White Council

The White Council, more formally the Council of the Wise, was an assembly of the chief Elven lords and the Istari formed in the Third Age of Middle-earth to oppose the rising shadow of Sauron. It was convened around the year 2463 of the Third Age, at the urging of the Lady Galadriel, who wished Gandalf the Grey to lead it. But Saruman, greatest of the wizards in lore, desired the office, and to keep the peace the Council was set under his leadership.

The Council gathered the mightiest of the free peoples then willing to take counsel together against the Enemy: among them Elrond of Rivendell, Galadriel and Celeborn of Lothlórien, Círdan the Shipwright, and the wizards Saruman and Gandalf. Its purpose was to watch the movements of the Shadow and to take counsel on how best to resist it.

History

For long years a shadow had grown in Mirkwood, in the dark hill of Dol Guldur, and many feared it to be Sauron returning. Saruman, however, long counselled patience and inaction, in part to pursue his own secret search for the One Ring, which he believed lost beyond recovery in the Anduin.

It was Gandalf who, entering Dol Guldur in secret, confirmed that the shadow there was indeed Sauron, gathering his strength anew. In the year 2941, the same year as the Quest of Erebor, the White Council at last moved against him and drove him from Dol Guldur. But Sauron had foreseen the assault and merely withdrew to Mordor, where he openly declared himself once more. The Council, it proved, had struck too late.

Significance

The story of the White Council is in large part the story of Saruman's slow treachery. By delaying its action for his own ends, and by his secret coveting of the Ring, Saruman blunted the one body that might have checked Sauron before his return. The Council's eventual assault on Dol Guldur, though a victory, came only after Sauron had readied his escape -- a lesson in how the counsels of the wise may be undone from within.