Description
Book SynopsisIn the eighteenth century the justices of the peace governed England. While Parliament debated questions of trade, taxation, and foreign policy, the justices administered England's internal affairs. So powerful were the later Stuart and early Hanoverian justices that they were virtually independent, and it is their independence which makes them fascinating. Neither the central government nor Parliament told them what to do, closely supervised their activity, or even insured that they at at all. What tid the justices choose to do? In what manner did they do it? why, indeed, did they assume the burdens of local government? Norma Landau examines the office of justice of the peace from the viewpoint of the justices themselves, delineating those ideals and inducements inherent in local government which prompted the English elite to assume their distinctive role as paternal rulers. Through analysis of the appointment of justices, the political and social composition of the bench, the institu
