England

Royal Law and Authority under Henry VII

Welsh Marcher lords remained independent throughout Henry's reign - they were brought to heel by Henry VIII. Barons likewise clung to their liberties, but Henry VII was able to make royal law courts widely feared and respected.

Henry brought whomever he would into government, regardless of estate, provided only they were skilled. In contrast with Richard, though, Henry had the money and the skill to get away with this.

His financial ministers introduced order and reason. His legal advisors introduced efficiency and structure. These new men exhibited three fundamental characteristics that would become predominant in the Renaissance monarchies of the sixteenth century:

  1. attention to administrative and fiscal detail (record keeping and accountability)
  2. a conscious desire to increase efficiency through imposition of formal structure and government-imposed order, through law and statute. They exhibited an intolerance for exceptions to the rules, a state of affairs that the nobility had long taken for granted (it's the very meaning of privilege).
  3. an appreciation that government had a life and a spirit of its own; that government officials had special skills and special responsibilities; and that they served the "state" in some abstract sense, though of course they were still first the king's men. They believed that the accomplishments of government would endure beyond this king and the next.