Chris Huhne is Fifth Person to Resign from the Privy Council

A meeting of Her Majesty's Privy Council. To
keep meetings as short as possible, Queen Victoria started
the tradition that members remain standing.

Chris Huhne, the former British cabinet minister and sometime candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Democrat Party, was sentenced to an eight month prison sentence today for perverting the course of justice. Upon admitting his guilt last month, Mr. Huhne announced that he would resign from Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council. By so doing, he has secured a place in history -- becoming one of a very select group to have resigned from this, now largely symbolic, body of advisers to the Sovereign. To date, only four other people have resigned from the Privy Council:

1. HRH The Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The second son of Queen Victoria, the Duke was previously Duke of Edinburgh and a member of the House of Lords before succeeding to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha upon the death of his uncle, Ernest II, in 1893. To acknowledge his new foreign responsibilities, Alfred left the House of Lords and resigned from the Privy Council.  

2. Brigadier John Profumo CBE, former Conservative Party MP and Secretary of State for War. Profumo famously resigned from office in 1963 due to a scandal that became known as the "Profumo Affair".

3. John Stonehouse, former Labour Party MP and Postmaster General. After faking his death in 1974, he was arrested and convicted for a series of fraud-related offences. He was also alleged to have worked for the communist Czechoslovakian military intelligence.

4. Jonathan Aitken, former Conservative Party MP and Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Aitken was convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice in 1999.