Thatcher favoured cuts to arts funding were false: "We had this deal that I was to complain royally and whinge about money, but she’d smuggle me some. And we didn’t have great cuts; that’s all a myth.” He was sworn of the Privy Council and entered the Cabinet. He was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 1984, with additional responsibility for personnel and management of the Civil Service. In 1985, when he asked to move from his Arts post, Thatcher offered him a promotion to the post of Secretary of State for Education, where she believed that he could "electrify education". Instead he resigned from the Cabinet, stating that it was impossible for him to live in London on the £33,000 salary provided for peers working in such posts. This claim that caused some negative public comment, as it was three times the average London wage of the time. Thatcher described his departure from her government as "the greatest loss". Later career After leaving government, Gowrie in 1985 took up a post as chairperson of Sotheby's International, overseeing the auction house's business in Europe and the Far East, at a reputed salary of around £150,000. This followed rumours that he might take a senior role at Sotheby's major rival, Christie's. He was also brought on to the global board of Sotheby's under Alfred Taubman; he worked for the company until 1994. During his time at Sotheby's he was appointed as chairperson of the trustees of the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens, newly taken under State management, with Diana, Princess of Wales as patron. Following the division of the work of the Arts Council of Great Britain, it was announced in December 1993 that Gowrie would be the first chairperson of the new Arts Council of England He assumed office at the Arts Council on 1 April 1994, having secured its role as a distributor of funds from the National Lottery. He supported, and later inaugurated, the Angel of the North sculpture. He chaired the Booker Prize panel which dismissed A Suitable Boy, of which he commented "we wanted the book to succeed ...we thought it was abysmally edited and tailored. ... promising lines of development and tension kept running out. The book needed cutting, like a movie." The panel instead awarded the 1993 prize to Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Gowrie took up a role as a