My British Empire

Chapter 225 Local government in England

ps: School has started, and half of the recommendation votes have dropped, which is too exaggerated! ???So, I can only continue to ask for tickets and subscriptions!

As we all know, the era of the Tudor dynasty was the most powerful era of the British autocratic monarchy. The aristocratic and religious forces shrank in an all-round way, resulting in a situation where the monarchy was dominant.

There are three pillars supporting the absolute monarchy.

The Finance Department, the Privy Council, and the local government, these three are the biggest pillars of the royal power.

The predecessor of the Privy Council was the Senate, an institution that consulted the previous kings. Its members were all local nobles and senior priests, and they regarded the Advisory Council as an institution that influenced and restricted the royal power.

Wait until the Tudor dynasty, Henry VII changed it to the Privy Council, an administrative agency completely controlled by the king.

And with the Privy Council as the core, England's central organization was established, and its administrative center status was established.

The rights of the Privy Council are combined with the Great Seal of the Justice, the Great Seal representing the rights of the King, and the Yu Seal representing the King himself. That is to say, it possesses judicial and administrative powers, and has become a national institution institutionalized.

The Finance Office is also an institution used by the nobles to restrict the royal power. Although the Minister of Finance is appointed by the king, it is supervised and restricted by the four nobles. For all kings, this is intolerable.

In order to strengthen the royal family’s financial management, Edward I set up Jinyiku to overhang the Treasury Department, Edward II and Edward III used the inner court to manage finances, and Edward IV set up inspectors to handle and inspect the royal family’s financial management.

In the period of Henry VII, the royal family fully controlled the benefits of the royal estate and territory, and strengthened guardianship, inheritance, and judicial rights.

That is to say, the former English royal family could not fully decide the income of their royal family territory, and was restricted and monitored by the nobles.

Until the period of the Tudor royal family, the income from the royal family's territory really belonged to the royal family, and no one monitored it.

At present, the Finance Department and the Privy Council's Financial Revenue and Expenditure Management Office have merged to form the Ministry of Finance. The taxes they can currently collect include the first year's salary and the knight's donation (this is not only less money, but also offending people. Edward generously gave it to the Ministry of Finance) .

In order to allow it to have executive power, Edward merged the income-increasing court that handles church property into the Ministry of Finance. A large number of experienced tax collectors, as well as branches of income-increasing courts all over England, have strengthened the execution capabilities of the Ministry of Finance. It can be said that if now If you collect subsidies, then it is completely feasible.

Having said so much, the most important focus today is local government.

Edward pondered the reform of local government in his mind.

Some people say that the centralization of power will definitely make the English stick to themselves, lose their desire to conquer the sea, and become like China.

But they didn't see that, except for England, the whole of Europe began to centralize power vigorously, but the desire for colonies has never stopped. Interests are an important factor for Europeans to conquer the earth. Centralization can lead to better colonial expansion.

I also said before that England is completely controlled by a group of gentlemen, that is, a group composed of squires, knights, quasi-knights, and Jomannon. The king's control of the place depends on the strong position of the king.

Local governance consists of a court model and a committee model.

The Tudor government retained the parish system and transformed it into a local basic administrative unit.

And Henry VII further subdivided, adding a hundred households.

Thus, the three-level division of the manor, the hundred-household district-parish-county, constitutes the administrative mechanism of England, and of course there are exceptions to the autonomous cities.

Judicially, England consists of the Manor Court, Hundred House District Court, County Court, and City Court.

Although the various personnel of the court are composed of local people, they are all appointed by the king and obey the leadership of the king.

The committee system was originally a temporary agency set up by the central government to deal with various affairs.

Such as the Subsidy Committee, the Nonconformist Committee, the Enclosure Investigation Committee, the Conscription Committee, etc., various committees with administrative and judicial powers.

Among them, the Security Committee, which holds judicial power and some administrative power, is the most important local institution.

By appointing unpaid squires and flexible use of various committees, it became the magic weapon for Tudor kings to control the place.

In order to adjust the relationship between the court and various committees, the king generally appoints and removes the sheriff to perform this duty.

In order to prevent the power of the sheriff from being irresistible, the Tudor kings handed over the general power and the right to command the local militia to the sheriff, and adjusted their term of office to one year.

In this way, the county sheriff completely lost his rights and became an empty shell (I suspect that the symbol of the Governor General of Canada comes from this). They have legal rights, but they cannot exercise their rights, forming a situation of rule but not rule.

So, at present, in the local area, the two people with the greatest power are the magistrate and the county lieutenant.

Magistrates run county courts, implement poverty relief, manage commerce, and manage social order.

People jokingly call them the king's maids, and they are actually carrying out most of the central government's decrees.

Although they have judicial power and some administrative power, the power is dispersed in the hands of the security committee, and they cannot be the only one.

Although the county lieutenant has military power, they do not have the king's order and cannot call up the local militia to perform their obligations. They can only lead the usual hundreds of standing militia to suppress the local area.

As a result, the Tudor monarchs were not at ease. In order to maintain their rule, they also set up circuit courts.

The Circuit Court, as it is called, travels all day in the local counties,

Monitor local officials for corruption and treason, as well as mistrials and so on.

So, although England did not implement centralization at this time, local governance was completely autonomous by the local gentry.

However, the control of the royal power over the local area has been greatly enhanced. Although it cannot be compared with China, it is much stronger than the European countries at that time.

The king appointed and removed county lieutenants and magistrates for local control and governance, and let the circuit court supervise, which made the turbulent England calm a lot.

A peaceful society is conducive to businessmen, and capitalism can sprout, take root, and grow. This is why it is often said in textbooks that capitalists support autocracy and centralization.

As the first country to achieve peace, England was able to breed capitalism and was the first to carry out the capitalist revolution.

They understand that without a peaceful society, not only will business fail, but even life safety will become a problem.

(end of this chapter)

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