Queen Elizabeth II will celebrate her 92nd birthday with a reception at Buckingham Palace on Monday and a highlight of the evening will be the presentation of 40 new honors. One of the relatively rare institutions to be given special attention is Elizabeth’s Council of Realms, the pre-eminent organization created by the medieval Reformation of 1517 to oversee countries with the monarch as head of state. The council was disbanded in 1689 but resurfaced on the government’s “Franchise” website today as an acknowledgement that the Queen — and her eldest daughter, the Duke of York — remained the powerful, top dog in her realms.
The Queen’s reign is set to be the longest in the English monarchy’s history, and it will be memorable if she lives to the end of her beloved Sapphire Jubilee in 2021. That would put her birthday in April 28, since Britain’s celebration for her 90th, in 2015, coincided with the Jewish Festival of Passover (so the Crown Jewels were not placed in a “Summer Palace”). The diamond jubilee of her father, George VI, last celebrated in 1977, falls in May this year, which means all four Queen Elizabeths have celebrated on Shrove Tuesday or the following day.
Members of the council include the Islands of the Low Countries of the Netherlands, Greenland, and Sweden (every year, their insignia appears in the small gold crescent of the Sapphire Jubilee Jubilee year, to be repeated each decade thereafter). The Reformation government has over 40 members and excludes Australia and India, even though the monarch of those countries is the Prince of Wales, who is currently the regent in his grandfather’s country, Australia. The most prominent member of the council is Her Majesty. She has had two top knights and a governor general; in addition, she has three barons and three viceroys, yet the figurehead has never had a peerage.
The short answer to the question “Why?” is that it may not make a big difference. The statutory council remains in place, although its members now all inhabit the outer realms and only a few of them remain members. That number makes it a little more controversial — the Council of Revenues is the perfect example — but it is not a council made up of real lords and ladies, although some, like Patrice Beloin and Pierre-Germain Le Coq-Pasillon, have been installed as knights. The Scottish courts of appeal and the English and Welsh houses of commons are ruled from the council, and once the figurehead’s territory is filled out, the association with Britain is rather nominal. The significance of the council is that its success is determined by the monarch, and in cases where the monarch is not available, the council is at the pleasure of the monarch. In those cases, it is not consulted at all.
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