Catalogue description Records of the Privy Council

Surviving formal records of the of the Privy Council and its committees.

The series of Privy Council registers instituted in 1540 are in PC 2 (with the extracted instrument of abdication being in PC 11). Rough minutes giving details not included in the registers, especially for the period before about 1750, are in PC 4. Additional material similar to that in the registers and coming mostly from the eighteenth century is in the unbound papers in PC 1. Plantation books, which include copies of colonial acts and instruments relating to colonial government, are in PC 5. The instrument of abdication of Edward VIII is in PC 11

A similar unofficial register known as the 'Book of the Council' maintained from 1421 to 1435 will be found in the British Library with the reference Cottonian MSS Cleopatra F III-IV.

An unofficial journal had been kept by the Clerk from 1392 to 1393 will be found in E 28/3

Earlier minutes of proceedings and other records of the Council are preserved among the records of the departments which discharged the administrative work of the Council under the authority of council bills and warrants directed to them, in particular:

C 47

C 49

C 81

E 30

E 175

PSO 1

SC 1

SC 8

E 28