[5]The role of the Crown is both legal and practical; it functions in Prince Edward Island in the same way it does in all of Canada's other provinces, being the centre of a constitutional construct in which the institutions of government acting under the sovereign's authority share the power of the whole.

[7] The Canadian monarch—since 8 September 2022, King Charles III—is represented and his duties carried out by the lieutenant governor of Prince Edward Island, whose direct participation in governance is limited by the conventional stipulations of constitutional monarchy, with most related powers entrusted for exercise by the elected parliamentarians, the ministers of the Crown generally drawn from among them, and the judges and justices of the peace.

[5][8][9] This arrangement began with an 1873 order-in-council by Queen Victoria and continued an unbroken line of monarchical government extending back to the early 16th century.

As a consequence of the Acadians' refusal to swear allegiance to King George III and their subsequent expulsion from British-controlled Nova Scotia, between 1755 and 1764, Île Saint-Jean's population rose to approximately 5,000.

The following year, the Earl of Egmont presented an elaborate memorial to the King, asking that the Island of Saint John be granted to him and divided into baronies.

[19] During the American Revolutionary War, which took place between 1775 and 1783, Charlottetown was raided by a pair of US-employed privateers[20] who imprisoned the colonial administrator, Phillips Callbeck,[21] standing-in during the absence of Lieutenant Governor Walter Patterson.

Both as the conflict proceeded and after it ended, some 46,000 American settlers loyal to the Crown, known as the United Empire Loyalists, fled north to the Maritimes and other colonies in the Canadas.

[25]) Recognising the Prince's interest in the island, its legislature passed a bill that received royal assent on 2 February 1799, with effect on 6 June of the same year,[25] changing the colony's name in honour of Edward.

[28] Not four years after, the Legislative Assembly adopted an address to the Queen, asking for the establishment of responsible government in the colony, as had been done in a number of other jurisdictions in the Canadas, and the request was soon thereafter granted.

They faced opposition from Lieutenant Governor Ambrose Lane, but, would not relent and the legislature "virtually went 'on strike'" the following year, voting non-confidence in the Executive Council and refusing to pass supply bills.