Elizabethan government
Elizabeth's Advisers
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Sir William Cecil
(1520-98) |
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Sir Francis Walsingham (1532-90) |
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Sir Robert Cecil (1563-1612) |
Elizabeth's Bureaucrats
| Sir Nicholas Bacon(1510-79). He became Keeper of the Privy Seal in 1558 and a member of the Privy Council; in 1559 he was authorized to act as Lord Chancellor and retained the post until his death in 1579. |
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Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626). He was Sir Nicholas Bacon's son and also became Lord Chancellor. A man of immense ability, Sir Francis Bacon was the author of some of the finest essays in the English language, wrote the first systematic exposition of the inductive method in science, as well as being an important lawyer and politician. |
Sir Francis Knollys (1514-96).
His strong Protestant convictions helped him to rise at court under
Edward VI, but he moved to Frankfurt and then to Strasburg while Mary
ruled. He returned on Elizabeth's accession and she appointed him to
her Privy Council in December 1558. Knollys married Catherine Carey, (Mary
Boleyn's daughter by Sir William Carey) and therefore
first cousin to Queen
Elizabeth. For much of Elizabeth's reign he sat in Parliament and
acted as government spokesman there. In 1568-9 he was jailor to Mary,
Queen of Scots, and tried to teach her English and convert her to his
own Genevan brand of Protestantism.
Sir Walter Mildmay (1523-1589). The son of a wealthy merchant, Sir Walter Mildmay married Sir Francis Walsingham's sister, Mary, in 1546. Elizabeth appointed him to her Privy Council and in 1566, made him Chancellor of the Exchequer. Like Knollys, he had strong puritan sympathies. In 1584, he founded Emmanuel College, Cambridge with the specific aim of training learned, godly ministers.
Elizabeth's Favorites
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Robert Dudley (1532-88)
was a younger son of John Dudley,
Duke of Northumberland. Robert was Elizabeth's most important favorite during the early years of her reign. She made him Earl of Leicester, and apparently seriously considered marrying him after the (suspicious) death of his wife in 1560. He remained influential at court and in 1585 was placed in command of the English army sent to the Netherlands. In 1586 - without Elizabeth's permission and much to her annoyance - he accepted the title of governor of the Netherlands. Elizabeth recalled him in 1587 and he died just after being appointed general of the armies raised to repel the feared Spanish invasion. |
| Sir Christopher Hatton
(1540-92). Hatton caught Elizabeth's eye by his skill at dancing. She appointed him the captain of her bodyguard in 1572. He was Elizabeth's spokesman in the Commons, ( for example, urging the Commons to provide taxation to support Elizabeth's foreign policy) until 1587, when the Queen made him Lord Chancellor (despite the fact that he had little legal training). He disliked puritans and was a patron of John Whitgift. |
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Sir
Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) arrived at court in 1581 - when he was twenty-nine and Elizabeth forty-eight. She took a fancy to him and showered him with gifts (until she learnt of his secret marriage in 1592), including the right to take possession of land in the New World. He organized the exploration of Virginia (named for Elizabeth - the virgin queen) but did not go there himself. [More on Raleigh] |
The Privy Council and central government
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Elizabeth reduced the number of Privy Councilors to nineteen and later to fourteen (by eliminating some of the noblemen). | |||||
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Elizabeth generally left routine administration to the Privy Council but occasionally intervened on apparently trivial matters. | |||||
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Elizabeth was firmly in control of major policies and on many occasions obstinately ignored the Council's advice. The Council conscientiously carried out the Queen's wishes even when it had advised otherwise. | |||||
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One of the Privy Council's duties was to advise the Queen on policy matters, but it did not always speak with one voice.
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The Privy Council also acted as a judicial body, especially when sitting as Star Chamber. In the 1590s it took an active role in the suppression of the Presbyterian movement. | |||||
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However, the Privy Council's primary role was administration. It gave the Queen's wishes practical effect by drawing up and sending orders to local officials (for example, Justices of the Peace, military commanders, Lords Lieutenant) and to the institutions of central government (Chancery, Exchequer). | |||||
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The major Privy Councilors employed assistants who did much of the spadework (for example,
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Finance and Patronage
| Elizabeth was unwilling to adopt new financial expedients. Despite inflation, she did not increase custom rates. Receipts from wardships did not keep pace with inflation. Rents from royal land fell in real terms, and Elizabeth sold land to pay for war with Spain which decreased the base income. | |||||||||
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Elizabeth made no real attempt to
overhaul the system. Instead, she reduced government expenditure,
rewarding officials so meanly that corruption increased, and diverted
revenues from the Church of England into state coffers.
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| Elizabeth's frugality did mean that despite long and expensive wars with Spain and in Ireland, she left a debt of only about £300,000 to James I. (This can be contrasted with Philip II of Spain, who repudiated his massive debts four times during his reign). | |||||||||
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Like all
early-modern states, England had neither a permanent paid
police-force nor a standing army; the only full-time paid employees
were in the tiny central bureaucracy. To enforce
her will, the monarch had to resort to other methods.
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Elizabeth was careful to dispense some patronage herself, and not to allow one minister or favorite to control access to her favor. Sir William Cecil and Sir Robert Dudley developed two major subordinate patronage networks, but there were also other minor networks. Until Elizabeth began to lose her grip in the 1590s, she exercised firm control over her subordinates and ensured that conflict between the factions at court remained muted. | |||||||||
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By distributing patronage widely, Elizabeth helped ensure political stability, since everyone felt they had a chance to obtain advancement. |
Local government |
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The central
government relied on local volunteers to enforce its wishes in the
localities. Gentlemen and merchants were willing to accept the
costs in time and money because it increased their local power and
influence. For example, a gentleman appointed to the subsidy commissions that were created to assess Parliamentary taxation could under-assess the value of his own and his friends' property. The Commission of Sewers had powers to order that ditches be dug and river banks maintained - a gentleman on the commission could ensure that such orders never inconvenienced him or his family. |
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The office of sheriff continued to decline in influence, but sheriffs did act as returning officers in elections to Parliament. This gave them great scope for ensuring that a candidate they favored was returned. | ||
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In the 1580s,
Elizabeth reintroduced the office of Lord Lieutenant of the County
(the Duke of Northumberland had first created this office in the wake
of the peasant rebellions of 1549). The Lord Lieutenant took over the
sheriff's military duties in the county and was responsible for
levying the militia (in practice the work was often delegated
to Deputy Lieutenants).
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The Lords Lieutenant (many of whom were Privy Councilors) and Deputy Lieutenants also supervised the selection and instruction of Justices of the Peace. | ||
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Throughout
the sixteenth century the powers and responsibilities of Justices of
the Peace increased. This was not only by royal fiat; Parliamentary
legislation often settled on the Commission of the Peace as the best
agency to enforce law. Acting alone, a single Justice of the Peace could imprison a suspect. A quorum of Justices at the Quarter Sessions could impose the death penalty (although increasingly, the punishment of serious crimes took place at the biannual Assizes, where two Judges from the central courts were present).
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The smallest
administrative unit of English government was the parish. The
parish was primarily the fundamental element of the English Church,
but it was also the basis for secular functions such as poor relief
and the upkeep of roads and bridges. |
