 Membership was generally for life, although the death of a monarch brought an immediate dissolution of the Council, as all Crown appointments automatically lapsed.The Privy Council of England was one of the four principal councils of the Sovereign.The other three were the courts of law, the "Commune Concilium" (Common Council, or Parliament of England) and the Magnum Concilium (Great Council, or the assembly of all the Peers of the Realm).