Lord High Treasurer
Lord High Treasurer is an ancient English (after 1707 British) government position, the fourth-ranking Great Officer of State.
History
The English Treasury seems to have come into existence around 1126, in the reign of King Henry I, as the financial responsibilities were separated from the rest of the job that evolved into Lord Great Chamberlain. The Treasury was the section of the royal household where the King kept his treasures, and the head of the treasury was called Lord Treasurer or later Lord High Treasurer. By Tudor times, the Lord High Treasurer had achieved a place among the Great Officers immediately behind the Lord Chancellor and ahead of the Lord President of the Council.
In the 16th century the Lord Treasurer was often considered the most important official of the government, especially in the time of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley. However, in the 17th century it became increasingly common to entrust the Treasury not to one person, but to a board of Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, and after the brief term of Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury as Lord High Treasurer ended in 1714, this has been the invariable practice.
The Modern Commissioners
A rarely-varied system has evolved since then. Today, the First Lord of the Treasury is as a rule the Prime Minister, and the Second Lord of the Treasury is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has inherited most of the functional financial responsibilities.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury is also of Cabinet rank and is the senior deputy to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Other Government ministers holding the title Secretary to the Treasury are the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who ranks alongside the Ministers of State, and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who ranks along the Parliamentary Under Secretaries.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury is the chief Government Whip in the House of Commons, and after him rank, in order, the Treasurer of the Royal Household, the Comptroller of the Royal Household, and the Vice-Chamberlain of the Royal Household (one of these three is always at Buckingham Palace as a symbolic hostage during the State Opening of Parliament), and only then the "junior Lords of the Treasury" who are the regular Government Whips, even though theoretically they are members of the Treasury Board and the head of the whips' office not even that board's chief secretary. (Assistant Whips round out the Whips' Office and are not Lords Commissioners).
From all of these the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury must be distinguished, as he is not a politician but the department's senior civil servant, considered second in rank among all civil servants to the Secretary to the Cabinet.
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