I. The Admiralty Circuit of 1591: Some Comments on the Relations between Central Government and Local Interests

Abstract

When the judge of the High Court of Admiralty, Dr Julius Caesar, rode south from London to Lewes on 26 June 1591 1 an important experiment was initiated in the Admiralty court's continuing quest for greater respect and authority. The judge was setting out on a circuit of the troubled south and west coast of England in hopes of forcing the local authorities in those regions to submit to the supremacy of the High Court of Admiralty.2An examination of the prelude to the circuit and of the circuit itself, as well as an appraisal of its aftermath, will provide us with an instructive view of the tension between the local authorities and the central Government at the end of the sixteenth century. If there were a marked reduction in the quality of central government leadership at the end of Elizabeth's reign, one cause was perhaps the unsubdued strength of the provinces coupled with the corruption of Crown officers who were beyond the effective control of Westminster.