Privy Council
Until 1707, The Privy Council met in what is now the West Drawing Room at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. By the early modern era the Privy Council was a full-time body and critical to the smooth running of government. Its primary function was judicial, but it also acted as a body of advisers to the king and as a result its secondary function was as an executive in the absence or minority of the monarchy. After James VI departure to England in 1603, it functioned as a subservient executive carrying out his instructions from London. Although the theoretical membership of the council was relatively large, at around thirty persons, most of the business was carried out by an informal inner group consisting mainly of the officers of state. After the Restoration, Charles II nominated his own privy councillors and set up a council in London through which he directed affairs in Edinburgh, a situation that continued after the Glorious Revolution of 1688–9. The council was abolished after the Act of Union on 1 May 1708.
Read more about this topic: Scotland In The Early Modern Era, Government
Famous quotes containing the words privy and/or council:
“Before me you are a slug in the sun. You are privy to a great becoming and you recognize nothing. You are an ant in the afterbirth. It is in your nature to do one thing correctly: tremble.”
—Michael Mann, U.S. screenwriter. Frances Dollarhyde, aka “The Tooth Fairy” (Tom Noonan)
“There by some wrinkled stones round a leafless tree
With beards askew, their eyes dull and wild
Twelve ragged men, the council of charity
Wandering the face of the earth a fatherless child....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)