A Venerable Puzzle

On December 29, 1838, the Dean of Exeter Cathedral, Whittington Landon, died. The Crown attempted to appoint Lord Wriothesley Russell as his successor, but the Chapter of Exeter rejected him. The...

https://venerablepuzzle.wordpress.com/2024/10/29/the-crown-and-the-deanery-of-exeter/

Last week, the Government unveiled legislation to remove the remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords. It’s a fairly straightforward bill that seeks to repeal section 2 of the House o...

https://venerablepuzzle.wordpress.com/2024/09/11/farewell-my-hereditary-lords/

The Labour Party has won a resounding victory over the Conservatives with exit polls suggesting that they could win as many as 405 seats. While results are still coming in, Rishi Sunak has alread...

https://venerablepuzzle.wordpress.com/2024/07/04/the-king-keir-starmer-and-the-new-labour-government/

On May 16, 2014, I published my first post on A Venerable Puzzle. That turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Writing this blog has taken me on an amazing journey filled wit...

https://venerablepuzzle.wordpress.com/2024/05/16/ten-years-on/

I recently stumbled upon a small collection of documents relating to the Northern Ireland (Royal Assent to Bills) Order 1999. That Order in Council established the form of the Letters Patent that...

https://venerablepuzzle.wordpress.com/2024/04/04/informal-advice-to-the-monarch/

The King returned from the hospital today after undergoing treatment for an enlarged prostate on Friday. According to the BBC, there was no delegation of royal authority during his stay in the ho...

https://venerablepuzzle.wordpress.com/2024/01/29/royal-incapacity-and-medical-procedures/

There’s an interesting detail tucked away near the end of the Letters Patent signifying Royal Assent to the Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Bill. The final clause reads “WITNESS Ours...

https://venerablepuzzle.wordpress.com/2023/12/02/counsellors-of-state-in-the-age-of-remote-work/

One of the foundations of the modern British constitution is the idea that the Sovereign only acts on ministerial advice. However, the relationship between the Monarch and their Ministers is larg...

https://venerablepuzzle.wordpress.com/2023/08/31/the-language-of-ministerial-submissions/

Back in 2021, I wrote about the confusion over whether or not Boris Johnson had violated section 18 of the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 by advising the Queen on ecclesiastical appointments afte...

https://venerablepuzzle.wordpress.com/2023/08/08/when-is-advice-not-advice/

While reading Leopold G. Wickham Legg’s account of the Coronation Banquet in his English Coronation Records, I was struck by the following passage: On the King’s left hand there are also thre...

https://venerablepuzzle.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/why-did-fake-french-dukes-attend-british-coronations/