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    Governing by Virtue: Lord Burghley and the Management of Elizabethan England

    £105.75
    £117.50
    Price-Match is available in-store for recommended titles in CCCU module handbooks
    ISBN: 9780199593606
    Products specifications
    Attribute nameAttribute value
    AuthorJones, Norman
    Pub Date15/10/2015
    BindingHardback
    Pages256
    Publisher: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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    Governing by Virtue asks how a monarchy with no police force, no standing army, and little bureaucracy could rule England in the second half of the sixteenth century. Queen Elizabeth was the supreme ruler, but her chief manager Lord Burghley depended heavily on the virtue and honour of the ruling classes to keep the peace and defend the realm.

    Managing early modern England was difficult because the state was weak. Although Queen Elizabeth was the supreme ruler, she had little bureaucracy, no standing army, and no police force. This meant that her chief manager, Lord Burghley, had to work with the gentlemen of the magisterial classes in order to keep the peace and defend the realm. He did this successfully by employing the shared value systems of the ruling classes, an improved information system, and gentle coercion. Using Burghley's archive, Governing by Virtue explores how he ran a state whose employees were venal, who owned their jobs for life, or whose power derived from birth and possession, not allegiance, even during national crises like that of the Spanish Armada.