1.
Order of the Garter
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The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry and the third most prestigious honour in England and the United Kingdom. It is dedicated to the image and arms of Saint George and it is awarded at the Sovereigns pleasure as a personal gift on recipients from the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms. Membership of the Order is limited to the Sovereign, the Prince of Wales, the order also includes supernumerary knights and ladies. New appointments to the Order of the Garter are always announced on St Georges Day, the orders emblem is a garter with the motto Honi soit qui mal y pense in gold lettering. Members of the wear it on ceremonial occasions. King Edward III founded the Order of the Garter around the time of his claim to the French throne, the list includes Sir Sanchet DAbrichecourt, who died on 20 October 1345. Other dates from 1344 to 1351 have also been proposed, the Kings wardrobe account shows Garter habits first issued in the autumn of 1348. Also, its original statutes required that member of the Order already be a knight. The earliest written mention of the Order is found in Tirant lo Blanch and it was first published in 1490. This book devotes a chapter to the description of the origin of the Order of the Garter, at the time of its foundation, the Order consisted of King Edward III, together with 25 Founder Knights, listed in ascending order of stall number in St.1431. Various legends account for the origin of the Order, the most popular legend involves the Countess of Salisbury, whose garter is said to have slipped from her leg while she was dancing at a court ball at Calais. When the surrounding courtiers sniggered, the king picked it up and returned it to her, exclaiming, Honi soit qui mal y pense, King Edward supposedly recalled the event in the 14th century when he founded the Order. This story is recounted in a letter to the Annual Register in 1774, The motto in fact refers to Edwards claim to the French throne, the use of the garter as an emblem may have derived from straps used to fasten armour. Medieval scholars have pointed to a connection between the Order of the Garter and the Middle English poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in Gawain, a girdle, very similar in its erotic undertones to the garter, plays a prominent role. A rough version of the Orders motto also appears in the text and it translates from Old French as Accursed be a cowardly and covetous heart. While the author of that poem remains disputed, there seems to be a connection between two of the top candidates and the Order of the Garter. Scholar J. P. Oakden has suggested that it is related to John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, and, more importantly. Another competing theory is that the work was written for Enguerrand de Coucy, the Sire de Coucy was married to King Edward IIIs daughter, Isabella, and was given admittance to the Order of the Garter on their wedding day
2.
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
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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
3.
Fellow of the Royal Society
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As of 2016, there are around 1600 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members. Fellowship of the Royal Society has been described by The Guardian newspaper as “the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar” with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows, honorary and foreign members are elected annually usually in May, each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use the post-nominal letters FRS, see Category, Fellows of the Royal Society and Category, Female Fellows of the Royal Society. Every year, Fellows elect up to ten new Foreign Members, like Fellows, Foreign Members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016 there are around 165 Foreign Members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS, see Category, Foreign Members of the Royal Society. Honorary Fellows include Bill Bryson, Melvyn Bragg, Robin Saxby, David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville, Honorary Fellows are entitled to use the post nominal letters HonFRS. Others including John Maddox, Patrick Moore and Lisa Jardine were elected as honorary fellows, statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough and John Palmer, prime Ministers of the United Kingdom such as Margaret Thatcher, Neville Chamberlain, H. H. Asquith were elected under statute 12, see Category, Fellows of the Royal Society. The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British Royal Family for election as Royal Fellows of the Royal Society. As of 2016 there are five royal fellows, Charles, Prince of Wales, Anne, Princess Royal, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince Andrew, Duke of York. Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II is not a Royal Fellow, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow. The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination, each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society, who sign a certificate of proposal. Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, the certificate of election includes a statement of the principal grounds on which the proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates is confirmed by the Council in April, a candidate is elected if he or she secures two-thirds of votes of those Fellows present and voting. A further maximum of six can be ‘Honorary’, ‘General’ or ‘Royal’ Fellows, nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by sectional committees, each with fifteen members and a chair
4.
Queen Victoria
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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
5.
Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby
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He was known before 1834 as Edward Stanley, and from 1834 to 1851 as Lord Stanley. He is one of only four British Prime Ministers to have three or more separate periods in office, however his ministries all lasted less than two years, and totalled 3 years 280 days. Historian Frances Walsh says it was, Derby who educated the party and acted as its strategist to pass the last great Whig measure, the 1867 Reform Act. It was his greatest achievement to create the modern Conservative Party in the framework of the Whig constitution, Stanley was born to Lord Stanley and his wife, Charlotte Margaret née Hornby, the daughter of the Reverend Geoffrey Hornby. The Stanleys were a long-established and very wealthy landowning family whose residence was Knowsley Hall in Lancashire. Stanley was educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1822 Edward Stanley, as he was then, was elected to Parliament in the rotten borough of Stockbridge as a Whig, the traditional party of his family. In 1824, however, he alienated his Whig colleagues by voting against Joseph Humes motion for an investigation into the Established Protestant Church of Ireland. When the Whigs returned to power in 1830, Stanley became Chief Secretary for Ireland in Lord Greys Government, as Chief Secretary Stanley pursued a series of coercive measures which frequently brought him into conflict with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Anglesey. In 1833, Stanley moved up to the important position of Secretary of State for War. Stanley, a conservative Whig, broke with the ministry over the reform of the Church of Ireland in 1834, the term Derby Dilly was coined by Irish Nationalist leader Daniel OConnell. Joining the Conservatives, Stanley again served as Colonial Secretary in Sir Robert Peels second government in 1841, in 1844 he was summoned to the House of Lords as Lord Stanley of Bickerstaffe in his fathers Barony of Stanley by Writ of Acceleration. He broke with the Prime Minister again in 1845, this time over the repeal of the Corn Laws and he thereafter led the protectionist faction of the Conservative Party. In 1851 he succeeded his father as Earl of Derby, the party system was in a state of flux when the Conservatives left office in 1846, the outstanding issues being the question of Ireland and the unresolved franchise. The protectionists had a core of leaders, of whom Disraeli was a leading light, but in opposition the party was still in-fighting, although Disraeli was determined to heal rifts. Derby formed a minority Government in February 1852 following the collapse of Lord John Russells Whig Government, in this new ministry, Benjamin Disraeli would be appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. With many senior Conservative ministers having followed Peel, Derby was forced to appoint many new men to office – of the Cabinet only three were pre-existing Privy Counsellors. When the aged Duke of Wellington, by then very deaf, heard the list of inexperienced Cabinet Ministers being read aloud in the House of Lords, from then this government would be known as the Who. Traditionally Derbys ministries were thought in hindsight to have been dominated by Disraeli, however recent research suggests that this was not always the case, especially in the governments conduct of foreign policy
6.
Benjamin Disraeli
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Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS was a British politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party, defining its policies. Disraeli is remembered for his voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone. He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the glory and he is the only British Prime Minister of Jewish birth. Disraeli was born in Bloomsbury, then part of Middlesex and his father left Judaism after a dispute at his synagogue, young Benjamin became an Anglican at the age of 12. After several unsuccessful attempts, Disraeli entered the House of Commons in 1837, in 1846 the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel split the party over his proposal to repeal the Corn Laws, which involved ending the tariff on imported grain. Disraeli clashed with Peel in the Commons, Disraeli became a major figure in the party. When Lord Derby, the party leader, thrice formed governments in the 1850s and 1860s and he also forged a bitter rivalry with Gladstone of the Liberal Party. Upon Derbys retirement in 1868, Disraeli became Prime Minister briefly before losing that years election and he returned to opposition, before leading the party to a majority in the 1874 election. He maintained a friendship with Queen Victoria, who in 1876 created him Earl of Beaconsfield. Disraelis second term was dominated by the Eastern Question—the slow decay of the Ottoman Empire, Disraeli arranged for the British to purchase a major interest in the Suez Canal Company. This diplomatic victory over Russia established Disraeli as one of Europes leading statesmen, World events thereafter moved against the Conservatives. Controversial wars in Afghanistan and South Africa undermined his public support and he angered British farmers by refusing to reinstitute the Corn Laws in response to poor harvests and cheap imported grain. With Gladstone conducting a speaking campaign, his Liberals bested Disraelis Conservatives in the 1880 election. In his final months, Disraeli led the Conservatives in opposition and he had throughout his career written novels, beginning in 1826, and he published his last completed novel, Endymion, shortly before he died at the age of 76. Disraeli was born on 21 December 1804 at 6 Kings Road, Bedford Row, Bloomsbury, London, the child and eldest son of Isaac DIsraeli, a literary critic and historian. The family was of Sephardic Jewish Italian mercantile background, All Disraelis grandparents and great grandparents were born in Italy, Isaacs father, Benjamin, moved to England from Venice in 1748. Disraelis siblings were Sarah, Naphtali, Ralph, and James and he was close to his sister, and on affectionate but more distant terms with his surviving brothers
7.
George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon
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George William Frederick Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon KG GCB PC, was an English diplomat and statesman from the Villiers family. Villiers was born in London, the son of the Honourable George Villiers and he went up to Cambridge at the early age of sixteen and entered St Johns College on 29 June 1816. In 1820, as the eldest son of a brother with royal descent. In the same year, he was appointed attaché to the British embassy at Saint Petersburg, there he remained three years, and gained that practical knowledge of diplomacy which was of so much use to him in later life. He had received from nature a singularly handsome person, a polished and engaging address, a command of languages. Upon his return to England in 1823, he was appointed to a commissionership of customs, in 1831, he was despatched to France to negotiate a commercial treaty, which however was fruitless. On 16 August 1833, he was appointed minister at the court of Spain, Don Carlos, the late kings brother, claimed the crown by virtue of the Salic law of the House of Bourbon which Ferdinand had renounced before the birth of his daughter. Isabella II and her mother Christina, the regent, became the representatives of constitutional monarchy. For six years Villiers continued to give the most active and intelligent support to the Liberal government of Spain. He was accused, though unjustly, of having favoured the revolution of La Granja, which drove Christina, the mother, out of the kingdom. Slavery was intended to be illegal in Spanish colonies from 1820, Villiers worked with the help of the Times correspondent David Turnbull to get slavery removed from Spanish colonies. In 1835 the Spanish reaffirmed their commitments, for this reason, upon the formation of Lord John Russells first administration, Lord Clarendon accepted the office of President of the Board of Trade. Twice in his career the governor-generalship of India was offered him, and once the governor-generalship of Canada, but in 1847 a sense of duty compelled him to take a far more laborious and uncongenial appointment. The crisis was one of extraordinary peril, agrarian crimes of horrible atrocity had increased threefold. The Catholic clergy were openly disaffected, extraordinary measures were required to regulate the bounty of the government and the nation. Lord Clarendon remained viceroy of Ireland till 1852, upon the formation of the coalition ministry between the Whigs and the Peelites, in 1853, under Lord Aberdeen, Lord Clarendon became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The country was already drifting into the Crimean War, an expression of his own which was never forgotten, the tsar Nicholas had speculated on the impossibility of the sustained joint action of France and England in council and in the field. It was mainly by Lord Clarendon at Whitehall and by Lord Raglan before the Siege of Sevastopol that such a combination was rendered practicable, in 1856 Lord Clarendon took his seat at the congress of Paris convoked for the restoration of peace, as first British plenipotentiary
8.
Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville
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Granville George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville KG PC FRS, styled Lord Leveson until 1846, was a British Liberal statesman from the Leveson-Gower family. He is best known for his stewardship of Britains external relations, 1870–74 and 1880–85, in co-operation with his best friend. Leveson-Gower was born in London, the eldest son of Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Granville, by Lady Harriet Cavendish, daughter of William Cavendish and he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. Leveson-Gower went to Paris for a time under his father. For a short time he was Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Lord Melbournes ministry, from 1841 till his fathers death in 1846, when he succeeded to the title, he sat for Lichfield. In the House of Lords he distinguished himself as a Free Trader and he became Vice-President of the Board of Trade in 1848, and took a prominent part in promoting the Great Exhibition of 1851. Under Lord Palmerston he was president of the council. From 1855 Lord Granville led the Liberals in the Upper House and he went in 1856 as head of the British mission to the tsars coronation in Moscow. He received a degree from Cambridge University in 1864. He retained his office when, on Palmerstons death in 1865, Lord Russell became prime minister, Granville, now an established Liberal leader, was made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. He also held shares in the Lilleshall Company, during the American Civil War, Granville was non-interventionist along with the majority of Palmerstons cabinet. His memorandum against intervention in September 1862 drew Prime Minister Palmerstons attention, from 1866 to 1868 he was in opposition, but in December 1868 he became Colonial Secretary in Gladstones first ministry. His tact was invaluable to the government in carrying the Irish Church, on 27 June 1870, on Lord Clarendons death, he became foreign secretary. Lord Granvilles name is associated with his career as foreign secretary. His Gladstonian foreign policy based on patience, peace, and no alliances kept Britain free from European wars, in putting British-American relations up to the world as a model for how to resolve disputes peacefully, Granville helped create a breakthrough in international relations. Russia took advantage of the situation to denounce the Black Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris, when the Conservatives came into power in 1874, his part for the next six years was to criticise Disraelis spirited foreign policy, and to defend his own more pliant methods. He returned to the office in 1880, only to find an anti-British spirit developing in German policy which the temporising methods of the Liberal leaders were generally powerless to deal with. Lord Granville failed to realise in time the importance of the Angra Pequena question in 1883–1884 and he went into Colonial Office service for six months, and in July 1886 retired from public life
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Stanley (Family)". Encyclopædia Britannica. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 776.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the .svg)
