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Authors: Jeffrey L. Forgeng
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1 each from 12 Welsh towns; the total was around 450 representatives.
The exact means by which the representatives were chosen depended on local practice, but in the shires any holder of lands worth 40 shillings a year was entitled to vote.
A bill passed by both Houses and assented to by the monarch was the highest legal authority in the land. Elizabeth made use of Parliament when she had need of money or of new national initiatives to deal with changing circumstances, but Parliament was not a regular part of the apparatus of her government: only 10 parliaments were summoned during her half-century reign, meeting for less than three years in all.
The actual operation of government revolved around the figure of the monarch, who was the embodiment and guarantor of law, as well as the executive figure at the head of the state. To provide advice and to oversee the day-to-day business of governing, the Queen relied on her Privy Council. The Council numbered a bit over a dozen men, hand-selected by the monarch, and drawing heavily from men of gentry background, in contrast with medieval councils that had been dominated by aristocrats.
The Privy Council supervised national defense, regulated commerce, heard sensitive judicial cases, managed government finances, and supervised the operations of government. They also deliberated matters of pol-32
Daily Life in Elizabethan England
icy, although the Queen always had the final say. The monarch, and the Council acting in the monarch’s name, had some power to issue decrees enforceable at law, but the exact extent of these powers was ill-defined.
Dependent on the crown was a complex network of bureaucracies and
jurisdictions. The Privy Councilors generally held office in addition to their role on the Council, heading up bureaucracies of their own in the Queen’s name: during the latter half of her reign, Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, served as Lord Treasurer; Sir Christopher Hatton was Lord Chancellor; Sir Francis Walsingham was Secretary of State. The treasury and chancery were the largest departments: the former was responsible for administering royal finances; the latter was the chief organ of the administrative and legal bureaucracy. The various government departments were staffed by a modest civil service, numbering about 600 salaried officials, with another 600 serving the monarch in administering crown lands.
Perhaps as important as the formal royal bureaucracies was the informal institution of the court, orbiting around the person of the Queen herself. As modern lobbyists know, face time with people who have power is itself a route to power. Those who were able to speak with the Queen in person could gain access to favors and privileges for themselves and their friends.
These people included government officers such as the Privy Councilors, but also many who were not actually a part of government, such as the ladies-in-waiting who kept Elizabeth company and looked after her needs.
These leading courtiers were sought after by a subsidiary tier of secondary courtiers, and so on downward in a complex hierarchy of patronage.
Royal government operated at the local level through the country’s 39
shires or counties. In the Middle Ages, the crown’s main representative in the shire had been the sheriff, but by Elizabeth’s day, the sheriffs had been reduced to a managerial role. Each shire also had a Lord Lieutenant, responsible for military matters, and a coroner (literally “crowner”), whose investigated suspicious deaths in case the government needed to pursue a criminal indictment.
The most important organ of government in the shires was the Commission of the Peace. Each year the crown appointed a number of local gentry as justices of the peace for their shire. The justices met four times a year in the chief town of the shire to handle important judicial cases in the Quarter Sessions; there were also more frequent Petty Sessions held locally by smaller groups
The exact means by which the representatives were chosen depended on local practice, but in the shires any holder of lands worth 40 shillings a year was entitled to vote.
A bill passed by both Houses and assented to by the monarch was the highest legal authority in the land. Elizabeth made use of Parliament when she had need of money or of new national initiatives to deal with changing circumstances, but Parliament was not a regular part of the apparatus of her government: only 10 parliaments were summoned during her half-century reign, meeting for less than three years in all.
The actual operation of government revolved around the figure of the monarch, who was the embodiment and guarantor of law, as well as the executive figure at the head of the state. To provide advice and to oversee the day-to-day business of governing, the Queen relied on her Privy Council. The Council numbered a bit over a dozen men, hand-selected by the monarch, and drawing heavily from men of gentry background, in contrast with medieval councils that had been dominated by aristocrats.
The Privy Council supervised national defense, regulated commerce, heard sensitive judicial cases, managed government finances, and supervised the operations of government. They also deliberated matters of pol-32
Daily Life in Elizabethan England
icy, although the Queen always had the final say. The monarch, and the Council acting in the monarch’s name, had some power to issue decrees enforceable at law, but the exact extent of these powers was ill-defined.
Dependent on the crown was a complex network of bureaucracies and
jurisdictions. The Privy Councilors generally held office in addition to their role on the Council, heading up bureaucracies of their own in the Queen’s name: during the latter half of her reign, Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, served as Lord Treasurer; Sir Christopher Hatton was Lord Chancellor; Sir Francis Walsingham was Secretary of State. The treasury and chancery were the largest departments: the former was responsible for administering royal finances; the latter was the chief organ of the administrative and legal bureaucracy. The various government departments were staffed by a modest civil service, numbering about 600 salaried officials, with another 600 serving the monarch in administering crown lands.
Perhaps as important as the formal royal bureaucracies was the informal institution of the court, orbiting around the person of the Queen herself. As modern lobbyists know, face time with people who have power is itself a route to power. Those who were able to speak with the Queen in person could gain access to favors and privileges for themselves and their friends.
These people included government officers such as the Privy Councilors, but also many who were not actually a part of government, such as the ladies-in-waiting who kept Elizabeth company and looked after her needs.
These leading courtiers were sought after by a subsidiary tier of secondary courtiers, and so on downward in a complex hierarchy of patronage.
Royal government operated at the local level through the country’s 39
shires or counties. In the Middle Ages, the crown’s main representative in the shire had been the sheriff, but by Elizabeth’s day, the sheriffs had been reduced to a managerial role. Each shire also had a Lord Lieutenant, responsible for military matters, and a coroner (literally “crowner”), whose investigated suspicious deaths in case the government needed to pursue a criminal indictment.
The most important organ of government in the shires was the Commission of the Peace. Each year the crown appointed a number of local gentry as justices of the peace for their shire. The justices met four times a year in the chief town of the shire to handle important judicial cases in the Quarter Sessions; there were also more frequent Petty Sessions held locally by smaller groups
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