Counsellor of State - History

History

The first Counsellors of State were created in 1911 by an Order in Council of George V, and this process was repeated on each occasion of the King's absence or incapacity. The Regency Act 1937 established in law those individuals that could serve as Counsellors of State. The Counsellors of State are the consort of the monarch and the first four people in the line of succession who meet the qualifications. These qualifications are the same as those for a regent: they must be at least 21 years old (except the heir-apparent or presumptive, who need only be 18 years old), they must be domiciled in the United Kingdom, and they must be a British subject. One exception was made for Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother (see below).

Since the passage of the Regency Act 1937, the only person to have been a Counsellor of State while not a queen consort, prince or princess was The Earl of Harewood (although Princess Maud of Fife, who served as a Counsellor of State between 1942 and 1945, styled herself simply Lady Southesk); prior to that the Lord Chancellor, the Lord President of the Council, the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury had been appointed to the position by George V.

Read more about this topic:  Counsellor Of State

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
    —Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)

    “At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
    —Derek Wall (b. 1965)

    “Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
    —Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)