In the United Kingdom, the Accession Council is a ceremonial body which assembles in St. James's Palace upon the death of a monarch (Demise of the Crown), to make a formal proclamation of the accession of his or her successor to the throne, and to receive a religious oath from the new monarch. However, the proclamation has no legal force, as the succession will have automatically passed to the new monarch under the terms of the Act of Settlement 1701.
The Council is made up of Privy Counsellors, members of the House of Lords, the Lord Mayor of the City of London, the Aldermen of the City of London and the High Commissioners of some Commonwealth countries.
Read more about Accession Council: Proclamation, Religious Oath, The King Is Dead. Long Live The King!
Famous quotes containing the word council:
“Daughter to that good Earl, once President
Of England’s Council and her Treasury,
Who lived in both, unstain’d with gold or fee,
And left them both, more in himself content.
Till the sad breaking of that Parliament
Broke him, as that dishonest victory
At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty,
Kill’d with report that old man eloquent;—”
—John Milton (1608–1674)