COUNCIL, in a general sense, an assembly of various considerable persons, to concert measures relative to the state.
In Britain, the law, in order to assist the king in the discharge of his duties, the maintenance of his dignity, and the exertion of his prerogative, has assigned him a diversity of councils to advise withal.
The first of these is the high court of parliament.
The peers of the realm are by their birth hereditary counsellors of the crown, and may be called together by the king, to impart their advice in all matters of importance to the realm, either in time of parliament, or, which has been their principal use, when there is no parliament in being. Accordingly, Bracton, speaking of the nobility of his time, says, they might properly be called consules a consulendo; reges enim sibi associant ad consulendum. And in the law books it is laid down, that the peers are created for two reasons; first, ad consulendum, and, secondly, ad defendendum, regem; for which reasons the law gives them certain great and high privileges, such as freedom from arrest, even when no parliament is sitting, because the law holds that they are always assisting the king with their counsel for the commonwealth, or keeping the realm in safety by their prowess and valour.
Instances of conventions of the peers to advise the king were frequent in former times, though they have now fallen into disuse by reason of the more regular meetings of parliament. Sir Edward Coke gives us an extract of a record, 5 Henry IV. concerning an exchange of lands between the king and the Earl of Northumberland, in which the value of each was agreed to be settled by advice of parliament, if any should be called before the feast of St. Lucis, or otherwise by advice of the grand council of peers, which the king promised to assemble before the said feast in case no parliament should be called. Many other instances of this kind of meeting are to be found under our ancient kings; though the formal method of convening them had been so long left off, that when King Charles I. in 1640 issued writs under the great seal, calling a council of all the peers of England to meet and attend his majesty at York, previously to the meeting of the long parliament, the Earl of Clarendon mentions it as a new invention not before heard of; that is, as he explains, so old, that it had not been practised during some hundreds of years. But though there had not for a long time before been an instance, nor has there been any since, of assembling them in so solemn a manner, yet in cases of emergency our princes have at several times thought proper to call for and consult as many of the nobility as could easily be brought together. This was done by King James II. after the landing of the Prince of Orange,
and by the Prince of Orange himself before he summoned the convention parliament which afterwards called him to the throne. Council.
Besides this general meeting, it is usually looked upon as the right of each particular peer of the realm to demand an audience of the king, and to lay before him, with decency and respect, such matters as he shall judge of importance to the public weal. And therefore, in the reign of Edward II. it was made an article of impeachment in parliament against the Hugh Spencers, father and son, for which they were banished the kingdom, "that they by their evil covin would not suffer the great men of the realm, the king's good counsellors, to speak with the king, or to come near him; but only in presence and hearing of said Hugh the father and Hugh the son, or one of them, and at their will, and according to such things as pleased them."
A third council belonging to the king is, according to Sir Edward Coke, composed of his judges of the courts of law, for law matters. And this appears frequently in the English statutes, particularly 1st Edward III. c. 5, and in other books of law. So that when the king's council is mentioned generally, it must be defined, particularized, and understood secundum subjectam materiem, according to the subject matter; and if the subject be of a legal nature, then by the king's council is understood his council for matters of law, namely, his judges. Therefore, when by statute 16 Richard II. c. 5, it was declared a high offence to import into England any papal bulls, or other processes, from Rome, and when it was enacted that the offenders should be attached by their bodies, and brought before the king and his council to answer for such offence. By the expression of king's council, here made use of, was understood the king's judges of his courts of justice, the subject-matter being legal, and this being the general way of interpreting the word council.
But the principal council belonging to the king is his Privy Council, which is generally, by way of eminence, called The Council. For an account of its constitution and powers, see PRIVY COUNCIL.