Practical Treatise on the Appellate Jurisdiction of
the House of Lords & Privy Council: Together with The Practice on Parliamentary Divorce" (htt
ps://books.google.ie/books?id=m240AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA673&lpg=PA673&dq=concilium+privatu
m&source=bl&ots=LyEycbiTMZ&sig=ACfU3U0QByXIPSP2YiViyFtARQmuject7g&hl=en&sa=X
&ved=2ahUKEwimmPeKwK_jAhVhqnEKHeycAMsQ6AEwAXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=con
cilium++&f=false). A. Maxwell & Son – via Google Books.
2. Takayama, Hiroshi (March 22, 2019). "Sicily and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages" (http
s://books.google.ie/books?id=jy6ODwAAQBAJ&pg=PT51&dq=%22concilium+familiare%22&hl
=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiM7oj5wK_jAhVIfMAKHTtTBlsQ6AEILTAA#v=onepage&q=%22con
cilium+familiare%22&f=false). Routledge – via Google Books.
3. Dicey 1860, pp. 6-7.
4. Dicey 1860, p. 24.
5. Dicey 1860, pp. 12-14.
6. Gay & Rees 2005, p. 2.
7. Maitland 1911, pp. 262-263.
8. Maitland 1911, p. 253.
9. Goodnow 1897, p. 123.
10. Maitland 1911, p. 256.
11. Alford 2002, p. 209.
12. Plant 2007, 1657.
13. Plant 2007, 1659-60.
14. Warshaw 1996, p. 7.
15. Weiner & Simpson 1991, 'Privy Council'.
16. D'Ewes & Bowes 1682, p. 213.
17. Cox 1854, p. 388.
18. Blackstone 1838, p. 176.
19. Blackstone 1838, Ch 5.
20. "Privy Council Records" (https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/privy-council-records).
National Records of Scotland. Retrieved 8 January 2017.
21. O'Gorman 2016, p. 65.
22. Black 1993, p. 13.
23. Rayment 2008, Ireland.

References
Alford, Stephen (2002). The Early Elizabethan oks.google.com/books?id=ReNsCrjYlRc
Polity: William Cecil and the British C). Cambridge University Press.
Succession Crisis, 1558-1569 (https://bo ISBN 978-0-521-89285-8.
Black, Jeremy (1993). The politics of Britain,
1688-1800 (https://books.google.co.uk/b
ooks?id=qX_W1O6XatwC&lpg=PA13&p
g=PA13#v=onepage&f=false).
Manchester University Press. p. 13.
ISBN 0719037611.
Blackstone, William (1838). Commentaries on
the Laws of England. Vol I. New York:
W. E. Dean.
Cox, H (1854). The British Commonwealth, Or,
A Commentary on the Institutions and
Principles of British Government (https://
archive.org/details/britishcommonwe00c
oxgoog). London: Longman, Brown,
Green, and Longmans. p. 389 (https://ar
chive.org/details/britishcommonwe00cox
goog/page/n419).
D'Ewes, Sir Simonds; Bowes, Paul (1682). The
Journals of All the Parliaments During
the Reign of Queen Elizabeth: Both of
the House of Lords and House of
Commons (https://books.google.com/bo
oks?id=vA1DAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA213).
John Starkey at the Mitre in Fleetstreet
near Temple-Bar.
Dicey, Albert Venn (1860). The Privy Council:
The Arnold Prize Essay, 1860 (https://bo
oks.google.com/books?id=d7Y_AAAAYA
AJ). Oxford: T. and G. Shrimpton.
Gay, O.; Rees, A. (2005). "The Privy Council" (h
ttp://www.parliament.uk/documents/com
mons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-3708.p
df) (pdf). House of Commons Library
Standard Note. SN/PC/2708. Retrieved
13 May 2010.
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this
site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
Goodnow, F (1897). Comparative
Administrative Law: an Analysis of the
Administrative Systems, National and
Local, of the United States, England,
France and Germany (https://books.goo
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