What could be positions in a kings court that people of importance could hold. Like Minister, who would be the chief advisor for the King. Master of Coins (is that something straight out of Game of Thrones, I can't tell) who would look after the Kingdom's finances. There should be chief of Army. Master of the Forces perhaps? Someone to look after the Infrastructure, the Master of Contruction or the Royal Constructor maybe? What else?
Treasurer - Master of Coins General - Chief of Army (Could just be a cultural thing in your story world that the General title is Chief) The Chief Advisor would be the Chief Advisor. You name someone, make them an old wiseman or woman and that person is the Chief Advisor, or, if your king is a warmongering king, you could have the Chief-General as the advisor or perhaps your king supports nepotism and made their brother or sister or cousin or something chief advisor regardless of how intelligent they are. Chief Advisor is really up to you. If you're going with a magical setting, typically people of trades are Masters of such and such trade. So you would have Master of Infrastructure. Or you could have Executive of Infrastructure Or Executive Master of Infrastructure Or Executive Master Director of Infrastructure. Depends on how uppity you want your civilisation to sound. You would need a representative of all the trades in your world. Everything from carpentry to trade. I would suggest a guild system, under the royal court system in this case. So you have the guilds and the masters of the guilds elect a representative to represent them at the royal court. However, this is a capitalist style frame of government and is easily corrupted by the guilds own benefits. You should research some styles of governments to get a better clue as to what you need for your story. In fantasy kingdoms it's often those of highs standing families that hold titles and weight on a council. The make of your council is ultimately up to you and thus, you need more information on ruling councils then what can be provided here.
A king's court consists of all the noblemen and influencers who flock around the center of power in order to gain and use influence. Noblemen have often had to choose whether to spend their time in the center of power for the realm, or in their own lands, weighting the value of governing in person versus being where the power is. The structures around a king have varied in sophistication depending on which era and how organized its government was. For example in the UK we see the introduction of parliament as an additional check on power. Groups like the English Privy Council have advised monarchs, and there are often members of the king's house such as a chamberlain. I doubt the structures were as formal as say a modern cabinet, where we see very well defined roles that have proper legal checks. In a traditional monarchy, all power is derived from the king, so the king's current favors and whims are law.
I agree, but I would still look at a modern-day cabinet to get an idea of what functions need to be filled. Treasury, external defense, internal security, agriculture, guilds and unions, trade, etc.
with the addition of a head priest/imam/rabbi/shaman/other religions may apply... modern cabinets are secular, kings courts generally weren't
How not-modern are you thinking, because if we're going to reach back to when monarchs in the Western world had real power, then I think you may be surprised at what counted as "important" roles back then. Groom of the Stool. Yes, the "Royal Toilettebowl Dude" or "His Majesty's Royal Bum-Wiper" was one of the most intimate and important roles to which a noble could be appointed in the English court. The importance of the position was keyed into how much close personal access the position required to His Majesty's Exalted Turd Tunnel, and since the monarch could drop a deuce whenever it pleased him, access had to be constant and continuous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groom_of_the_Stool So, this one is going to boil down to truth vs truthiness. In this case, truthiness is that important-sounding roles are what readers will accept as genuinely important, but the truth is that most people aren't all that familiar with the actual goings-on at court and who really has the king or queen's ear.
We can also take this a step farther and say that the positions that are most well defined inside this early government are a reflection of what is most important to the King. For example, there probably isn’t a Minister of Education unless there is a pretty enlightened civilization. More likely there is a royal tax collector who rides around the country with a retenue of goons making sure that everyone pays their monetary respects to the crown. There definitely might be a head priest, who if the religion is centralized like the Catholic faith, might actually have an odd power relationship with the king. The king is the ruler of the country, but if the king just had the priest beheaded for no reason then he would probably be excommunicated from the church, which is really really bad. The British enjoyed an advantage in the 1600s because they had very well structured naval leadership. Many countries did not. And you have people like Rasputin who just march in and take all of the influence for themselves.
There may even be an acknowledged equivalency between the secular nobles and the hypothetical leader of the church. Though the weight of the concept has certainly waxed and waned across the centuries, there is a strong tradition of the head of the Catholic Church, the Pope, to be regarded as a prince unto himself, equivalent to the royal family in a broad sense. You are certainly correct that this equivalency of rank can cause for "too many elbows at the table" when it comes to how these people engage one another. One need only look to the story of Henry VIII for a blatant example.
Wow this thread has really taken off. Great inputs by everyone. As for when is the story set, I would say its 1800s kind of setting where industrial revolution was getting started and streets had light bulbs, but nothing much fancier than that. I like how someone suggested that the positions would be based on what is important to the king (minister of education example), so I will look to fit in positions based on the king's motivations.
An 1800s monarchy probably would start to look more like a modern government, with formal roles, checks, and balances. It’s an economic thing. As a country’s economy and standard of living grows, there are more stakeholders who have a piece of the power pie.
Not to mention that as modernization comes, so too the world becomes smaller. Your far away neighbor isn't so far away anymore, what with those newfangled steamships and horseless carriages and railways young people go mad over. International affairs start to feel less academic and more pressing, more in the monarch's face, so to speak.
About the shrinking world aspect, actually in the story I have thought of, the world loses technology for some reason (I mean there is a concrete reason but too big to lay out here). However they retain some bits of technology. So essentially it is a very cut off world only with some bits of technology much like ancient kingdoms.
A Kings court, sounds like the way the upper chain of command would be like in the Military. There will be meetings, briefings, planning. Maybe even Captains Mast, court marshal. My opinion.