Abstract
This article seeks to explain the nature of the office of Secretary of State in the United Kingdom, and how these arrangements have come about. It traces the office from its mediaeval origins, and finds the explanation partly in the development of Tudor government, and partly in the politics of the eighteenth century. It then traces the modem development of this doctrine and some of the ramifications to which it has given rise. Fourteen out of the twenty‐two members of the British Cabinet hold the same office. Yet simultaneously they are described by fourteen different titles. The office that they share is that of ‘Secretary of State’: their various titles are the ‘Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs’, the ‘Secretary of State for the Home Department’ and so on. The purpose of this article is to explain these curious arrangements, which rival in complexity the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity, and to show how they have come about.
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