He knew many of Henry II's courtiers, and he came to despise them, especially those in clerical orders. Royal officials, including judges, proved popular targets for the pens of twelfth century moralists and satirists, some of whom wrote out of personal bitterness, having failed in the contest for royal patronage and high office.2 Capable of condemning curiales in classical Latin style was John of Salisbury. Powicke wrote that the judiciary of Henry III was “probably the most stable and helpful, as it was the most intelligent, element in the State at this time.” How are we to reconcile historians' high opinion of the royal justices with their contemporaries' low opinion? Were the chroniclers simply drawing stock figures in their depictions of corrupt judges, or was their picture drawn from life? According to Maitland, under Henry II and Richard I, “English law was administered by the ablest, the best educated men in the realm.…” F.M. Historians since Maitland have generally held a high opinion of these judges. Yet a core of royal servants specializing in justice, “professionals” in a certain sense, had been created. Even in King John's time, familiares regis still served as judges.
XCOMMANDER 2014 PROFESSIONAL
Coupled with these complaints were charges of corruption against royal judges, or against royal aulici, curiales, or familiares, since until the middle of Richard I's reign no professional judiciary existed. In twelfth and thirteenth-century England complaints that justice was being sold were common, culminating with King John's tacit admission in Magna Carta. Throughout the reign of Edward VI, he encouraged the more radical Protestant reformers although he is said to have lacked sincere religious convictions.
XCOMMANDER 2014 TRIAL
Following the overthrow of the Protector in 1549, Northumberland, aided by a small faction, instituted a regime of social repression, entered into a dishonorable alliance with France, and instigated the trial and execution of Somerset on entirely spurious charges. Later, he intrigued to destroy the Protector's brother, Thomas, Lord Seymour, and then to depose Somerset. First, he allegedly supported a coup d'état that overthrew the will of the deceased king and installed the Duke of Somerset as Protector.
XCOMMANDER 2014 FULL
It was only after the accession of Edward VI in 1547, so the traditional interpretation would have us believe, that circumstances permitted Northumberland to betray his true character and motives, and the full extent of his perversity. Northumberland served the king as a soldier, courtier, and diplomat, and appealed to Henry's baser instincts, seeking only to advance himself socially and financially. Notwithstanding the inevitable disagreement over the particulars of Northumberland's life and work, the consensus is that he was the worst of a group of grasping, unprincipled new men who gained favor with Henry VIII and acquired status and wealth through the plunder of the church. Attributions of crime and misdeeds, regardless whether proved, have made him one of the most notorious villains of the early modern period. His reputation rests upon alleged character defects and a political career that putatively divided, weakened, and dishonored the country. The son of an executed traitor, and a traitor and apostate Protestant himself, Northumberland has been defamed by chroniclers and historians since his death in 1553. The name John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, evokes the image of the ambitious and selfish politician who was responsible for the death of Lady Jane Grey.
0 kommentar(er)
