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下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文- Corruption at the court of England，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了英国宫廷的腐败。在17世纪初，伦敦成为了英国的经济中心和消费中心。在伦敦西区出现了以宫廷为中心、以大贵族豪宅为卫星官邸的巨大消费社会。这些上流社会的奢侈、摆阔和攀比之风激起世人的强烈不满。众多的知识分子对英国的社会发展持悲观态度，他们认为过度的繁荣将导致社会腐化甚至社会崩溃，奢侈和摆阔则是英国鼎盛即将结束的先兆。他们把攻击的矛头指向了宫廷，因为宫廷作为上流社会风尚的中心，在此时却极尽搜刮之能事。这些知识分子措辞激烈、讽刺宫廷奢侈腐败的小册子和文学作品风行英伦大地。

In the early modern times, the role of the court in the British political country is very important. Palace life is not only about the personal preferences of the royal family, but also about the security of the country. Unfortunately, the English courts of the early 17th century were perceived to have "a smell of bribery, envy, and corruption." the Stuart courts were no longer comparable to queen Elizabeth's.

We used in the research of the early modern British society and history, often lay particular stress on the revelation of court of corruption, neglecting to explore the structural problems of corruption, we have the one-sided emphasis on the greed of palace, enjoy nature and life erosion of luxury to court the direct impact of corruption, while ignoring the institutional defects in the court of corruption. This paper argues that, in addition to human factors, palace corruption is largely caused by institutional defects, and such institutional defects are the most important source of palace corruption. Corruption itself covers a very broad field, limited to the length, this paper mainly discusses the institutional root of corruption in the palace economy.

In the early 17th century, London became the economic and consumer center of Britain. In London's west end up in court as the center, big noble mansion as the residence of the satellite giant consumer society, past a rare luxury goods such as socks, lace collar, Venetian glass, watches and the big wagon has everywhere in the UK at this time, meet the need of high society social store sells a wide variety of luxury. Contrast with the increasingly luxurious lifestyle of the royal aristocracy. Poverty is rising across Britain, and social polarisation is becoming more pronounced. Therefore, the high society headed by the court of luxury, ostentation and comparison of the wind aroused the world's strong dissatisfaction. Many intellectuals hold a pessimistic attitude towards the social development of Britain. They believe that excessive prosperity will lead to social corruption and even social collapse. "feast and luxurious clothing are signs of social morbidity", and extravagance and ostentation are the harbingers of the end of Britain's heyday. They first took aim at the court, for the court, the centre of the fashion of high society, was at this time making the best of it. These intellectuals compared the court to the extravagant and arrogant Roman tyrants Nero, tiberius and caligula in the classical culture. Pamphlets and literature satirizing the extravagance and corruption of the court were popular in Britain. So what are the institutional factors that lead to the economic scandals such as court extortion?

The institutional factor that caused the economic corruption of the British court in early modern times was the serious lag of the financial and tax system. This financial system emerged in the 14th century and has undergone three centuries of changes without major changes. By the early 17th century, the British public finance system had not been established, and the government's expenditure was still borne by the royal family.

In the 17th century, the feudal finance and financial system still prevailed in Britain. The royal government's expenditure was regarded as the personal affairs of the king. Therefore, in general, the government expenditure was borne by the royal family.

The income of British royal family can be divided into normal income and special income. Normal income consists mainly of income from the king's land, the crown court, feudal taxes such as guardianship tax and royalties, and customs revenue. Royal land was the traditional source of revenue for the government. However, due to poor management and currency devaluation, the revenue of royal land dropped sharply, from 200,000 pounds in the 1630s to 72,000 pounds in 1619. By the 1730s, the revenue of royal land was less than 10,000 pounds. In addition, in order to win the support of nobles, the king often granted land in exchange for their loyalty, which led to the gradual decrease of royal land. Although the court minister Salisbury once raised the royal land rent and increased the revenue of the guardianship court in order to reverse this situation, it still could not meet the needs of the court's expenditure and fundamentally solve the financial distress of the court. By the time Salisbury died in 1612, the king's debts had reached 500, 000 pounds and the royal Treasury was in deficit at 160, 000 pounds.

Special revenue refers to taxes levied by the king and various forms of borrowing approved by parliament. The taxes approved by parliament include council grants, fifteenth and tenth. The rates of these taxes were determined primarily by the land and property holdings held by the local magistrate. Since the local officials in charge of assessing tax rates often used their power to make profits for themselves and their friends and relatives, tax evasion, tax evasion and other frauds were common in the process of tax rate assessment, resulting in less and less income for the royal government from the taxes approved by the parliament. Council grants fell from 130,000 pounds in the middle of Elizabeth to 70,000 pounds in 1621 and only 55,000 pounds in 1628. A justice of the peace in Sussex complained bitterly that "the rate of taxation of the rich is often greatly underestimated." in the county, the average parliamentary contribution of the 70 great squires fell from 6l in the 1540s to 14 in the 1620s. Special income also includes taxes that are not approved by parliament. For example, the king relies on his royal power to levy various forms of loans in the name of safeguarding national security and the interests of the people of the kingdom. For example, Charles imposed forced loans, taxes and ship money, etc., but the special income without parliamentary approval was often condemned as violating the property rights of the people, which was criticized and resisted as the corruption of the royal economy.

So by the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, after almost a hundred years of inflation. At the end of the queen's reign, the royal family's annual income was 330,000 pounds, double that of 1510, while prices rose more than five times during the same period. While the real value of the court's income declined, the court's expenditure rose sharply because of the rising prices. During the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual expenditure of the royal government was 300,000 pounds. By 1614, the expenditure of the royal government of James rose rapidly to 522,000 pounds. In times of peace, the royal government's income has been difficult to maintain the normal government expenditure, in case of war, the fiscal predicament of the royal government is more prominent, because the price of strategic materials rises faster. The strain on the palace finances was evident in the last four years of queen Elizabeth's reign. Although the queen received three parliamentary grants and six tithes in 1593, and four grants and eight tithes in 1601, compared with the previous year, the amount allocated by parliament was unprecedented. However, due to inflation, the actual value of the parliamentary grants decreased significantly. Unable to meet a million pounds of war costs, the queen was forced to sell royal land to raise money for the war, leaving her with debts of at least 400,000 pounds.

In the early period of modern times, the drawback of the British fiscal and taxation system was that it failed to adjust the taxation policy according to the rising prices and the actual expenditure of the royal government. Take tariffs as an example. The tax book is the basis for paying import duties. It sets tax rates according to the value of imported goods. But the tax book under queen Elizabeth was never revised after 1558. The king's power over tax policy was much more limited than in France and Spain at the same time. The king of France and the king of Spain, when they raised taxes, they were largely unconstrained by other political forces, and they were able to adjust their tax policies according to the development of the situation, especially the needs of the war. In Britain, the laws and common laws of the kingdom prevented the royal government from increasing tax items and raising tax rates. For example, during the Tudor period, the monarch imposed additional tariffs, but the power of the king to impose additional tariffs on certain imported goods was never established. Another reason why fiscal and tax policy failed to adjust in the early Stuart period was queen Elizabeth's fiscal conservatism. Most obviously. Compared with the big European countries during this period, Britain's rate is almost the lowest, but the queen is not to reform in a timely manner, she deal with rising government spending policy is not to raise taxes, increasing the income of the royal family, but a strict control of government spending, thus make the royal government fiscal problems cannot be fundamentally solved, so that the legacy.

In the face of financial difficulties, the court ministers once carried out financial reforms, both implementing traditional reform measures and proposing radical fiscal reform plans, but these all failed.

Soon after James entered England, the court was in financial trouble, and its debt soared. The court debt was 422,000 pounds in 1603, rapidly increased to 816,000 pounds in 1606, and 900,000 pounds in 1618. The monarch and the minister realized that the financial system was the root cause of the financial distress of the court. For this reason, the minister of the court had taken the traditional financial reform measures, that is, to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, on the one hand to reduce the expenditure of the court, and on the other hand to increase the income of the royal family.

Salisbury, the chancellor of the exchequer, has tried to address the royal family's financial woes by cutting spending. However, due to the fierce resistance of the aristocracy, the method of cutting down the palace expenses soon became unworkable. The court aristocracy were the main beneficiaries of the king's gift, and the promotion and reward of the aristocracy were the major strategies for the governance of anbang. Especially in the early seventeenth century. This is because James as an exotic monarch from Scotland, to expand the basis of the rule of the British throne, after the British throne, has been from Scotland and England to the old noble generous gifts, the chancellor of the exchequer Salisbury once said, "the king generous... Every day is like Christmas. In the first three years of James's reign, he gave the chancellor a gift of 68,000, an annuity of 30,000; By 1610, he was giving tips and an annuity of 80,000 a year to royal servants, which was more than 50,000 a year for the daily expenses of queen Elizabeth's court. With the increase of the bounty. The court financial deficit and court debt rose sharply. From 1606 to 1610, the deficit of daily expenses of the court was 334,000 pounds. By 1613, the court debt reached 500,000 pounds.

The king's generosity not only caused financial difficulties for the court, but also had a very adverse effect. In a letter to Cecil on October 10, 1604, the bishop of york hutton worried that his subjects were worried that his majesty's generosity would exhaust the wealth of the kingdom and bring disaster to the kingdom. Salisbury force to fight the king, the then chancellor of the exchequer, reduce the reward for aristocrats, signed in 1608, James "gift handbook", limit the king of the reward gift range, in addition to the low-level bureaucracy and the royal garden caretaker repeat the confiscated property may be a reward, such as the royal land, tariffs, additional tariffs and monopoly is not a reward without exception. After Salisbury's death, cranfield was the first court minister to make an active attempt to reduce royal spending. As a successful businessman, cranfield gave full play to the advantage of being a businessman in the financial reform of the court. He practiced economy carefully and restrained the extravagance and self-enrichment of the court. He was a hands-on man, reaching deep into palace ministries and plugging financial loopholes. During a 1617 inspection of the quality and quantity of food purchased by the court, court officials who attempted to smuggle 132 cows and 1,248 sheep were investigated. He also reformed the court diet, stopped the ostentation in the court banquets, and sold the fish, wine bottles and kettles thrown away after the court banquets in the past, thus increasing the income of the court. Cranfield's reforms are beginning to bear fruit. Between 1616 and 1622. Royal spending fell by 22%. He also reformed the catering department, made redundant officials redundant, and introduced a new system of accounts. Promulgated in 1619, he again "reward handbook", limiting the king gave the amount of the annuity, and in 1621 to play king, please immediately stop annuities, at the same time, the exclusive rights to all must be checked by the king himself to work, the following year, James commitment, without the permission of the royal treasurer and justice, are not allowed to land, annuities and subsidy and so on a reward to the secretary. Cranfield's practice of limiting the king's reward damaged the vested interests of the aristocracy, which was bound to cause resentment and exclusion of the aristocracy. The reform ended in failure. From 1621 to 1624, the court increased its expenditure on annuities alone by 22 percent.

In the past, the traditional way to solve the royal family's financial problems was to dig up financial resources and increase the royal family's income. However, just like reducing the royal family's expenditure, this also encountered huge difficulties. Due to the sharp decrease of royal income and long-term financial deficit, some royal nobles could not get the annuity from the king, but the aristocracy was the main social foundation of the monarchy, so as to win their support. The king transferred to them certain economic privileges of the court, such as contracting royal land taxes and duties, enjoying the right to export tax exemption, guardianship and exclusive right to purchase knight's land at a low price. One of the more lucrative economic privileges is the contracting tariff. At the beginning of the 17th century, some court order from king contracting a right of import and export tariffs, such as Cecil won the right to import and export of silk, satin and duties, then the right to transfer the price of 1333 pounds a year to a businessman consortium, in 1612, he put the contract sum up to 7000 pounds, get huge benefits. In addition, some courtiers who did not have tariff power enjoyed certain economic privileges in other ways. For example, in 1604-1605, Philip, the earl of Montgomery, James hay and the earl of argyle obtained the right to impose import and export tariffs on foreign woolen merchants. The aristocracy benefited greatly from economic privileges at the expense of the king's income, and the court lost 8,602 pounds a year.

As can be seen from the above, the traditional measures to solve the financial difficulties of the court had little effect. The failure of the traditional financial reform shows that we can only break through the fetters of feudalism and financial system. Can solve palace finance problem fundamentally. But, unfortunately, the economic corruption court, and the court of the resulting degraded image, damage the moral image of the royal family, and radical changes to the plan of the financial system in the middle ages to squire resistance as the main body of the house of Commons, an mp Seymour in parliament in 1625, "the council to the king of the subsidies, along with income, tax privilege and monopoly income, the amount is huge, but unfortunately the large sum of money in the pockets of individuals." Salisbury's fiscal reform plan was the most radical fiscal reform in the early Stuart period. The failure of this reform made the early Stuart royal fiscal system miss the best opportunity for reform.

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