Council Learned in the Law on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
The Council Learned in the Law was a highly controversial tribunal of
The Council Learned in the Law was a highly controversial tribunal of Henry VII of England
Henry VII (28 January 1457 – 21 April 1509) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizure of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death in 1509. He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor.
Henry's mother, Margaret Beauf ...
's reign.
The brainchild of Sir Reginald Bray, the Council Learned was introduced in 1495 to defend Henry's position as a feudal landlord, maintain the King's revenue and exploit his prerogative rights. It dealt with the king's fiscal matters and enforced payments of debts. It proved to be much more efficient than the Exchequer
In the civil service of the United Kingdom, His Majesty’s Exchequer, or just the Exchequer, is the accounting process of central government and the government's '' current account'' (i.e., money held from taxation and other government revenu ...
. The council was a secondary department to the Star Chamber, but it was the Council Learned in Law that made the system of bonds and recognisances work so effectively. Following Bray's death in 1503, he was replaced with Edmund Dudley. Dudley, along with Empson, formed a feared combination of able bureaucrats who raised the extraction of money from the King's associates into a fine art and created many enemies amongst key advisors of the King.
By the end of Henry VII's reign, the Council Learned had become very unpopular, and after his death in 1509, it was abolished. Its most prominent councilors, Edmund Dudley
Edmund Dudley (c. 1462Gunn 2010 or 1471/147217 August 1510) was an English administrator and a financial agent of King Henry VII. He served as a leading member of the Council Learned in the Law, Speaker of the House of Commons and Presi ...
and Sir Richard Empson, were imprisoned. Though evidence was scarce, both were convicted of treason, attainted and executed in 1510. The downfall of the pair brought rejoicing in the streets.
There is much controversy about the Council Learned in the Law because most existing sources date after 1509 when it had been officially condemned. Bray's associate, Empson, maintained a particularly ruthless approach that seemed to define the behavior of the Council. In the Tower
A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures.
Towers are specifi ...
, Dudley confessed to having issued harsher penalties than lawful in several cases, a statement which has given the Council a strongly negative connotation.
It bypassed the normal legal system since it was not a court and those summoned had no chance of appeal. It was an expression of the King's will and as such was as important for maintaining authority as it was for raising finances.
References