Power and Rule

Question 1

What is the Royal prerogative?

Answer 1

The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege and immunity, recognized in common law and, sometimes, in civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy, as belonging to the sovereign and which have become widely vested in the government

Question 2

Why did Charles come into conflict with parliament?

Answer 2

He was not calling parliament and was raising taxes without their help. He was also suspected of having Catholic sympathies and was acting tyrannically.

Question 3

Who was the most powerful person in a county?

Answer 3

The Lord Lieutenant

Question 4

What did a coroner do?

Answer 4

Hold inquests into deaths

Question 5

What was the role of a JP?

Answer 5

To keep the peace and take part in quarter sessions

Question 6

What was the typical demographic of the people who worked in the government?

Answer 6

They were often gentry. Most government work was part-time, unpaid and voluntary.

Question 7

What % of men would be involved in govt each year and over a lifetime

Answer 7

5%, 50%

Question 8

When was the act of union and what did it do?

Answer 8

1707, created a parliamentary union between England and Scotland but kept their legal systems separate.

Question 9

What was the definition of a good king?

Answer 9

A king who took advice from noblemen and met with parliament

Question 10

Collinson quote: demonstrating power of local government

Answer 10

“Locality habitually starved the centre of resources and had the capacity to bring national governments to their knees”

Question 11

Quote - how Smith desrcribed the queen and the state

Answer 11

The “life, head and the authority of all things to be done in the realm of England”. “A society of free men collected together and united by a common accord”

Question 12

What was govt like beyond whitehall?

Answer 12

Part time an amateur

Question 13

What % of men had the vote by 1715

Answer 13

20%

Question 14

Goldie quote, on the democracy of England

Answer 14

“England was far more democratic between 1688 and 1715 then immediately after 1832”

Question 15

Number of parish officers at one time 17th century

Answer 15

50,000

Question 16

Regional variation in officeholding

Answer 16

London, 1/10 in any one year
Wealthy ward would be 1/3

Question 17

What was houserow?

Answer 17

A system of selection for low levels of local govt. Houses would alternate taking up different positions.

Question 18

When was the poor relief act introduced?

Answer 18

1601

Question 19

Example of those in the electorate

Answer 19

Not a narrow, elite electorate at this time, there were cobblers, fishmongers, bricklayers and soapboilers.

Question 20

Specification of whether women could vote in Chelsea 1735

Answer 20

They could not, even taxpaying women, hints that they may have been able to before

Question 21

Why may local policy have been more important than national policy? Goldie

Answer 21

Were a lot of distinctions of different levels of govt. There were boroughs, parishes, towns, counties, wards, ridings, stokes. Would have taken a long time to get any national policy across.

Question 22

Was illiteracy a barrier?

Answer 22

It was in some forms but not in others. Many police constables were illiterate with over half being illiterate in the mid 17th century.

Question 23

Quote, Goldie, office holding

Answer 23

Office was coextensive with being a human, it was part of your duty and responsibility for being a part of society.

Question 24

Example of a woman holding office

Answer 24

1712 Elizabeth Eyre at Woodland in Derbyshire was headborough and overseer.

Question 25

How many people attended parish meetings at the end of the 18th century

Answer 25

800,000 most were not enfranchised

Question 26

When was an English monarch most powerful?

Answer 26

When they acted in collaboration with parliament and the law

Question 27

The effectiveness of the Scottish polity

Answer 27

Generally successful in its own right despite not emulating England, generally undersold by English historians. Huge importance of local government

Question 28

How had the British government changed between the beginning of the 17th and 18th centuries?

Answer 28

Parliament had become much more powerful leading to a new era of stability

Question 29

Why had the concept of the royal prerogative broken down during the 17th century?

Answer 29

King’s like Charles the 1st had brought about the idea of a despotic and tyrannical King and events of the 1640s and 50s made people associate absolute monarchy with tyranny

Question 30

What was the most important change which limited the monarchs power?

Answer 30

The act that made the monarch have to be in communion with the church of England, not the other way round. Took the controls of religion away from the personal faith of the monarch.