1.
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
–
Her Majestys Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its membership mainly comprises senior politicians, who are present or former members of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords, the Council also holds the delegated authority to issue Orders of Council, mostly used to regulate certain public institutions. The Council advises the sovereign on the issuing of Royal Charters, which are used to grant special status to incorporated bodies, otherwise, the Privy Councils powers have now been largely replaced by the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. The Judicial Committee consists of judges appointed as Privy Counsellors, predominantly Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The Privy Council of the United Kingdom was preceded by the Privy Council of Scotland, the key events in the formation of the modern Privy Council are given below, Witenagemot was an early equivalent to the Privy Council of England. During the reigns of the Norman monarchs, the English Crown was advised by a court or curia regis. The body originally concerned itself with advising the sovereign on legislation, administration, later, different bodies assuming distinct functions evolved from the court. The courts of law took over the business of dispensing justice, nevertheless, the Council retained the power to hear legal disputes, either in the first instance or on appeal. Furthermore, laws made by the sovereign on the advice of the Council, powerful sovereigns often used the body to circumvent the Courts and Parliament. During Henry VIIIs 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 VIIIs death. Though the royal Council retained legislative and judicial responsibilities, it became an administrative body. The Council consisted of forty members in 1553, but the sovereign relied on a smaller committee, by the end of the English Civil War, the monarchy, House of Lords, and Privy Council had been abolished. The remaining parliamentary chamber, the House of Commons, instituted a Council of State to execute laws, the forty-one members of the Council were elected by the House of Commons, the body was headed by Oliver Cromwell, de facto military dictator of the nation. In 1653, however, Cromwell became Lord Protector, and the Council was reduced to 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 Protectors Privy Council, its members were appointed by the Lord Protector, subject to Parliaments approval. In 1659, shortly before the restoration of the monarchy, the Protectors Council was abolished, Charles II restored the Royal Privy Council, but he, like previous Stuart monarchs, chose to rely on a small group of advisers. Under George I even more power transferred to this committee and it now began to meet in the absence of the sovereign, communicating its decisions to him after the fact. Thus, the British Privy Council, as a whole, ceased to be a body of important confidential advisers to the sovereign and it is closely related to the word private, and derives from the French word privé
2.
Queen's Counsel
–
A Queens Counsel, or Kings Counsel during the reign of a king, is an eminent lawyer who is appointed by the Queen to be one of Her Majestys Counsel learned in the law. The term is recognised as an honorific. Queens Counsel is a status, conferred by the Crown, that is recognised by courts, members have the privilege of sitting within the Bar of court. As members wear silk gowns of a design, the award of Queens Counsel is known informally as taking silk. Appointments are made from within the profession on the basis of merit rather than a particular level of experience. However, successful applicants tend to be barristers, or advocates with 15 years of experience or more, the Attorney-General, Solicitor-General, and Kings Serjeants were Kings Counsel in Ordinary in the Kingdom of England. The first Queens Counsel Extraordinary was Sir Francis Bacon, who was given a patent giving him precedence at the Bar in 1597, the new rank of Kings Counsel contributed to the gradual obsolescence of the formerly more senior serjeant-at-law by superseding it. The Attorney-General and Solicitor-General had similarly succeeded the Kings Serjeants as leaders of the Bar in Tudor times, but the Kings Counsel emerged into eminence only in the early 1830s, prior to when they were relatively few in number. It became the means to recognise a barrister as a senior member of the profession. It became of greater importance to become a KC. The KCs inherited the prestige of the serjeants and their priority before the courts, the earliest English law list, published in 1775, lists 165 members of the Bar, of whom 14 were Kings Counsel, a proportion of about 8. 5%. As of 2010 roughly the same proportion existed, though the number of barristers had increased to about 12,250 in independent practice, in 1839 the number of Queens Counsel was seventy. In 1882, the number of Queens Counsel was 187, the list of Queens Counsel in the Law List of 1897 gave the names of 238, of whom hardly one-third appeared to be in actual practice. In 1959, the number of practising Queens Counsel was 181, in each of the five years up to 1970, the number of practising Queens Counsel was 208,209,221,236 and 262, respectively. In each of the years 1973 to 1978, the number of practising Queens Counsel was 329,345,370,372,384 and 404, in 1989, the number of practising Queens Counsel was 601. In each of the years 1991 to 2000, the number of practising Queens Counsel was 736,760,797,845,891,925,974,1006,1043, the title traditionally depends on the sex of the sovereign. The current Queen, Elizabeth II has had a long reign and it can be assumed that, should the Queen die and the title pass to a descendant, the title will again become KC, as the next three in line to the throne are male heirs. Queens Counsel and serjeants were prohibited, at least from the century, from drafting pleadings alone
3.
Charles Robert Leslie
–
Charles Robert Leslie RA was an English genre painter. Leslie was born in London to American parents, when he was five years of age he returned with them to the United States, where they settled in Philadelphia. Leslie complted his education and afterwards became apprenticed to a bookseller, in 1821, Leslie was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, and five years later full Royal Academician. In 1827 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Academician. In 1833, he left for America to become teacher of drawing in the academy at West Point, but the post proved an irksome one. Leslie was the brother of American author Eliza Leslie and United States Army soldier Thomas Jefferson Leslie, in April 1825 he married Harriet Honor Stone with whom he had six children. Their second son Sir Bradford Leslie was a bridge builder. He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, sc.6 Dukes Chaplain Enraged leaving the Table, from Don Quixote Many of his more important subjects exist in varying replicas. In addition to his skill as an artist, Leslie was a ready, in 1860, Tom Taylor edited his Autobiography and Letters, which contain interesting reminiscences of his distinguished friends and contemporaries. Taylor also finished Leslies Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, memoirs of the Life of John Constable ed C. R. R. Leslie with Selections from his correspondence Ed. Tom Taylor, Ticknor & Fields, Boston 1860 This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Leslie. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Wilson, James Grant, Fiske, John. King, Charles Robert, ed. with prefatory essay & selected correspondence by Tom Taylor, at Google Books, at Internet Archive. Profile on Royal Academy of Arts Collections
4.
Lord Chancellor
–
The Lord Chancellor, formally the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. They are appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister, the Lord Chancellor is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking after only the Lord High Steward. Prior to the Union there were separate Lords Chancellor for England and Wales, the Lord Chancellor is a member of the Cabinet and, by law, is responsible for the efficient functioning and independence of the courts. In 2007 there were a number of changes to the legal system, the current Lord Chancellor is Elizabeth Truss, who is also Secretary of State for Justice. One of the Lord Chancellors responsibilities is to act as the custodian of the Great Seal of the Realm, a Lord Keeper of the Great Seal may be appointed instead of a Lord Chancellor. The two offices entail exactly the same duties, the distinction is in the mode of appointment. The seal is then said to be in commission, since the 19th century, however, only Lord Chancellors have been appointed, the other offices having fallen into disuse. The office of Lord Chancellor of England may trace its origins to the Carolingian monarchy, in England, the office dates at least as far back as the Norman Conquest, and possibly earlier. Some give the first Chancellor of England as Angmendus, in 605, other sources suggest that the first to appoint a Chancellor was Edward the Confessor, who is said to have adopted the practice of sealing documents instead of personally signing them. A clerk of Edwards, Regenbald, was named chancellor in some documents from Edwards reign, in any event, the office has been continuously occupied since the Norman Conquest. The chancellor headed the office or chancery. Formerly, the Lord Chancellor was almost always a churchman, as during the Middle Ages the clergy were amongst the few men of the realm. The Lord Chancellor performed multiple functions—he was the Keeper of the Great Seal, the royal chaplain. Thus, the position emerged as one of the most important ones in government and he was only outranked in government by the Justiciar. As one of the Kings ministers, the Lord Chancellor attended the curia regis or Royal Court, if a bishop, the Lord Chancellor received a writ of summons, if an ecclesiastic of a lower degree or, if a layman, he attended without any summons. The curia regis would later evolve into Parliament, the Lord Chancellor becoming the prolocutor of its upper house, as was confirmed by a statute passed during the reign of Henry VIII, a Lord Chancellor could preside over the House of Lords even if not a Lord himself. The Lord Chancellors judicial duties also evolved through his role in the curia regis, petitions for justice were normally addressed to the King and the curia, but in 1280, Edward I instructed his justices to examine and deal with petitions themselves as the Court of Kings Bench. Important petitions were to be sent to the Lord Chancellor for his decision, by the reign of Edward III, this chancellery function developed into a separate tribunal for the Lord Chancellor
5.
William IV of the United Kingdom
–
William IV was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death. The third son of George III and younger brother and successor to George IV, he was the last king, William served in the Royal Navy in his youth and was, both during his reign and afterwards, nicknamed the Sailor King. He served in North America and the Caribbean, in 1789, he was created Duke of Clarence and St Andrews. Since his two brothers died without leaving legitimate issue, he inherited the throne when he was 64 years old. Although William did not engage in politics as much as his brother or his father, through his brother, the Viceroy of Hanover, he granted his German kingdom a short-lived liberal constitution. William was succeeded in the United Kingdom by his niece, Victoria, William was born in the early hours of the morning on 21 August 1765 at Buckingham House, the third child and son of King George III and Queen Charlotte. He had two brothers, George and Frederick, and was not expected to inherit the Crown. He was baptised in the Great Council Chamber of St Jamess Palace on 20 September 1765 and his godparents were his paternal uncles, the Duke of Gloucester and Prince Henry, and his paternal aunt, Princess Augusta, then hereditary duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. He spent most of his life in Richmond and at Kew Palace. At the age of thirteen, he joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman and his experiences in the navy seem to have been little different from those of other midshipmen, though in contrast to other sailors he was accompanied on board ships by a tutor. He did his share of the cooking and got arrested with his shipmates after a brawl in Gibraltar. He served in New York during the American War of Independence, I am fully persuaded, that it is unnecessary to caution you against offering insult or indignity to the persons of the Prince or Admiral. The plot did not come to fruition, the British heard of it and assigned guards to William and he became a lieutenant in 1785 and captain of HMS Pegasus the following year. The two were friends, and dined together almost nightly. At Nelsons wedding, William insisted on giving the bride away and he was given command of the frigate HMS Andromeda in 1788, and was promoted to rear-admiral in command of HMS Valiant the following year. William sought to be made a duke like his brothers, and to receive a similar parliamentary grant. To put pressure on him, William threatened to stand for the House of Commons for the constituency of Totnes in Devon, Williams political record was inconsistent and, like many politicians of the time, cannot be certainly ascribed to a single party. William ceased his active service in the Royal Navy in 1790, the following year he spoke in favour of the war, expecting a command after his change of heart, none came
6.
Queen Victoria
–
Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she adopted the title of Empress of India. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, both the Duke of Kent and King George III died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne aged 18, after her fathers three brothers had all died, leaving no surviving legitimate children. The United Kingdom was already a constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments, publicly, Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together, after Alberts death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength and her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration. Her reign of 63 years and seven months is known as the Victorian era and it was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover and her son and successor, Edward VII, belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father. Victorias father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, until 1817, Edwards niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent. In 1818 he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl and Feodora —by her first marriage to the Prince of Leiningen and her brother Leopold was Princess Charlottes widower. The Duke and Duchess of Kents only child, Victoria, was born at 4.15 a. m. on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace and she was baptised Alexandrina, after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina, Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of the Dukes eldest brother, George, the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of Kent married on the same day in 1818, but both of Clarences daughters died as infants. Victorias father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old, a week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son, George IV. The Duke of York died in 1827, when George IV died in 1830, he was succeeded by his next surviving brother, William IV, and Victoria became heir presumptive
7.
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
–
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, PC, FRS, usually addressed as Lord Melbourne, was a British Whig statesman who served as Home Secretary and Prime Minister. He is best known for his intense and successful mentoring of Queen Victoria, at ages 18–21, but he was kind, honest and not self-seeking. Melbourne was dismissed by King William IV in 1834, the last British prime minister to be dismissed by a monarch. Born in London in 1779 to an aristocratic Whig family, William Lamb was the son of The 1st Viscount Melbourne and Elizabeth, Viscountess Melbourne, though his paternity was questioned. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he fell in with a group of Romantic Radicals that included Percy Bysshe Shelley, against the background of the Napoleonic Wars, Lamb served at home as captain and major in the Hertfordshire Volunteer Infantry. In 1805 he succeeded his brother as heir to his fathers title and married Lady Caroline Ponsonby. The next year he was elected to the British House of Commons as the Whig MP for Leominster, for the election in 1806 he was moved to the seat of Haddington Burghs and for the 1807 election he successfully stood for Portarlington. The resulting scandal was the talk of Britain in 1812, eventually the two reconciled and, though they separated in 1825, her death in 1828 affected him considerably. In 1816 Lamb was returned for Peterborough by Whig grandee Lord Fitzwilliam and he told Lord Holland that he was committed to the Whig principles of the Glorious Revolution but not to a heap of modern additions, interpolations, facts and fictions. He therefore spoke against parliamentary reform and voted for the suspension of habeas corpus in 1817 when sedition was rife, lambs hallmark was finding the middle ground. Though a Whig, he accepted the post of Chief Secretary for Ireland in the moderate Tory governments of George Canning and Lord Goderich. Upon the death of his father in 1828 and his becoming The 2nd Viscount Melbourne, of Kilmore in the County of Cavan and he had spent 25 years in the Commons as a backbencher and was not politically well known. When the Whigs came to power under Lord Grey in November 1830 Melbourne became Home Secretary in the new government, during the disturbances of 1830–32 he acted both vigorously and sensitively, and it was for this function that his reforming brethren thanked him heartily. The disturbances over reform in 1831–32 were countered with the enforcement of the usual laws, after Lord Grey resigned as Prime Minister in July 1834, the King was forced to appoint another Whig to replace him, as the Tories were not strong enough to support a government. Melbourne was the man most likely to be acceptable to the King and hold the Whig party together. Melbourne hesitated after receiving from Grey the letter from the King requesting him to him to discuss the formation of a government. Melbourne thought he would not enjoy the work that accompanied the office of Premier but he did not want to let his friends. According to Charles Greville, Melbourne said to his secretary, Tom Young, I am in many minds as to what to do
8.
John Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst
–
John Singleton Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst PC QS FRS, was a British lawyer and politician. He was three times Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, called to the bar at Lincolns Inn in 1804, he gained a considerable practice. He was appointed a serjeant-at-law on 6 July 1813, in 1817 he was one of the counsel for Dr J. Watson, tried for his share in the Spa Fields riots. Lyndhursts performance attracted the attention of Lord Castlereagh and other Tory leaders and he afterwards sat for Ashburton and for Cambridge University. In December 1818, Copley was made Kings Serjeant and Chief Justice of Chester and he became Solicitor General on 24 July 1819 and was knighted in October, became Attorney General in 1824, Master of the Rolls in 1826 and Lord Chancellor in 1827. On his appointment to the latter post he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lyndhurst and he was Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer from 1831 to 1834. During the Melbourne government from 1835 to 1841 he figured conspicuously as an obstructionist in the House of Lords and his former adversary Lord Brougham, disgusted at his treatment by the Whig leaders, soon became his most powerful ally in opposition. Lyndhurst held the chancellorship from 1827–1830, 1834–1835, and 1841–1846, as he was in regard to Catholic emancipation, so in the agitation against the Corn Laws, he opposed reform until Peel, his chief, gave the signal for concession. In 1859 he denounced Napoleon III and his last speech was delivered in the House of Lords at the age of eighty-nine. In 1819 Lord Lyndhurst married Sarah, a daughter of Charles Brunsden and widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Thomas and she died in 1834, and three years later, in August 1837, he married secondly Georgiana Goldsmith, daughter of writer Lewis Goldsmith, of Paris. They had one daughter, Georgiana Susan Copley, who married Sir Charles Du Cane, Lyndhurst also advocated womens rights in questions of divorce. He died in London on 12 October 1863, as he left no son, lady Lyndhurst died in London 22 December 1901, aged 94. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Dennis Lee, Lord Lyndhurst, The Flexible Tory – ISBN 0-87081-358-7,318 pages –1994 Niwot, archival material relating to John Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst. Hansard 1803–2005, contributions in Parliament by John Copley This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
9.
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell
–
Scion of one of the most powerful aristocratic families, his great achievements, says A. J. P. Nevertheless Russell led his Whig Party into support for reform, he was the architect of the great Reform Act of 1832. As Prime Minister his luck ran out and he headed a government that failed to deal with a famine in Ireland that caused the loss of a quarter of its population. Taylor concludes that as minister, he was not a success. Russell was born small and premature into the highest echelons of the British aristocracy, as a younger son of a Duke, he bore the courtesy title Lord John Russell, but he was not a peer in his own right. He was, therefore, able to sit in the House of Commons until he was made an earl in 1861, after being withdrawn from Westminster School due to ill health, Russell was educated by tutors. He attended the University of Edinburgh,1809 and 1812, he did not take a degree, during his continental travels, Russell had a 90-minute meeting with Napoleon in December 1814 during the former emperors exile at Elba. Russell entered the House of Commons as a Whig in 1813, in 1819, Russell embraced the cause of parliamentary reform, and led the more reformist wing of the Whigs throughout the 1820s. When the Whigs came to power in 1830 in Earl Greys government, Russell entered the government as Paymaster of the Forces, and was soon elevated to the Cabinet. He was one of the leaders of the fight for the Reform Act 1832. In 1834, when the leader of the Commons, Lord Althorp, succeeded to the peerage as Earl Spencer and this appointment prompted King William IV to terminate Lord Melbournes government, the last time in British history that a monarch dismissed a prime minister. Nevertheless Russell retained his position for the rest of the decade, during his career in Parliament, Lord John Russell represented the City of London. Taylor emphasises Russells central role in the expansion of liberty and in leading his Whig Party to a commitment to a reform agenda. In 1845, as leader of the Opposition, Russell came out in favour of repeal of the Corn Laws, in June the following year the Corn Laws were repealed but only by virtue of Whig support. The same day Peels Irish Coercion Bill, which the Whigs did not support, was defeated, Russell became Prime Minister, this time Grey not objecting to Palmerstons appointment. Russell’s government introduced reforms such as the Ten Hours Act and measures to improve the training of teachers and his premiership was frustrated, however, because of party disunity and infighting, and he was unable to secure the success of many of the measures he was interested in passing. He fought with his headstrong Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, whose belligerence, in 1847 Palmerston provoked a confrontation with the French government by undermining the plans of the Spanish court to marry the young Spanish Queen and her sister into the French royal family. The Government prevailed but Palmerston came out of the affair with his popularity at new heights since he was seen as the champion of defending British citizens anywhere in the world, Palmerston was forced to resign when he recognised Napoleon IIIs coup of 2 December 1851, without royal approval
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cottenham, Charles Christopher Pepys". Encyclopædia Britannica. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 252–253. This cites:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the .svg)
