| The early Stuart is the period when the social corruption is comparatively outstanding in British history ,and the corruption reflects mainly in the field of social politics, economy and the management course of the navy. In the field of social politics, the noble and officials in the upper class have rights to nominate to the government post and rank of nobility, which results in the corruption that the noble and officer in the upper class take bribes, form cliques to gain private interests. Among the corruption and embezzlement committed by the officials in the middle and lower class who imposed the taxation for central and local authorities, and the the arbitrary charge and the miscarriage of justice performed in the local judicial course , the much worse is of the most influential magistrate of British local government at that time.In the economic field, imperial governments sell farms and the patent and monopoly, among which the most crucial one is that the power is mostly controlled by big noble and high-ranking officials, and by means of auctioning , calling for bid and selling , so that those rights finally reach in the hand of the corresponding enterprises. In this course , big noble and high-ranking officials have appeared, who reselled directly, or received bribes , or racketeered and blackmailed and did other corrupt conduct.During the process of dealing in the navy, the corruption is extremely general. Navy minister and subordinate officers were unprincipled, shown as the followings: during the armament materials purchasing, they received commission or purchased from their ralatives' companies ; reported falsify figure of officers and soldiers and daily expenses; divided the booty secretly; colluded and protected smuggling; charged course protection fee , etc.The focus of this text is to probe into the corruption reasons of the noble and officials in the early Stuart dynasty from five respects:1.Disequilibrium of development and aggravation of conflictIn the transition in period of the early modern British society, especially from the late Tudor to the early Stuart, its social development and change are remarkable. In my opinion, the basic characteristics of the change is: disequilibrium of development and aggravation of conflict.Politically, from Tudor, the political activities of Britain mainly center around the royal power and parliament. On one hand, the royal power is expanded constantly, on the other hand, the two Houses of the parliament, especially Lower House are striving for its own power constantly. The two-way development of royal power and parliament's power must result in the conflicts of both sides and consequently, make the political struggle in this period of Britain go on around royal power and parliament all the time.Up to the early Stuart, abandoning parliament and implementing personal rule broke through the political frame established gradually by monarch and parliament together, and again, the administrative organs centered round the King established from King Henry VIII expanded. All those caused the weight of the political power that restricted each other between the Parliament and King slope to the Royal power, and therefore the system of personal patron became into the main body of the administrative system for this period and caused serious consequences.Economically, the price rising, city springing up and the commodity economy developing is the remarkable economic development characteristic of this period. However, the traditional fiscal revenues could not meet the need of the huge expenditure caused by increase of price rise , war and administrative expenditure, therefore it became necessary that the imperial family took by force non-traditional financial resources to remedy the financial deficit.The policy and action that the imperial family obtained , occupied the public wealth at will were not undoubtedly in conformity with demand for economic development at that time. Though modern government need public financial support, howerver the early Stuart court implemented " pesonal rules ", and the modern taxes system that in addition, had not effectively taken shape in this time, and court-government's one-sided economic policy , compulsory economic measures were not identical with economic developing state at that time, therefore, economic development and conflict of the economic system are unavoidable.In social aspect. With the economic development and change, the new characteristic had appeared in the state of the social stratum in Britain. In this period, the economic and social status of some old nobles dropped, and, meanwhile, the new stratum emerges. However, the social policy of increasing the noble's quantity and ranks, and selling ranks and government posts, which upseted the civil order seriously. This kindof social policy is a direction to the corrupt behavior in fact, and its result had conflicte the traditional social idea too.2.Forming of the network of personal patronIn Middle Ages, the system of protection had existed in the feudal military system in Britain. After Tudor dynasty set up, with the change of the politics , economics , and social stratum, this system had consequently changed remarkably too, and formed the personal protection network which centered around the Royal government and linked with local government.The characteristics of the system of protection in early modern Britain and the personal protection in all the levels of it cause the serious corruption in this period.3.The changes of financial state and economic policyThere is relation closely between the corruption and the changes of the financial state and the economic policy at that time. The price contiunous rising, administrative organs increasing, and the administrators expanding, the luxurious palace life and the war expenditure increasing caused the finance of the court-government on the brink of collapse. On the other hand, the incomes of the nobles and officials reduced relatively, the extravagance and waste did not reduce , and the loyalty to the King family and service naturally demanded the repayment. Threrfore, the Royal governmennt, because of unabling to increase their incomes, allowanced nobles and officials by way of transfering some crown privilege, and they managed and took bribes directly, or transferred their privilege to obtain the interests directly.In addition, with the establishment of the power-centralized politics centred around the king, the country directly standardized the economic affairs instead of the guild rules and self principled rules by way of legislating, and the nobles and officials participated in the economic process one after another.Therefore, the orientation of legislating and the implementation of law were invariably favorable to noble officials, which established the situation for corruption.4.Changes of the social ideasThe change of society , politics , economy can also cause the change of the social idea too. With the development of commodity economy ,the consolidation of the centralpower , people's wealth view , job view and status view had changed accordingly. As squire's stratum entered into the middle and upper society, the changes of their wealth view were very obvious. To run the factoriesor engage in other professions could all become normal ways to obtain wealth. The whole society had gradually come to admitting the legitimacy of obtaining wealth whether engaged in industry and commerce or in other jobs.This periods, social status not only established but also it was essentially guaranteed by certain amounts of wealth.In the 16th and 17th century in Britain, people ideas to such jobs as the businessman , lawyer , doctor,etc. were changing, and it was of common occurrence for businessmen , lawyers, etc to the upper society.All sorts of changes of wealth view, status view and job view made new andr old moral and ethic ideas mix together and conflict or could not syncretize each other. In this period, the public morals were weakened , people's behavior lacked measurement and restriction of the moral standard, thus corrupt behavior prevailed in the catalysis.5.Weakenedness and lackedness of supervision mechanismFrom James I to Charles I, the function of parliament was gradually weakening, so, the parliament's supervision to the officials disappeared with the establishment of the personal rules. In addition because of constant development of personal patron, parliament's supervision to officials unabled to implement even. After Tudor set up, through the constant reform , the economic supervisory system to the royal officials and government officials, namely comparatively perfect financial auditing system., had been established.By early Stuart period, the patronage, farms and transfering economic rights made economy audit lose its necessity.In a period ,the British government once mainly relied on informers to carry on the social supervision. Informers' main function is to collect local information , especially the basic situations of local officials and tariff officials and reported to Privy Council and all courts led by the central government, and the central government directly dealt with to local affairs and officials according to what the informers reported. From the late Elizabeth I, the informers, making use of their rights that they were able to directly get in touch with the central authorities, blackmailed the local nobles and officials,and this colony, consequently, was moving towards the corruption. The royal government was unable to still rely on them to carry on the social supervision to the noble officials.So, by early Stuart period, the supervision mechanism for politics, economy and society were thoroughly paralysed. Lacking of supervision system, the nobles and officials were unprincipled ,and therefore the wild corruption followed a rational and natural line. |
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