The Committee of Council at the War-Office’

Dr J. H. Plumb'S recent paper to the Royal Historical Society produced positive proof that the ‘lords of the committee’ of the early eighteenth century were simply the members of the cabinet when meeting by themselves in Whitehall instead of in the presence of the queen at one of the royal palaces. 1 With this identification now certain, an investigation is possible into those specialist sub-committees which appear to have been responsible for naval and military affairs at various times under Anne, and about which, in Dr Plumb's own words, ‘further evidence would be invaluable’. 2 One such body was the ‘committee of council which sits at the war-office ‘, the existence of which is attested by two letters of 1711 from Henry St John, then secretary of state, to the duke of Marlborough. 3 Almost nothing has been discovered about this committee, although its existence has been well known to historians for more than fifty years, 4 but now a search of war-office and other records has produced sufficient evidence for the committee to be identified and its membership, procedure, function, and history ascertained

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• Henry St. John

  Open Access•H T Dickinson•Journal of British Studies•1968

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• The Organization of the Cabinet in the Reign of Queen Anne

  Open Access•J H Plumb•Transactions of the Royal…•1957

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• The Law and Custom of the Constitution

  W P M Kennedy, William R Anson et al.•University of Toronto Law Journal•1936

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