In modern Britain, the death of a monarch has little political impact; the work of government continues uninterrupted, apart from a period of official mourning. But four centuries ago, when the king or queen actually ran the government, the situation was more complicated, as Dr Ben Coates of our Lords 1558-1603 section explains…
When the succession of Charles III to the throne was formally proclaimed on 10 September 2022, it marked the first appearance on television of an accession council. This body dates back to 24 March 1603, when a meeting of the lord mayor of London, assorted English peers and bishops, and those commoners who had served as privy councillors to the recently deceased monarch, Elizabeth I, proclaimed the accession of James VI of Scotland as James I of England. Forty-four years earlier Elizabeth had issued the proclamation of her accession in her own name, but a new procedure was now necessary because James was still in Scotland. As it took several days for the news of his accession to reach him, and rather longer for his authorization of a new privy council to arrive in London, for several weeks the accession council effectively ran the country.
The secretary of state, Sir Robert Cecil, had established contact with James before Elizabeth’s death, and they had agreed the wording of the accession proclamation, but Cecil was obliged to act in secret because Elizabeth refused to allow any discussion of the succession. Cecil therefore could do nothing formally until after the queen had died, nor could James issue a proclamation as king of England until he had been informed of the queen’s death, leaving a potentially dangerous hiatus in which England had no legitimate authority. Accordingly, on 20 March 1603 the privy council convened a meeting of the peers and bishops who were then in and around London. They informed this assembly that, on the death of the queen, the powers of the councillors and other royal officers would cease. Only those such as the lord mayor of London who held offices in urban corporations would retain their places. However, those present were reminded that the peers and bishops constituted the great council (whose membership was the same as the upper house of Parliament) and were told that it would fall to them to preserve the peace of the realm.
by Unknown artist, 1602. (c) NPG
The queen died at Richmond in the early hours of 24 March, whereupon those members of the council who had attended her deathbed returned to Whitehall, where another meeting of the peers and bishops was convened. According to one widely circulated account of these events, the lord admiral, Charles Howard, 1st earl of Nottingham announced that the queen had finally been induced to name James as her successor. The accession council then agreed to proclaim James as the new king of England, which they promptly did outside the palace. The proclamation was signed by 21 peers and four bishops, together with the lord mayor of London, seven of the former commoner privy councillors and one Irish peer. However, the names of three further peers were added to later printed editions of the document.
The accession council then went to the city of London, where they were admitted after promising to proclaim James, the lord mayor taking as security the Garter insignia of the lord treasurer, Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, before allowing them to enter. They again proclaimed the new king at Cheapside and then dined at the house of one of the sheriffs of London, from where they sent three heralds and a trumpeter to proclaim James on Tower Hill. At 10 at night they wrote to James to notify him of the death of the queen, although they acknowledged that he might have already heard the news from Sir Robert Carey, who had departed for Scotland without their authorization as soon as the queen died.
Cecil probably intended that the accession council would confine itself to proclaiming the new monarch, after which it should be brought to an end as soon as possible and the normal processes of government by the privy council be resumed. In the short term this would require the former members of the Elizabethan privy council to continue meeting as though the queen was still alive, but this met with objections from the nobles. According to one report, Henry Percy, 3rd earl of Northumberland asserted that nothing should be done without the participation of the nobility, who were councillors by birth but had been neglected for too long, and that their exclusion would set a bad example to the king.
James was probably also keen to quickly dissolve the accession council, as its members did not owe their place to royal appointment, implying that there existed in England an alternative source of authority to the crown. On 27 March he authorized the former members of Elizabeth’s privy council to act in his name, which would have rendered the accession council redundant. However, the following day he felt obliged to order the nobility to continue to meet together, and consequently the accession council continued until the middle of April. In addition to those whose names appear on the accession proclamation, at least four further peers, three bishops and another Irish lord also took part in the council’s proceedings. Cecil complained to his brother, Thomas Cecil, 2nd Lord Burghley, about having to deal with what he called ‘our Parliament council’, stating that he dared not act without its consent and that business which had previously been done in a day now took a week.
On 25 March the accession council wrote to the magistrates of the various counties of England ordering them to proclaim James in their localities. The accession of the new king passed off peacefully, which in practice left the council with little more to do. Aside from facilitating communications with James, they issued warrants to the lord treasurer for the payment of money, and sent advice to English commissioners negotiating a commercial treaty in Bremen. They also authorized local magistrates to continue impressing men for service in the Netherlands in the war against Spain. On 10 Apr. James wrote to the council from Newcastle ordering the privy council (to whom he had added Northumberland and three other noblemen), to resume normal meeting. The other peers were instructed to remain in the vicinity of London to assist the privy council if needed, but implicitly were no longer to meet together. By 17 April James’s new privy council was operational, and the accession council had been dissolved.
BC
Further reading:
Reportes del Cases in Camera Stellata ed. W.P. Baildon (1894)
E. Howes, Annales … Begun by John Stow (1631)
M. Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot (c.1991)
A. Nelson, Monstrous Adversary (2003)
Biographies of Robert Cecil (as 1st earl of Salisbury), the 1st earl of Nottingham, Lord Buckhurst, Robert Carey (as 1st earl of Monmouth), the 3rd earl of Northumberland and the 2nd Lord Burghley may also be found in The House of Lords 1604-29 ed. Andrew Thrush (2021).
The History of Parliament 