The ancient English monarchs always had in attendance a learned ecclesiastic, known at first as their clerk, and afterwards as "secretary", who conducted the royal correspondence; but it was not until the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I that these functionaries gained the title "Secretaries of State". Upon the direction of public affairs passing from the privy council to the cabinet after 1688 the secretaries of state began to assume those high duties which now render their office one of the most influential of an administration.

Until the time of Henry VIII, monarchs generally had only one secretary of state, but at the end of his reign a second principal secretary appeared. Owing to the increase of business consequent upon the union of Scotland, a third secretary gained appointment in 1708, but a vacancy occurring in this office in 1746 the third secretaryship disappeared until 1768, when a newly re-instituted Third Secretary began to take charge of the increasing colonial administrative work. In 1782 the office was again abolished, and the charge of the colonies transferred to the Home Secretary; but owing to the war of the First Coalition with France in 1794 a third secretary re-appeared to superintend the activities of the war department, and seven years later the colonial business became attached to his department. In 1854 a fourth secretary of state gained the exclusive charge of the war department, and in 1858 a fifth secretary (for India) began duties.

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