Orders in Council are issued by the British Sovereign, with the advice of the Privy Council, and within limits defined by Parliament. In cases of emergency these limits have been disregarded, and Parliament subsequently asked to homologate the action by granting an indemnity to those concerned.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Ordericus Vitalis * Oreades