Once upon a time, the Lieutenant Governor ran nearly everything that mattered on the island: head of the judiciary, head of government, presider over the Tynwald parliament. Then, decade by decade, the office gave it all back. In 1921 he lost his prerogatives as head of the judiciary. In 1961, he ceased to be head of government, that role passing first to a council of ministers and eventually to a popularly chosen Chief Minister. In 1980 he stopped presiding over the Legislative Council. In 1990 he stepped down as President of Tynwald, replaced by a member of the parliament itself. What remained was largely ceremonial: granting royal assent to bills, hosting foreign dignitaries, representing the Lord of Mann at island occasions, and presiding once a year over Tynwald Day at St John's. It is a job that has been gracefully shrinking for a hundred years.

Until recently the appointment was made in London with little Manx input. That changed in the early 2000s, when Tynwald negotiated a new procedure: a local panel comprising the Chief Minister, the President of Tynwald, and the First Deemster would now advise on the choice. The first selection under the new arrangement chose Sir Paul Haddacks's successor. The deemsters, the island's senior judges, have historically served as ex officio deputy governors. When the office is vacant or the Governor is off-island, a Manx-born First Deemster temporarily takes on the role, the closest the position has ever come to local hands. The historical record of governors stretches back to 1595, though tracing the earliest appointments has always been difficult. A nineteenth-century researcher named Gell, working at the Rolls Office, compiled a list of eighty-three appointments between 1595 and 1863, but the trail before 1639 is broken in places.

In October 2005, the Tynwald decided the title sounded dated. It voted to ask Queen Elizabeth II, as Lord of Mann, to allow the office to be renamed Crown Commissioner. The request went to the British Department of Constitutional Affairs for transmission to the palace. Then the Manx public weighed in, and the reaction was unenthusiastic. By April 2006, having heard the response, Tynwald reversed itself and withdrew the request before royal assent could be sought. The title remained Lieutenant Governor. It is a small story, but a Manx one: a parliament confidently floating a modernization, then quietly walking it back when the islanders made clear they preferred the old name.

Government House sits in a wooded estate above Onchan, a few minutes' drive from central Douglas. From the outside it could be any large country house in the British Isles. Inside, it functions as the operational home of the Crown's representative. Once a year, on 5 July (Tynwald Day), the Lieutenant Governor crosses to St John's in the centre of the island for the ceremony. New laws are read aloud at the top of Tynwald Hill, in English and Manx, to an open-air assembly that goes back over a thousand years. The Governor takes his ancient place in the proceedings. The rest of the year, government runs itself.