Court of St James's in the context of Charles, comte de Flahaut

Ulrich Friedrich-Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop (German: [joˈʔaxɪm fɔn ˈʁɪbəntʁɔp]; 30 April 1893 – 16 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician, diplomat and convicted war criminal who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945.

Ribbentrop first came to Adolf Hitler's notice as a well-travelled businessman with more knowledge of the outside world than most senior Nazis and as a perceived authority on foreign affairs. He offered his house Schloss Fuschl for the secret meetings in January 1933 that resulted in Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany. He became a close confidant of Hitler, to the dismay of some party members, who thought him unintelligent, superficial and lacking in talent. He was appointed ambassador to the Court of St James's, the royal court of the United Kingdom, in 1936 and then Foreign Minister of Germany in February 1938.

St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in London, England. The palace gives its name to the Court of St James's, which is the monarch's royal court, and is located in the City of Westminster. Although no longer the principal residence of the monarch, it is the ceremonial meeting place of the Accession Council, the office of the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, and the London residence of several members of the royal family.

Built by order of King Henry VIII in the 1530s on the site of an isolated leper hospital dedicated to Saint James the Less, the palace was secondary in importance to the Palace of Whitehall for most Tudor and Stuart monarchs. Initially surrounded by a deer park and gardens, it was generally used as a hunting lodge and as a retreat from the formal court and occasionally as a royal guest house. After the Palace of Whitehall burned down, the palace took on administrative functions for the monarchy. It increased in importance during the reigns of the Hanoverian monarchs but began to be displaced by Buckingham Palace in the early 19th century. After decades of being used increasingly only for formal occasions, the move was formalised by Queen Victoria in 1837.

Counsellors of State are senior members of the British royal family to whom the monarch can delegate royal functions through letters patent under the Great Seal, to prevent delay or difficulty in the dispatch of public business in the case of their illness (except total incapacity) or of their intended or actual absence from the United Kingdom.

Counsellors of state may carry out "such of the royal functions as may be specified in the Letters Patent". In practice, this means most of the monarch's official duties, such as attending Privy Council meetings, signing routine documents and receiving the credentials of new ambassadors to the Court of St James's. However, by law, counsellors of state cannot grant ranks, titles or peerages. They also, by the terms of the letters patent, cannot deal with a number of core constitutional functions, such as Commonwealth matters, the dissolution of Parliament (except on the monarch's express instruction) and the appointment of prime ministers. A rare example occurred on 7 February 1974 of the Proclamation of the Dissolution of Parliament being promulgated by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret as counsellors of state, on the express instructions of Queen Elizabeth II.

Winfield House is an English townhouse in Regent's Park, central London and the official residence of the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom (formally, ambassador to the Court of St James's). The grounds are 12 acres (4.9 ha), the second largest private garden in London, after the Garden of Buckingham Palace.

The house was built for American heiress Barbara Woolworth Hutton in 1936 on the former Hertford–St. Dunstan estate that had been damaged by fire. During the Second World War, the estate was used by the Royal Air Force. Hutton donated it to the United States after the war, and since 1955 it has been the American ambassador's residence. The house is Grade II listed by Historic England as an "exceptional ambassador's residence and as a notable Neo-Georgian town house containing numerous features of note."