After 1603 James VI was able to boast to the English Parliament that he governed Scotland 'with my pen'. The council received his written instructions and executed his will. This style of government, continued by his grandsons Charles II and James VII, was disrupted during the reign of Charles I, the Covenanters and the Cromwellian occupation. There are gaps in the register during the upheavals of 1638-41 when the council was largely displaced by an alternative administration set up by the Covenanters and during the Cromwellian period, the council ceased to act at all.
After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II nominated his own privy councillors and set up a council in London through which he directed affairs in Edinburgh, a situation that continued after the Revolution of 1688-9. The council survived the Act of Union but for one year only. It was abolished on 1 May 1708.
In the range of its functions the council was often more important than Parliament in the running of Scotland. The registers include a wide range of material on the political, administrative, economic and social affairs of Scotland. The council supervised the administration of the law, regulated trade and shipping, took emergency measures against the plague, granted licences to travel, administered oaths of allegiance, banished beggars and gypsies, dealt with witches, recusants, Covenanters and Jacobites and tackled the problem of lawlessness in the Highlands and the Borders.
