Permanent Establishment

The concept of permanent establishment (PE) in tax jurisdiction is changing as a result of digital innovations in international business. For a country like Nigeria, permanent establishment allows the country to tax the income or profit of foreign companies with a fixed place or physical presence in the country for 183 days or 12 months. But digital businesses do not need a fixed place or maintain a physical presence in the country before they can make a profit. They do not necessarily need to have an office, a factory, or a workshop in Nigeria before generating a stable income from the country. Examples of digital businesses that make income from Nigeria include GoDaddy.Com, Amazon.Com, Ebay.Com, etc. These companies do not have a fixed place of operation in Nigeria but generate income through digital presence in the country. This puts to test the concept of a permanent establishment in Nigerian tax jurisdiction. To understand the nature of permanent establishment in a digital economy, there is a need to investigate taxation jurisdiction on digital business from the angle of a developing country such as Nigeria. This study will be guided by the following objectives:Examine the principle of permanent establishment as expounded in the United Nations (UN) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Model;Discuss the impact of digital business on the concept of a permanent establishment? Explore the possibility for a source state, such as Nigeria, to tax incomes generated by web platforms (i.e. Google or Facebook);Identify and discuss the challenges faced by the Nigerian government in getting taxes from companies who operate in the digital economy;Use the new definition of a permanent establishment in Italy to analyze tax jurisdiction on digital business in Nigeria. This study will adopt qualitative research method of legal research, analyze the concept of permanent establishment as a framework for tax jurisdiction on digital business in Nigeria. Primary documents such as the Nigerian tax laws (including the Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreement), the Italian tax laws (Conventions to Avoid Double Taxation), the UN Model Double Taxation Convention, the OECD Model and other documents that are relevant will be explored in the study. Secondary source materials covering monographs, journal articles, magazines, books, movies, textbooks, long essays, dissertations, and theses will equally be explored to analyze tax jurisdiction in digital business in Nigeria. Content analysis will be used to study legal decisions relating to the permanent establishment and digital business in Nigeria.

John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address Essay

John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address The Inaugural Address, by John F. Kennedy is about the people cooperating to make America a better place for everyone. John F. Kennedy’s speech was delivered in the east side of the capitol on January 20, 1961. In John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, he emphasizes the need for unity among mankind. John F. Kennedy utilizes anaphora to evoke togetherness throughout the world. Throughout his speech, Kennedy repeats, â€Å"we pledge† several times. Kennedy means to convey unity by using â€Å"we† to connect to the people. Because the phrase is repeated so many times it shows how bad he wants the idea grasped in to the peoples minds. By using the word â€Å"pledge† he is able to emphasize the promise that the people made to America. Kennedy also reiterates the phrase, â€Å" we shall† many times. Through the phrase â€Å"we shall† he is able to highlight that everyone is going to help. It makes the people see that they have a part in constructing America, for Kennedy cannot do it on his own. He wants to build a unity where everyone is on the same team; together they will help each other out and strive for the unity of America. Kennedy wants to be on the same side as the people; he constantly say’s â€Å"let both sides† so that he can come into an agreement with them. If Kennedy makes a connection with the people they will do as he says. He wants â€Å"both sides† to collaborate with each other to create a strong nation. If he were able to create a unified nation, the people would live in a civilized manner, all-willing to help. Through anaphora, Kennedy is able to present the theme that together you can conquer all.

Legalities related to sexual harassment policies for the workplace Research Paper

Legalities related to sexual harassment policies for the workplace - Research Paper Example Before filing a case against the offender, a victim must remember the place, date, and time of the sexual harassment besides any witness if possible. The harasser needs to be blatantly made clear by the victim to behave and mend ways. If there is no sign of amending ways, a warning needs to be made of the repercussions in legal terms through filing a case at EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commotion), which can help the victim. An employer cannot be held responsible if no such policy is in practice at the workplace to tame the bad conduct but once a complaint has been made, taking action against the offender becomes mandatory for the employer to save the employer’s skin (Bhatnagar, 2007). Employees at state and federal level are also protected under the sexual harassment law. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 under the federal law provides remedy for workplace harassment. This law is applicable to firms with fifteen or more employees. Where employee strength is less than fifteen the state anti-discrimination law comes to the aid of discriminated employees. Regarding single-gender harassment, there is provision to file a case against the employer whereas there is no unanimity over single-gender harassment in state laws (Larson, 2003). Basically, there are two simple types of workplace sexual harassment, Quid Pro Quo Harassment and Hostile Work Environment Harassment. In Quid Pro Quo type, the employee has to bear the gender based discrimination to remain in the job, avail routine benefit, salary hike or promotion. A hostile work environment affects the job performance of the employee by making the environment abusive. For inquiring into the workplace environment, we need to analyze the factors responsible for the conduct of the offender. It is crucial to confirm whether the offender’s behavior is verbally or physically wrong, how random the occurrence of the offence is, whether the behavior is just unfriendly or undoubtedly objectionable , what is the rank of the offender, whether the offence is committed taking along others by the offender in the league of perpetuators’ aiming at the victim singularly or including others as targets (Larson, 2003). Sexual harassment of verbal type can be judged on the overall happenings, depending on factors such as: The type, frequency, context, and specific aim of the remarks; Whether the comments were unfriendly and mean; Whether the alleged harasser pointed towards the victim while making a hostile comment; Whether the victim reacted by participated through return comments; and The level of kinship between the victim and the alleged harasser. To initiate action for sexual harassment, the plaintiff must prove that: 1. The plaintiff found the behavior to be hostile, abusive or offensive; and 2. Any person of balanced attitude in the same situation would consider the behavior hostile, abusive or offensive. It is to be noted that the plaintiff need not be necessarily a victim of the ordeal to file a claim against workplace sexual harassment. As stated above the federal cases can be filed with the EEOC, but it first requires case filing against the behavior of an administrative agency; state and local bodies also listen to such complaints under the state law. There is possibility that a state

Employees Performance Appraisal Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Employees Performance Appraisal - Coursework Example Potential appraisal is the evaluation considering the personal qualities of the employee like his communication skills, leadership qualities, and commitment. It is different from performance appraisal in that performance is something that has happened in the past while potential abilities are those that an employee might possibly possess that can be enhanced to improve his performance in the future. The goal here is to make the employees aware of their potential prospects in future and to enable the organization to plan out management succession strategies. Potential appraisal helps the organization to lay out training and recruitment programs so that employees’ job opportunities can be increased. Question 2 The main goal of potential appraisal is to make the employees aware of their career development so that they have a clear vision about their future prospects. When the employees know which personal qualities they posses and which they need improvement in, they actually get a clear outlook on their personal haves and have-nots and this helps them build their capabilities through training sessions and motivation programs. They come to know how much confidence they possess; how good they are in decision making and problem solving; how they handle workplace stress; how independent they are; and, much more. This aids their career development and thus their future becomes bright with regard to their job. An employee can himself ask for an assessment of his potential qualities if he wants to be promoted or transferred. Otherwise, the company conducts this assessment to know if there is a need for training or motivation, and whether a certain employee should be assigned higher level responsibilities or not. This assessment may be conducted through different methods: self-appraisal, superior-appraisal, peer-appraisal, or role playing, are all methods conducting potential appraisal. Hence, potential appraisal is very future oriented and focuses on the career d evelopment of the employee. Question3 It is the manager’s responsibility to make sure that it is in the organization’s policies to include potential appraisal as a part of performance appraisal program. A line manager is assigned to conduct potential appraisals. A mutual understanding between the manager and the appraisee is important which can also build up during meetings between the two. It is the responsibility of the manager to gain information about how to conduct the appraisal process properly because if he does not have enough experience conducting potential appraisals, then he might end up showing negative cascaded attitude toward the process and telling that appraisals are a waste of time. This negative attitude then goes down among the appraisees as well and then the whole bunch of employees or teams of employees start possessing the same attitude. Thus, a manager’s role is very important because he portrays the attitude of the overall workforce. Also , a manager should maintain a written record of all potential appraisals and must make sure that all the capabilities of employees are judged properly without any bias. Since the manager better knows about the employees’ qualities and much more that is not explicit, his responsibilities increase when it comes to the future prospects and career development

Economic Profile for the Airline Industry Essay

Economic Profile for the Airline Industry - Essay Example In the end the paper observes the influence of governmental policies on the success and failure of the airline industry. The deregulation of the US airline industry preceded that in the European market by approximately 10 years (Alderighi et al, 2004, p. 2). Still, on both continents the process of deregulation and privatization induced important structural changes. Deregulation allowed many carriers to sign alliances to exploit economies of scale (Alderighi et al, 2004, p. 2); reduced price levels and expanded the number of services. It affected the industry structure and dynamics both on the supply and demand side. In the airline industry there are two types of companies - traditional carriers and low cost firms (Alderighi et al, 2004, p. 7). Traditional companies offer products with different quality - economy and business - at different prices and can provide a full range of products and services at a higher cost. Low-cost carriers offer a restricted range of services at much lower prices. This is so, because traditional full-service carriers "with hub-and-spoke systems" have a high cost business model, while low cost carriers have a low cost business model (Gillen et al, 2004). Price elasticity of supply measures how the supplied quantity responds to changes in prices (Mankiw, p. 100). In the light of the airline industry, elasticity of supply means the extent to which airline companies can adjust the number of flights for the different airline segments. Given the high maintenance costs, intensive capital structure within the industry (Skapinker, 2001), also the strict regulations and reduced flexibility in market behavior, there are not many opportunities for quick changes in airline travel supply, meaning that in the short-run supply is inelastic. Over the long-run period, though, as history has proven, the industry can adapt to changing demand. One example is the deregulation in the industry that significantly increased supply over the past 20 years (Alderighi, 2004). 5. Industry demand The process of globalization has increased mobility of goods and people (Alderighi et al, 2004, p. 3). On one hand expansion of cargo transport has significantly increased the demand for airline transport. On the other, tourist travelers increasingly enjoy the comfort of airlines. It can therefore be concluded that the airline market demand comprises of different market segments, based on consumer type, distance and location. Business travelers form the so called "strong market" (Adlerighi et al, 2004, p. 7) whereas the weak market comprises of leisure travelers. Additionally, the travel market is divided into long-haul and short-haul travel, and international, and North American long haul travel (Gillen et al, 2004). 6. Price elasticity of demand Price elasticity of demand measures the degree of responsiveness to change in prices of fares (Mankiw, p. 90). Because the airline industry demand is formed by two very different types of consumers - business and leisure - there is no single elasticity value for the airline travel demand (Gillen et al, 2004). Price elasticity of demand is also influenced by time and distance aspects. This is so, because

Tesco PLC expansion into Germany using Foreign Market Servicing Essay

Tesco PLC expansion into Germany using Foreign Market Servicing Strategy - Essay Example Center of discussion in this paper is Tesco PLC. The first store of the company has opened in Edgware, North London. The main business of the company was grocery but the company has made wide the portfolio as they started to offer their products in the following sectors. †¢ Home Electronics †¢ Clothes and Home-wear †¢ Entertainment e.g. Television, Mobile communications †¢ Pharmaceuticals †¢ Finance / Credit cards †¢ Insurance. Tesco has the core competency in strategic pricing. They are able to offer their product to every class of people using the plan of strategic pricing. Their strategic pricing plan includes branded products, premium private level, budget private level and private level. Tesco developed the online shop in the year 2007 which is a revolution in the sector. The customers can purchase the goods through online. The company has gained competitive advantage and ever since 2007 they have remained in that way. The company is present mainly in Asia and Eastern Europe where they dominate in the market. The company is present in over 13 countries. Wal-Mart and Tesco are the main competitors of Tesco. The retail and more precisely the grocery market is dominated by the low pricing competition and focusing on the private level brands (own brand products). But in the European Union the levels of competitive pricing is controlled by the regulatory bodies that control the levels of market price.. As the company is already in the E.U. they are abide by the rules of the regulatory bodies, so it will not be difficult for the company to expand their business in a new E.U. country. The company has to only maintain the country specific legislations along with the little implications of the vertical integration. Tesco Corporate Social Responsibility An accommodative stance was adopted by the company when they approach to CSR. Tesco used to organize some social and voluntary programmes; they meet the ethical and legal requirements. (Griffin, R. Pustay, M 2009, p.158). The company follows the CSR which is followed by the European Union. Lisbon Agenda is followed by the company which aims for creating better jobs and social cohesion which would ensure the economic growth for the specific country, (European Citizens Consultations 2009). The companies have to maintain the environment properly as per the P.E.S.T. analysis of the E.U. The main focus of Tesco is maintaining and improving the supplies which are environment friendly and also recycled; develop job availabilities and maintaining good relations and support for the farmers who are supplying. Market Selection W estern Europe can be a positive move strategically for Tesco as it has presence in 13 countries including Asia and Eastern Europe. The researcher argued that the western region of Europe is the most attracting part of the world for the businessman as there are lots of wealthy customers (Griffin, R. Pustay, M 2009, p.54). A short list of top 4 most appropriate countries can be drawn

International Banking &finance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

International Banking &finance - Essay Example Robust current account surpluses and renewed non-debt-creating capital flows have reduced east Asia's external vulnerabilities considerably, but they also confront authorities with new policy challenges. (Michael Petis 1994). To meet these challenges, exchange rate policies need to find the right balance between additional reserve accumulation through intervention and further gradual currency appreciations. A case can be made for acquiring some additional international reserves in view of still relatively high ratios of short-term external debt obligations to international reserves. At the same time, the sizable current account surpluses and other indicators of relatively strong external competitiveness, including real effective exchange rate s that are still significantly below pre-crisis levels, suggest that there is still scope for further currency strengthening before possible overvaluation becomes an issue. In this regard, the implications for monetary policy also need to be con sidered. As interest rates have to be kept at relatively low levels to facilitate corporate and financial restructuring, further exchange rate appreciation could provide the tightening in monetary conditions that is required to keep inflationary pressures in check. IMF 2002 According to the study done by the Bank of International Settlements (2006) there are five areas to consider in banking deregulation. The first is the trends in bank credit. Bank credit to the private sector has recently risen in a number of emerging market economies, partly because of stronger demand for loans associated with robust growth and low interest rates, and partly because of greater supply of loans associated with improved bank balance sheets. The second area is the pace of structural change. Banking systems in emerging economies have been transformed by privatisation, consolidation and foreign bank entry. Bank efficiency and performance have improved, apparently in response to a more competitive climate.The third point is the evolution in and management of risks facing banks. Macroeconomic vulnerabilities have declined, reflecting a mix of favourable temporary conditions as well as improved policies (higher foreign reserves, more flexible exchange rates, domestic debt ma rket development and improved fiscal policies). Banks increasingly relied on systematic risk assessment procedures and quantitative risk management techniques, with lending being influenced less by government direction or special bank relationships with borrowers. However, challenges still arose from lack of data on loan histories for estimating default probabilities, and risks related to liquidity and credit risk transfer. On liquidity risk, there is a need to ensure that banks rely on the interbank markets, rather than the central bank for liquidity. Regarding credit risk transfer, notwithstanding significant benefits associated with the growing use of credit risk transfer instruments, their rapid spread might in some cases outpace the capacity of financial institutions to assess and price risks.The fourth area is to prevent systemic banking crises. One indicator of stronger banking systems is that the volatility of output and inflation has fallen in emerging market e

Entrepreneurial Leadership Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Entrepreneurial Leadership - Assignment Example These niches can then help with changing the characteristics of an industry while allowing the entrepreneur to continue to grow within the market (Drucker, 2010). The strategy which is created then begins to motivate and influence others within a given environment, which allows others to become proactive in finding the same types of solutions while creating a sense of value within a given environment. It is the main strategy both for personal growth and in relation to others which then builds opportunities and helps with personal, community and business growth while allowing for the vision and motivation to remain dynamic and to assist with continuous growth in the community (Tarabishy, 2006). The model which is created then relies on both personal and community leadership and development for continuous and dynamic growth within an organization or by an individual. Authentic Leaders and Organizations The organization which would thrive the most with the authentic leader is the small business or individual entrepreneur. The main concept which would help with this type of organization is based on the concept of positive leadership. The vision and mission of a smaller organization can always be led by an individual who is continuously working with the dynamics of uncertainty in this environment. As dynamic changes occur in the market an entrepreneur and small business can easily move with the fluctuations. More important, an authentic leader will always respond to this in a positive manner while finding different alternatives that provide better solutions. More important, these solutions are transparent, as opposed to being based on the... Entrepreneurial Leadership The role of entrepreneurs and the way in which they influence others then helps to create contributions within society while forming a sense of leadership that ensures personal and community growth. When looking at the various theories of entrepreneurial leadership, it can be seen that there are specific qualities that each leader should have. For an entrepreneurial leader to work effectively there needs to be a sense of vision which is created through a long term approach. Each leader should understand what the vision and mission is within a specific organization and should be able to communicate this to others (Kouzes, 2008). For example, when listening to Steve Case’s interview on entrepreneurs, there is a focus on being forward looking and sharing a vision. This particular concept is one which has to start individually first, then becomes a part of the team. The same concept of leadership is applied with the outlook of Steve Case, specifically with recognizing that an entr epreneur works first by understanding their individual vision and needs. The leadership attributes include perseverance, understanding a vision and continuing to work toward motivating and meeting the goal, specifically which works toward motivating others (Case, 2011). The concept of entrepreneurial leadership is one which is based on different characteristics and actions of an individual. More important than the basic management needs for an organization is the ability for an entrepreneur to understand the vision and mission of an organization and to move forward in the right direction.

Globalization human rights Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Globalization human rights - Essay Example (Speed, 2007) In a sense, through this movement and its reflection in international solidarity, the Mayan indigenous voice was heard as a critique to modern neo-liberalism for the first time, and in a way that was constructive to the development of economic and social policy internationally. (Speed, 2007) This occurred locally through organizations that were internationalized on the basis of humanitarianism and the human rights frameworks as advocated by the UN. These HR frameworks included a historical dialog between the recognition of the rights of developing nations economically and could also be addressed in the critique by pointing out the inherent hypocrisy and double standards in application by hegemonic powers. Awareness of this could also lead to change in local politics internationally and reform of policy in institutions as a larger number of individuals and groups understood the issues of the indigenous peoples themselves.

The role of society in human life in the Confucian, and Taoist belief Term Paper

The role of society in human life in the Confucian, and Taoist belief systems - Term Paper Example Though quite alike, the differences in the role of society in Confucian versus Taoist beliefs are most strongly focused around how interpersonal relationships are cultivated, structured and developed. The basic notion of Confucianism is the achievement of jen, which is developing a sympathetic concern for other human beings in society. Loyal and moral relationships act as the foundation for quality socialization under this philosophy. The Confucian Golden Rule is to treat others as you yourself would be treated (Henslin, 547). These basic beliefs related to jen are noticeable in the professional and personal lifestyles of those who have molded their value systems around traditional Confucian beliefs. In the workplace, Confucian values drive progressive policies that gain commitment and support from lower-level employees through a transformational leadership design. For example, wise thought and action for leader roles includes corporate citizenship and philanthropy, democratization of the workplace through less control systems, and maintaining an ethical model of behavior (Hays, 78). In societies where business leaders maintain Confucianism as the heart of their lifestyle beliefs , decentralized decision-making hierarchies are present and employees are much more engaged in development programs, thereby being more committed to achieving business goals. At the interpersonal level, life in Confucian belief systems involves having a duty and responsibility for others. In particular, friendships and family are significantly important. In family and social relationships, tolerance, establishment of mutual dialogue, and new innovative thoughts in replacement of old methods are embraced (Zhang & Veenhoven, 428). To be actively involved in social relationships when carrying a Confucian value system means to reflect upon the self each day, searching for

Drunk Driving Essay Example for Free

Drunk Driving Essay Drunk driving is a primary cause of highway traffic accidents causing deaths and injuries with enormous monetary costs to society. The drunk driving was first recognized as a policy problem in the literature in 1904, approximately 5 years after the first highway traffic fatality in the United States (Voas and Lacey). In 1982, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration started keeping statistics of alcohol related crashes through its Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) (Stewart and Fell). In 1982, there were 26,173 alcohol related fatalities, which constituted 60% of all highway fatalities. In 2002, about 17,419 or roughly 41% of about 42,815 highway fatalities were estimated to be alcohol related which indicates a 19% change since 1982 (Stewart and Fell). Overall, alcohol related traffic fatalities have reduced by about 33% over the last two decades. Policies implemented to curb drunk driving in the last two decades seem to have an impact on alcohol related fatalities. FARS data shows a 62% decrease (1. 64 to . 61) in alcohol related fatality rate since 1982 (Stewart and Fell). The general decline in the alcohol related fatalities for the general population is believed to be due to a combination of deterrent based laws, increased alcohol awareness and decrease in alcohol consumption, increased publicity about prevention, and general car safety measures (Stewart and Fell). Starting 1980s, drunk driving has been conceptualized as a criminal justice issue. With the effect of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and some other citizen activist groups, the issue has become a public policy problem in which drunk drivers are defined as sinful killers who drink and drive irresponsibly and claim lives of innocent victims. These efforts, according to Ross, created a dominant paradigm which focuses on the blameworthy driver. Thus, framing the issue as of a sin and drunk drivers as deviants has dominated the policymaking process and socially constructed the drunk drivers as a target group with negative connotations in public mind (Meier). Policymakers responded the demands by legislating stricter deterrent based measures to punish those criminal drunk drivers and deter drunk driving to save lives (Ross). Therefore, it is important to examine how drunk driving emerged as a policy problem and how deterrent based laws are introduced and accepted as a solution to the problem. This paper examines also the effects of MADD on legislation of drunk driving laws and effects of those laws on alcohol related fatalities. Background The struggle against drunk driving as a traffic safety problem began in late 1960s. Before 1960s, the federal governments influence on states drunk driving policies was minimal. The national character and seriousness of traffic safety problems prompted Congress to enact the Highway Safety Act and the Motor Vehicle and Traffic Safety Act, in 1966. In 1967, the Secretary of Transportation officially promulgated the first federal drunk driving standards in the National Uniform Standards for State Highway Safety Programs. One of the requirements of this program was for each state to utilize chemical tests for determining blood alcohol levels (BAC) and to enact BAC limits of no greater than . 10 % (Evans et al. ). If an individual is found to be driving with a BAC over a certain threshold they would be arrested for drunk driving. Those standards came with the threat of reducing highway funds for noncompliance. Although some states viewed the 1967 standards and the threats of reducing highway funds as interfering with their sovereign function, they complied with the new standards to participate in highway construction projects. By 1981 all states had adopted the specific standard of . 10 BAC or a lower level. In 1982, the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving was created, and the Alcohol Traffic Safety Act of 1982 established a three-year program to provide highway grants for states that adopted certain anti-drunk driving measures (Evans et al. ). In 1983, the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving recommended that states enact a uniform drinking age of twenty-one years. This approach was ineffective: only four states had done so by 1984. In response, Congress passed legislation requiring highway funding reductions for any state with a drinking age under twenty-one in 1984. That strategy was effective as the states soon began to establish twenty-one-year age limits. By 1986, all but eight states had adopted the twenty-one-year age limits. By 1989, all states had complied with this federal limit. Congress, by promising grants or threatening to withhold funding (carrot and stick from of coercive federalism), has taken an active role in formulating drunk driving policies and in encouraging the states to adopt them (Evans et al. ). On October 23, 2000 President Clinton signed Department of Transportation and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2001 that established the first-ever national drunk driving standard at . 08 blood alcohol content (BAC). According to this legislation, states that do not adopt . 08 BAC laws by 2004 would have 2% of highway construction funds withheld, with the penalty increasing to 8% by 2007. States adopting the standard by 2007 would be reimbursed for any lost funds. As of February 2004, 46 states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have adopted the national . 08 BAC standard. The federal BAC limit was the last, but not the least measure established to curb drunk driving. It was, indeed, the culmination of efforts targeting drunk driving which dates back to early 1980s (MADD). Although a variety of preventative policies including education campaigns, rehabilitation, and control of alcohol sales have been employed to reduce drunk driving, more emphasis has been placed on the use of punitive policy tools such as license revocation, increased fines, and mandatory jail time. Policies designed to change undesired behavior frequently frame drunk driving behavior as sinful or deviant, which suggests that drunk driving may constitute a morality policy. Indeed, drunk drivers are often depicted in the media and policy debates as irresponsible killer drunks. The politics around the issue of drunk driving as a morality policy may explain why punitive tools rather than preventive policies have been increasingly used in this policy area (Meier). Anti-Drunk Driving Policy Controversies Policies pertaining to alcohol have been regulated by local, state and the federal governments over the last century, including the prohibition at the turn of the twentieth century. At different times alcohol has been prohibited, permitted to operate without government control, regulated through licensing, or controlled by monopolies. This policy area is largely controlled by states through a wide range of policies regulating both the sale of alcohol and penalties for alcohol abuse. Although prohibition on drunk driving is a regulatory policy, it has a separate purpose. As Meier points out, rather than restricting access to alcohol, drunk driving policies are intended to punish individuals who abuse alcohol by drinking and driving (687). Over the last two decades states have adopted a variety of punitive policies to prevent drunk driving and its consequences. Since drunk driving is framed as sinful behavior, no one will stand up and support drunk driving. Advocates of drunk driving policies push for stricter measures to protect innocent victims and in such an environment, rational politicians will perceive that the demand for restrictive policies will be greater than it actually is and, thus, compete for more extreme policies because they always see there is a great support for being tougher on sin (Meier). These policies will be carried out through strict law enforcement by agencies, which will be awarded by the number of arrests made. Therefore, law enforcement agencies will also favor more extreme policies because such policies will create an environment that supports more resources for them (Meier). Furthermore, arresting killer drunks and saving innocent lives will increase their popularity in the eyes of public. In the absence of organized opposition, therefore, drunk driving policies shaped with the support of the public, politicians, and the bureaucracy-lead to adoption of coercive tools, which increases the cost of sinful behavior (Ross). As with most public policy issues, this one, too, has many sides. Just as anti-drunk driving movement supporters form alliances for specific efforts, adversaries also work independently and sometimes together depending on the current situation and how their alliances reflect common concerns. Organizations and individuals who appear to oppose the efforts of the anti-drunk driving movement are, in some cases, protecting a different interest or issue, such as business interests and, by extension, the economy (Baum). Despite the strength of the morality policy framework to predict what type of policy tools would be adopted in this policy domain, legislation of the federal . 08 BAC standard departs from this framework on -at least- one major point: there was an organized opposition to the legislation. Opponents of the national . 08 BAC limit consisted of interest groups representing alcohol and hospitality industries and a few non-profit groups defending motorists rights. Meier contends that highly salient morality policies permit little role for expertise and the lack of opposition results in avoidance of information that challenges the dominant position. Therefore, morality politics lead to adoption of poorly designed and rarely effective policies. In the case of . 08 BAC legislation, as with many other anti drunk driving policies, however, existence of such an opposition heated the debate around the effectiveness of that standard to prevent drunk driving. Studies evaluating the effectiveness of . 08 BAC limit and level of impairment at different levels of BAC were often cited by both sides of the policy (Meier 689-90). Opponents of the national . 08 BAC limit, however, differed in their solutions rather than in their conception of the issue. Both sides of the drunk driving debate agreed on the problem, but they disagreed on the solutions, which is closely related to the definition of the problem. Opponents and proponents of the legislation defined the problems in similar ways. For example, both sides distinguished good people who drink socially from a small minority of alcohol abusers, blameworthy deviants, who drink and drive irresponsibly. The alcohol and restaurant lobbyists could not and did not deny the existence of drunk driving problem. Furthermore, they accepted an obligation to contribute to the reduction of the problem (Baum). However, they defended that . 08 BAC limit would not affect those abusers but would punish the responsible social drinkers, which in turn negatively would affect alcohol sales. They argued that most fatal accidents involving BAC levels below . 10 were alcohol related, not alcohol caused. In almost all alcohol caused fatal accidents, drivers have had an average BAC level of . 17. Therefore, lowering BAC limit to . 08 would not prevent drunk driving. Instead, some other measures such as strict administrative license suspension, and frequent sobriety checks by law enforcement should be administered. Proponents of the . 08 BAC legislation, on the other hand, argued that everyones safe driving skills are dangerously impaired at this level, and nearly one-fourth of traffic fatalities caused by drunk drivers with a BAC level of . 10 or less (Meier 691-92). Anti-Drunk Driving Movement and MADD According to Reinarman, the anti-drunk driving movement did not spring from a rise in the prevalence of drunk driving or in accidents related to it, but from the fact that the injustices (or negative externalities) attributed to drunk driving have never been treated seriously by legislators and courts. Indeed, before 1980s drunk driving had been seen merely a traffic offense. The morality policy focus of the Reagan administration created the suitable climate in which the claims of MADD affected the public and legislators (Reinarman). MADD was founded as a non-profit victims rights organization concerned with advocating for and counseling victims and bereaved relatives, and monitoring courtrooms. Although many members of MADD are victims or bereaved victims of drunk drivers, general community activists (non-victim) have also been active in many chapters. A study on a national sample of 125 MADD chapters indicated that victimization alone does not cause activism (Weed). Moreover, victim and non-victim activists share similar social backgrounds and already participate in other voluntary associations, which reveals that MADD tends to be run by activists who have been victimized rather than victims who have become activists (Ross). Despite its inception as a victims rights organization, MADD has been blamed for becoming a neo-prohibitionist movement (Hanson). The goal of the organization, Hanson claims, is no longer preventing alcohol related accidents but preventing drinking. Moreover, MADD members are accused of seeking vengeance through harsh penalties either than rehabilitation and prevention. Reinarman points out that MADDs goals include the demand for justice or vengeance on the group that took lives of friends and children, which warrants harsh punishment whether deterrence is achieved. He also contends that in the case of drunk driving, the purpose of jail is generally social revenge, not accident prevention. Advocates of MADD, on the other hand, have always pointed out the public education programs, victim assistance, and legislative activism as their agenda items. Regardless of the objectives mentioned above, MADD has managed to make drunk driving a major public problem. Its approach to the problem assumes that the victim in an alcohol related accident is innocent; the drunk drivers behavior is willful and it is a crime which should be dealt in the criminal justice system; and harsh punishment is effective in reducing drunk driving by the threat of swift, certain, and severe penalties. By working against the alcohol industrys promotion of drinking in general, MADD has focused on the negative externalities created by the drunk driver -framing the issue as a deviant behavior (Ross). This strategy allowed the movement to gain support even from the alcohol industry itself. Starting from being a small group of women to a nationwide organization with over 600 chapters across 50 states, MADD has become the most influential citizen group fighting drunk driving. The organizations 2003-2004 annual report shows that its assets reached more than $28 million and revenues more than $53 million (MADD). As with other anti-drunk driving laws, MADD was the main actor behind the federal . 08 BAC legislation. With support of other non-profit organizations, MADD members brought the issue to the public attention. They lobbied key members of Congress, organized media campaigns, participated in press events and other activities, and published fact sheets and statistical information demonstrating the significance of the policy initiative (Ross). They not only contacted the president and obtained his support, but also reached both Democrat and Republican members of the Congress gaining bipartisan support, necessary for passage of the legislation. MADD saw the fight for . 08 BAC as a fight for public safety. Karolyn Nunnallee, the president of the organization, once said, The danger imposed by a drunk driver does not stop at State lines. Neither should the standards that define drunk driving (190). Conclusion Like many other public policy issues, drunk driving can also be defined and addressed in several ways with every definition proposing a different solution. Contrary to the dominant paradigm, for example, drunk driving can be considered as a public health issue. Then the solution would be rehabilitation of offenders rather than imposing sanctions on them. However, efforts of MADD and other grassroots organizations to define the problem in criminal justice terms by describing the problem as of a sin committed by irresponsible killer drunks against innocent victims succeed over other possible definitions of the problem as well as the solutions attached to them (Meier). Their success of the definition of the problem yielded social construction of the target group as deviants with negative connotations and weak political power who deserve sanctions either than rehabilitation. Although proponents of drunk driving policies have been successful in defining the issue in terms of sin that no one could stand for it, opponents were also successful to some extent in addressing the issue by questioning the effectiveness of deterrent based policies. They were able to frame the issue in such a manner that opposition became legitimate. Meier contends that when the opponents are able to change the social construction of the debate from sin to some other dimension, the redistributive nature of the policy becomes open and acknowledged (694). At this point, we can hold that the drunk driving issue was transformed from the politics of sin to the politics of redistribution when alcohol and hospitality industries considered that the stricter laws -as in the case of federal . 08 BAC legislation- would threat alcohol sales. They were not successful, however, in changing issue entirely from being a policy of sin and could not defend drunk driving, but emphasized the potential inefficiency of measures to curb drunk driving. Moreover, they could not sustain holding that position over time and once again the dominant definition of the problem prevailed yielding more punitive tools to deter drunk driving. MADD has been acknowledged as the driving force that transformed drunk driving into a public problem which warrants governmental action. Moreover, MADD as a citizen advocacy group is an important factor in shaping policies in American states. The results provided evidence for the effects of MADD not only on states adoption of anti-drunk driving laws but also adoption of traffic safety measures in general. Works Cited Baum, Scott. Drink Driving as a Social Problem: Comparing the Attitudes and Knowledge of Drink Driving Offenders and the General Community. Accident Analysis and Prevention. 32 (2000): 689-694. Evans, William N. , Doreen Neville, and John D. Graham. General Deterrence of Drunk Drivers: Evaluation of Recent American Policies. Risk Analysis. 11 (1991): 279-289. Hanson, David J. Mothers Against Drunk Driving: A Crash Course in MADD, 2002 http://www. alcoholfacts. org/CrashCourseOnMADD. html MADD. Saving Lives: Mothers Against Drunk Driving Annual Report 2003-2004, 2004. Meier, Kenneth J. (1994). The Politics of Sin: Drugs, Alcohol, and Public Policy. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Meier, Kenneth J. Drugs, Sex, Rock, and Roll: A Theory of Morality Politics. Policy Studies Journal. 27 (4) (1999): 681-695. Nunnallee, Karolyn. Pro Con: Should Congress Pass . 08 Blood-Alcohol Concentration (BAC) Drunk Driving Standard? Congressional Digest. 11 (6-7) (1998): 178-191. Reinarman, Craig. The Social Construction of an Alcohol Problem: The Case of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and Social Control in 1980s. Theory and Society. 17 (1988): 91-120. Ross, H. Laurence. Confronting Drunk Driving: Social Policy for Saving Lives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992 Stewart, Kathryn and James Fell. Trends in Impaired Driving in the United States: Complacency or Backsliding? In Daniel R. Mayhew and Claude Dussault eds. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety, Montreal, Canada, August 4-9, 2002. Voas, Robert B. and John H. Lacey. Drunk Driving Enforcement, Adjudication, and Sanctions in the United States. in R. Jean Wilson and Robert E. Mann eds. Drinking and Driving: Advances in Research and Prevention. New York, NY: The Guildford Press, 1990 Weed, Frank J. The Victim-Activist Role in the Anti-Drunk Driving Movement. The Sociological Quarterly. 31 (3) (1990): 459-473.

The structure of the business Essay Example for Free

The structure of the business Essay As you can see from the organisational chart above, Venetian Ices LTD is a respectful size. As from the diagram above it is obvious that there is a large span of control and a reasonable chain of command, this means that communication is very accurate as there is less levels for messages to pass through before the message finally reaches the desired person. Managers are also at an advantage as they are less remote from the lower level of hierarchy, these managers as a result are more in touch with subordinates as there are less managers. Also as there is a small chain of command and a large span of control, managers have more responsibilities, this may at first seem as a disadvantage but after consideration, it is obvious that under the circumstances more delegation will occur meaning subordinates will have more to do. As a result of this employees will come more motivated as there is more of a responsibility handed to them. However a foremost disadvantage is that as managers have a wider range of control, then they may lose control of what their many subordinates are doing. In most businesses there are 4 main functions- Marketing, Production, Finance and Personnel. The production function which I am concerned with throughout this course work, is in charge of ordering the raw materials in which the business produces its product, this is vital as with-out the raw materials then the business would not be able to process the product or in other words, without the raw material Venetian Ices LTD would not be able to produce their ice cream and therefore will be unable to make a profit. The department is also in charge of designing the product along side the marketing section, the two sections try to work together to provide the best product available. This section of production also works together with the finance department in case of damaged machinery of any new material the business has to purchase, if there are any problems then the production manager would provide listings of new investments needed. The production department also have to work within laws of production, in order to make sure that when they produce their product they are abiding different laws which surround the business. This is an aspect of my course work which I have to research into, as I have to reveal to the Venetian Ices LTD directors which laws they have to abide by to produce ice cream. There are three main methods of production, job production, batch production and flow production. Job production is where products are made specifically to order, for example a tailor would make a new suit to match the consumer needs. In this method each order is different, and may or may not be repeated in the same way. Other examples specialist machinery manufacturers who would manufacture a machine for another business to meet particular specification. In this method the costumer is allowed to choose the exact requirements they wish to acquire, which is a distinct advantage. Also workers will proceed to become more motivated, as they get more job satisfaction because employees are not repeating there job over and over again, but instead are doing new requirements every time a new order occurs. However skilled labour is often needed, as employees have to be able to meet incalculable costumer requirements. This is not a method used by Venetian Ices LTD as they make many ice cream products for different supermarkets. One product for each market would not recoup enough profit nor meet supply and demand. Another production method is batch production, this is where similar products are made in blocks or batches. A certain number of another product is made, then another product is made and so on. Examples include when a baker makes one type of bread and then when that order is completed another design of bread is commences. Another example is that when a house design is made acceptable in a certain development area, that design is used several times and after that design is refined with, a new batch of houses is designed. This design is particularly useful as design transformations are easy to complete and progress. Furthermore motivation towards employees is also taken into account as they are not constantly completing the same procedure, but however there is more a variety in job production. For small businesses, this method would bring them to a disadvantage as raw material stock would need to be stored and warehouse space can often consume profits. This method may be used by Venetian Ices LTD in order to see if a new flavour or design fits in well with costumer needs and wants. By only producing a few amounts of their new products they will be able to test their product on the market without risking high values of cash. The last production method is the most continuous, the method is called Flow production. This method is often referred as mass production due to the heavy quantity of products being produced. The basic ingredients of the product are put together at separate levels as the pass different sectors of a production line. I.e. as each component moves along the production belt, another piece is added to the overall product. Large product quantities are made within this method and as a result of purchasing economies the business may buy materials below the average price of that certain material. By taking advantage of purchasing economies, the business can buy in bulk fore a much lower price, by buying each unit at a cheaper price it gives the business a greater benefit against smaller companies who may not buy in the same bulk amounts, as a result it enables the business to sell its product at a much less price, making their product more favourable in the eyes of the public. However research suggest that workers are hard to motivate under these circumstances, for the work is often boring and then same day in and day out. Another essential disadvantage is that high amounts of capital is needed to set up flow production machinery, which may discourage the directors of a business to venture in to this production method. The production function has to also choose the location of manufacturing for it is vital that the right selection of location is chosen. Shown below is a diagram of factors affecting the choice of location: Probably one of the most complicated sections is the finance department that is managed by John Hardy. This function has to be in charge of controlling financial transactions within all the business. It controls the transaction by budgeting and analysing a series of accounts, the analysation occurs is through many different accounts such as cash flow forecast, profit and loss accounts etc This function is important in the sale of a new product as without tracing the sales of a new product then there would be no record of increases or decreases, resulting in a risk of a business losing profit. Probably an extremely important aspect of this function is through the finance department making budgets in which the company has to cope with. It is vital that the company deals within a budget as without a budget, the company may over spend and come drowned in dept. This may leave the future of the company in doubt. The final section is the personnel department, this department deals with the employees, meaning it controls interviews with new employees, selecting staff for promotion, discipline within the company and who will receive bonuses for working well. As well as these responsibilities the function has the more important job of making sure the company workers are well motivated. They do this in many ways, a few of which are giving job perks company car, holidays, special bonuses and personnel problems in which the employees have to deal with. If however a vacancy occurs within a business, then it is the personnel departments responsibility to attract and recruit the most suitable and most qualified staff. If the recruitment process is not completed to the highest degree, then the company could be face with members of staff who are in capable of doing the job that they were employed to do. Also the personnel department is faced with the difficult job of the dismissal and redundancy making of staff. The reason why some members of staff may be faced with dismissal maybe because the company feel that that certain member of staff is not performing to the complete standards that they wished that member would work at. Or a member may be of a certain old age, where the company feel that that staff member is coming to an end of their career. Management responsibilities in different departments Human resources department *Forecasting staff needs for the business * Preparing job descriptions and job specifications * Planning staff training courses * Interviewing and selecting staff * Keeping staff records * Disciplining staff * Recruiting staff * Preparing job descriptions and job specifications * Planning staff training courses * Interviewing and selecting staff * Keeping staff records *Disciplining staff Marketing department * Market research * Planning new products * Keeping and extracting sales records * Deciding upon the best marketing mix strategy Finance department * Recording all financial transactions * Collecting and presenting financial data * Analysing the profitability of new investment projects * Keeping cashflow control * Preparing budgets for the business Production department * Ordering stock and materials * Developing and designing new products * Locating buildings in the most cost effective areas * Designing on production methods * Controlling production to ensure high levels of efficiency * Maintaining machinery * Making sure quality of products is of standard

History of the Reformation in Wales

History of the Reformation in Wales The Reformation is one of the most studied, most discussed and heavily analysed periods of English history, arousing controversy and interest through the works of academics and the private study of interested individuals alike. J.A. Froude called it [T]he greatest incident in English history, but it would be just as easy to call it an act of sacrilege motivated by a selfish tyrant, interested more in perpetuating his own line than fulfilling his self-proclaimed role as defender of the faith. No matter the differences of historical opinion, its importance cannot be denied, and nor can its impact. Yet few authors have deigned to focus on the impact of this turbulent course of events on the principality of Wales, nor has there been much discussion of the role of its governor, Rowland Lee. This essay will do exactly that. It will begin with an analysis of the Reformation Acts as this author has dubbed them, the statutes enacted by Henry with the specific aim ofremaking the English church in his image. These measures affected thecountry as a whole, and any aspects peculiar to Wales will be examined. The essay will continue with a detailed look at the Welsh Acts,†statutes often called (wrongly) Acts of Union. Obviously, their effectis specific to Wales, and the attitudes of the Welsh people will be especially noteworthy here. Finally, the scope of the inquiry will turn to the man who implemented those policies as President of the Council of Wales: Rowland Lee, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. To some he was a blood-thirsty man,the hanging bishop who instigated a reign of terror. To others he was a skilled and efficient administrator, a man who was given a job to do and who took the actions necessary to its success. Once this essay isfinished, the thoughts of the writer will be well known, it will be upto the reader to make the final judgement. The background to the Reformation is long and complex, and is morethan a simple matter of a childish egotists desire to take what he hasbeen told he cannot have. Nor is the motivation as simple as apolitical need to secure the continuation of his line through the birthof a healthy son. Both of these were factors in Henrys thinking, butthey were not as simplistic as they have been portrayed. Henry was ascholar and had the capacity for intelligent, theoretical and theological thought. The Reformation was in part the end result of atheory of kingship based on the kingship of David in the Bible, and ona notion of imperium, that a king was the sole final arbiter of allmatters within his realm. Unfortunately, we do not have the available time or space to go into the causes of the Reformation in more detail. All that need concern the reader for the purpose of this study is that the Popes refusal to annul Henry VIIIs marriage to Catherine of Aragon (thereby invalidating the papal dispensation that had made the marriage legal inthe first place) led Henry to break with the Church of Rome and taketotal control of the church in England. The Church of England, as it became known, had the King at its head; he was the defender of the faith, and no foreign power could determine religious policy in his realm, just as it could not determine administrative policies or set taxation. There is a logical (if not theological) sense in this policy,and it was one that fitted with Henrys newfound theory of kingship. (i) The Reformation in General: A Legislative Revolution Henry was a king who ruled with parliament, and this makes analysis ofhis policies easier, since there is a clear legislative framework toalmost every reforming measure he undertook. Indeed, the parliamentthat enacted this legislation was dubbed the Reformation Parliament.It was through Parliament and the legal apparatus at his disposal thatHenry and Cromwell conducted the reformation of the Church, which wasto become Henrys church. The birth of the Reformation (at least in legal terms) came in the formof the Act of Restraint of Appeals (1533). It stated that as King ofEngland, Henry owed submission to no man, not even the Pope. The actproceeded on the basis that a king owed allegiance and obedience to Godand God alone. No earthly being could tell him how to interpret theScripture, or prevent him from annulling a marriage he had adjudgedsinful. In both theory and practice, it created an autonomous Church ofEngland, with the King at its head. The Act (as with almost alllegislation) was politically motivated, for (as its name implies) itbarred an English citizen from appealing to the Vatican against anydecision made by an English ecclesiastical court. The motivation forthis was obvious. It meant that if an English ecclesiastical courtruled that the marriage between the King and Catherine of Aragon wasinvalid, Catherine could not appeal to the pope. If she did, anyresponse would have no legal force within the Engli sh realm. Since theecclesiastical courts were now as much the kings courts as any otherlegal forum, they would dispense a decision in line with hisinterpretation of the law. This may seem tyrannical and corrupt tomodern eyes, but in Tudor England it made perfect sense. The courtsystem existed because the king was meant to dispense justice but couldnot hope to adjudicate every case himself. Personal intervention ofthis sort was impracticable. With this in mind, for a king to advisethe court of the correct decision was a constitutional act of theutmost legality. Part of the coronation oath was the preservation ofjustice; that is (in theory) all interference in a court case was; theking assuming duties he had previously sworn to perform. It is clear that dealing with his political and marital problems werefar more important to Henry and his government than reforming theChurch itself. The second key measure in the Henrician/Cromwellianreform programme was the Act of Succession (March 1534). The Actconfirmed the bastardy of Mary Tudor, (who had lost her title ofPrincess and was now referred to as the Lady Mary). Mary wasdisinherited and the Princess Elizabeth was named the kings truesuccessor. More importantly, the Act provided that any subject, if soordered, should swear an oath recognising its provisions. Most peoplecomplied without question, but both Thomas More and Bishop John Fisherrefused to take it. Both men paid for this allegiance to the Pope withtheir lives. The Princess Dowager (as Catherine of Aragon was nowdesignated), and her daughter also refused, but their relationship tothe Emperor restrained Henry, who left them to their own devices. It wasnt until later in 1534 (November) that the real changesbegan. The Act of Supremacy gave a legal, statutory definition of thekings position within the structure of this newly created Church ofEngland. It gave the king a statutory title of Supreme Head of theChurch of England and assigned the king all prerogatives to the saiddignity of supreme head of the same church belonging and appertaining.In effect, the pope was being displaced as the head of the church inEngland. Henry of course, had a different view. It was the kings ofEngland who had been displaced by the pope, based on spurious doctrinethat contradicted the Holy Scriptures. God had always intended that theking be master of all matters in his realm. That was why He selectedkings personally, putting them on the throne through his divine powers.His intervention at Bosworth Field had put the Tudors in control of thekingdom of England, and Henry was not about to let some bishop of Romeusurp his God-given authority. That would be to defy the will of God.Naturally, Henry was able to find theologians with concurring views.Richard Sampson, Bishop of Chichester wrote a treatise on the subjectthat made the very point Henry was making in the Act of Succession. Itsaid that The word of God is to obey the King, and not the Bishop ofRome.† Despite all of this, the Church of England remained an essentiallyCatholic church, since Henry had little interest in Protestantism.Indeed, many of the measures he did introduce of an evangelical naturewere later reversed. The Ten Articles of 1536 are a prime example ofHenrys attempts to steer a level course between the extremeCatholic/conservative and Anglican/evangelical wings of his new church.He was eager to keep it a broad church, but not willing to countenanceheresy (he burned papists and people who denied the sacraments withequal vigour). They were supposed to constitute a formulary for the newand improved Henrician church and were not without their controversies.For one thing, it only explicitly recognised three sacraments(baptism, penance and the Eucharist), where the Catholic Churchrecognised seven. Emphasis was laid upon the words of the Scriptures,and the merits of simple Christian life (something difficult torecognise in the grandiose magnificence of Renaissance royal co urts).It was not however, an anti-Catholic formulation as such. It did notcondemn the Mass, nor did it condemn the Catholic call for good works.It was a balancing act, with a little something for everybody, and Weirhas described it as a tentative move in an evangelical direction. Ifit was such a move, it was one that Henry soon reversed. The Act of SixArticles in 1539 resolved any latent ambiguity that existed in theEnglish church, returning it to a clearly Catholic structure. Clericalmarriage was condemned and the vows of chastity were now held to besacred and unbreakable, which put Archbishop Cranmer in an unfortunateposition as his marriage had been an open secret for some time. He wasundoubtedly not alone in finding himself in what was now a compromisingsituation, and it is somewhat ironic that Henry was enactinglegislation to combat illegal marriages. One thing of course, remainedunchanged; papal supremacy was not restored, nor could it be. Henry hadspent years espousing his ow n supremacy over the church, and it hadbeen the guiding principle behind his reign for the past decade. Evenif he had wanted to reverse what he had done and re-enter the CatholicChurch, it would be a political mistake of the highest order, and notone that he was prepared to make. Only one man could have dominion overEngland, and that man was its king. (ii) The Dissolution of the Monasteries: Royal Motives and a Welsh Perspective The Dissolution of the Monasteries was seen by some as an unwarrantedattack on a helpless class of people with no means to defendthemselves, and by others as a necessary purging of a corrupt andparasitical class of clergymen who served no pastoral or practicalpurpose. In reality, it was in the main, a land grab. There was anincreasing likelihood of war with France and Henry had gained fewfriends following Englands break with Rome. As the arch-pragmatist andchief minister Cromwell saw it, the monasteries were an untappedresource. Now that the king was overall arbiter of the churchsfuture, he had a legal authority over the monasteries that he had neverhad before. With this new ecclesiastical power came a desire toexercise it. Cromwell managed to push through an extremely efficientprogramme of dissolution, despite the objections of the kings newbride, Jane Seymour. In four short years, all five-hundred andsixty-three religious houses would be closed, and their inmatespensioned off. This freed up an enormous amount of land and finances which, naturallybecame the property of the Crown. With the injection of the abbeysrevenues into the treasury, the royal income doubled. This new moneywould help to finance Henrys extensive (and expensive) buildingprojects and the acquisition of new property (among other things). TheCrown also annexed monastic lands worth  £120, 000 a year, a massiveamount of money at the time, which amounted to one fifth of thekingdoms landed wealth. The Reformation was a time when the king had no significant standingarmy, despite the threat from the Catholic powers of France and Spainand the not unlikely threat of civil rebellion. To offset this risk,Henry redistributed a third of this new land to secure the loyalty ofimportant men, men who he would come to depend on when the northerupted in rebellion in 1536-7. Whilst the church held one quarter of all Welsh land it was notprolific in its membership. In 1500, Cistercian monasteries averagedonly six monks. Augustinian monasteries averaged five monks, with theBenedictine order averaging a mere three monks a monastery. Theso-called Great Abbey at Tintern only had thirteen monks. All in all,the dissolution displaced two hundred and fifty monks, nuns and friars,not an extreme number. Indeed, Henry could easily have described them as a minor casualty that benefited the whole nation. The effect on the people of Wales was somewhat more serious, as thepoor relied on the benefactory nature of the Welsh monasteries andpriories. This was a country where fifty per cent of the populationsuffered from malnutrition and an equal percentage of newborn babiesfailed to survive their first year. A lifespan of thirty-five years wasalso not uncommon, which is low, even for medieval Europe. The sheerpoverty and susceptibility to illness (a result of their malnutrition)of the Welsh working class made them dependent on the principalitysforty-six monasteries for alms and food. What made this worse was thatall of the Welsh monasteries were relatively poor, and so all of themwere dissolved in the initial cull of the lesser monasteries. In onefell swoop, Welsh monasticism was ended; for the Welsh there was noadjustment period, no breathing space; all of their monasteries went atonce. With the monasteries gone, a vital source of relief was cut off,a fact that no doubt hit hard in poor h omes throughout Wales andengendered a lot of distaste for the Tudor regime. A dynasty that theWelsh people had supported at its inception was taking away a vitalsource of support. It was to get worse too, as the new Church ofEngland cracked down on idolatry and (in Welsh eyes) took an axe to thepeoples heritage. (iii) The Idolatry Crackdown: A Welsh Perspective As has been stated above, the Reformation began as an essentiallypolitical process, resolving the question of absolute dominion andwhether the church was to be ruled from Rome or by the divinelyappointed sovereign of the nation in question. However, as the TenArticles of 1536 demonstrates, the Reformation did incorporate somereform of the church into its programme. A part of this thatparticularly affected Wales was the crusade against idolatry andimages. In 1538, Thomas Cromwell issued an Injunction ordering every parishchurch to stock an English bible to be made available for all whowished to read it and interpret the Scriptures themselves. As we willsee below, this was of little benefit to the Welsh. In the same year, asimilar Injunction ordered that every shrine in the country was to bedestroyed. This is where the popular image of thugs running around thecountry smashing up churches comes from, and it is a view that is notwithout some justification. As always, Cromwell was very effective, andeven the shrine of Thomas Becket (one of the countrys holiestpilgrimage places) was lost as a result of the zealous evangelicaldestruction squads. This had a particularly damaging effect on Wales,where cultural-religious relics were highly venerated. In a move thataccorded perfectly with the Reformations attempt to completelyassimilate the Welsh nation and culture, the principalitys relics wereruthlessly swept away, with almost nothing (if any thing) surviving thecull. Village processions would often have sacred images carried inthem, these priceless relics were lost. One such relic was the healing cup of Nant Eos. This sacred relicwas in reality no more than a cracked piece of wood, but to the Welshit had mystical powers. Whilst such a phrase sounds laughable to modernears, there is little doubt that the Welsh believed in the cupsproperties. Not only did it have remarkable healing properties, itpossessed the ability to cleanse your soul, keeping you out of hell andin extreme cases, it was believed to bring you back from that foulplace of purgatory. To the Welsh therefore, this was not merely avenerated image, but a physical key to salvation and a medical toolthat went far beyond contemporary healing techniques. As we have seen,Tudor Wales was a grim place and to remove relics such as the cup ofNant Eos was to eliminate hope itself for many of the people whobelieved in them. At a time when the Acts of Union were doing theirvery best to dilute and destroy the very basics of Welsh culture, thepolicies of the Reformation were providing a complementar y service inthe field of religious relics. (i) Why unify? The Welsh Problem The Welsh problem had been of concern to Henry VIII for some time bythe coming of the Reformation. Even though he had never been anyfarther west than Bristol, he was aware that the country which hadhelped his father to the throne was an alien one, out of step with therest of his realm. In a period of heightened nationalism, thedifferences between the Principality and its ruler were brought into amuch sharper focus, and became more clearly defined as a threat to theuniformity of the Henrician imperium. The Welsh language was an ugly tongue when compared to the Latin,French and Greek he had learned at the hands of his tutors, and it hadan alien sound to it. To a paranoid man, it could also be construed asthe ideal way to foment rebellion; after all, it is hard to root outtraitors when you cannot understand what they are saying It wasnt just the Welsh language that concerned the king. Walesstill had a distinct legal system, based on Gaelic traditions whichwere alien to a country based on Norman ideals. The Welsh system was sodifferent that it did not even recognise the English distinctionbetween civil and criminal cases; one of the central tenets of thecommon law system. Outrageously to a modern western audience,manslaughter and deliberate homicide were not even considered realcrimes. In England, such acts were offences against the community, tobe judged in royal courts, and nothing could alter the prosecutorsright to pursue a criminal case. In Wales (and Ireland), it was the kinwho had been wronged, and they who sought a remedy, and as in somemodern cultures, the family could seek financial reparations. None of this was, strictly speaking, a threat to society, or the soundadministration of the Principality. What was (or at least should havebeen) a genuine cause for central concern was that the conquest had notmanaged to eliminate the operation of the law of galanas, a lawregarding blood feuds and the appropriate resolution of such disputes.The principle of compensation was fundamental to the justice of thefeud, and it is not impossible that compensation could have included alife in return for a life. As we have seen above, tolerance was not one of Henry VIIIs qualities.He did not recognise alternative forms and systems of justice,especially when they were operating in his imperium. The root cause ofthe Reformation was his determination to see that his law was the law,and that no legal system, ecclesiastical or civil, could co-exist withhis own. Henry himself said that the Welsh laws were sinister usagesand customs used by the lords of the March for thraldom and tyranny. Of a more practical concern, there was a serious problem with law andorder throughout Wales and it was this that was the root cause ofHenrys acts of union. As Henry himself said in 1520: realms withoutjustice be but tyrannies and robberies Wales was not as much of aproblem as the Marches, which were a patchwork of autonomous fiefdoms,where lawlessness and violence abounded. The main problem with theMarcher lordships was centuries old. The constant threat of rebellionin Wales had led to the Marches becoming a buffer zone between thePrincipality and England, a medieval Rhineland, designed to keep theWelsh wolf from the door. To combat the Welsh threat, extensive powershad been delegated to the Marcher lords, powers that had never beenreclaimed. Within any one lordship, the lord had legislative power and,as Susan Brigden has said, they possessed virtual judicialomnicompetence within their own domain. There were a total of onehundred and thirty-seven separate jurisdictions where the king s writsimply did not run. They were notorious hideouts for outlaws andcriminals, a situation not helped by the fact that a murderer couldsimply cross state lines into another lordship to avoid punishment.For serious, career criminals the Marches were a safe haven that theking could simply no longer permit. The situation is believed to havebeen so bad that J.A. Williamson described Wales as wild anduntroubled by Parliaments laws, or by any law at all, being in aworse state of crime and disorder than England had been in the civilwars. For a king so obsessed with sovereignty and control over hisown domains, reform of the Marches and the principality as a whole wassimply a matter of time. All of these things, coupled with thetheoretical imperative that England was an empire, ensured that theActs of Union were not a long time coming. (ii) The Acts of Union: Aims and Effects Before the Acts are examined, one thing must be made clear; Henrywanted control of Wales, he did not want to set up an effective Welshgovernment, capable of managing its own affairs and getting a grip onlaw and order. He was not interested in bolstering the Welshadministration by giving them the tools to get the job done. What hewanted was a full scale incorporation of the Principality into theEnglish sovereignty. Once this was accomplished, the traditionalEnglish mechanisms could see to law and order in the tried and testedways. As has been exhaustively discussed above, the biggest problem wasthat the very nature of the Marcher lordships hindered the maintenanceof law and order. Therefore, they were a primary target of the 1536 Actwhich saw to their abolition. Some were combined with the unshiredWelsh lands to create the new counties of Monmouth, Brecon, Radnor,Montgomery and Denbigh (in 1543 Monmouth was transferred to England andtwo new counties of Glamorgan and Pembroke were crea ted). The rest ofthe lordships were incorporated into adjacent English counties. Crimescommitted in Marcher lordships could not be avoided by fleeing toanother jurisdiction; they were to be tried in English courts. Thepractice of cymortha, the imposition of obligatory gifts (a majorsource of revenue for Marcher lords) was forbidden. Any Marcherlordship official deemed guilty of corruption or oppression could betried and punished by the Council of Wales, whose powers wereincreased. The patchwork of anarchy had been abolished. Welsh law was another target of the 1536 Act. Henrys distrust of alienjurisdictions could lead to only one natural outcome; English law wasestablished as the law of the land throughout Wales. There were to beno more dual systems, with Welsh and English law operating side byside; from 1534 onwards, the Welsh legal system was no more differentto the national system than was the Sussex or Derbyshire legal system.English rules of tenure and inheritance replaced older Welsh customs.There was only one law in Wales: the Kings law. Of course, the change in legal structure would have meant nothingwithout the mechanisms and means to enforce it. Courts of greatsessions and Justices of the Peace were introduced to bring the Englishcommon law to Wales. The Council of Wales (which sat in Ludlow castlein Shropshire) was now the equivalent of a Welsh Privy Council andCourt of Star Chamber combined, and under the leadership of BishopRowland Lee, was responsible for enforcing the law in Wales (below, wewill examine the success and question the methods of Bishop Lee). To ensure the erosion of the Welsh language, English was to be thenational legal language of Wales. All court hearings were to beconducted in English (which caused obvious problems) and all publicofficials in Wales had to speak English. This was a clever move, itwedded the Welsh gentry to the Crown, anglicising them and driving afirm wedge between them and the Welsh lower classes. Any student ofhistory knows that a revolution needs the support of the middleclasses; the Act of Union ensured there was no benefit to suchco-operation. The Acts of 1536 and 1543 were not all bad news for the people ofWales. Indeed, they had some very tangible benefits. For one thing, thelegal distinctions between Henrys English and Welsh subjects wereeliminated. The Welsh were no longer second class citizens, they couldexpect the same level of due process as their English neighbours anddecades-long impediments to the acquisition and inheritance of landwere therefore removed. Whilst Welsh courts operated on Englishprinciples they were not answerable to Westminster but to theChanceries in Caernarfon and Carmarthen; thereby giving the Welshcourts an autonomy granted to no other section of the kingdom. Mostimportantly to modern eyes (although the reaction at the time wasprobably fairly moderate), the 1536 Act entitled Wales torepresentation at Parliament for the first time in its history. In 1543it sent twenty-seven MPs to Westminster. Clearly, the incorporationinto England was total, with Wales deriving the benefits as well as thecultu ral assaults of a full-blown union with England. Whilst somehistorians claim that the Statute of Rhuddlan (1284) created a unionbetween the two countries, this is somewhat short-sighted. Rhuddlan putWales under the auspices of the English kings, but it made Wales acolony, where its own inhabitants were left to their own devices andtreated as less than their English counterparts. Whilst the acts of1536 and 1543 were a clear attempt to assimilate and dissipate theWelsh culture, it also took positive steps to bring the Welsh into thefold, giving them rights they had never before enjoyed. In Henryscase, the lord giveth at the same time as the lord taketh away.Whatever the pros and cons of Henrician reforms, the Welsh language isstill alive over four hundred and fifty years later, and the Welshcontinue to be proud of their culture and their history. Rowland Lee was appointed president of the Council of Wales as partof a move to gain greater central control of the realm. In Ireland, theEarl of Kildare was replaced as governor by Sir William Skeffington (amilitary captain) and Lord Dacre was replaced as warden of the westmarches in the north by the Earl of Cumberland. All of this happened inthe space of a single month. As has been outlined above, Wales was ananarchic area, in need of a firm hand. Lee was to be that hand, andover the next nine years he conducted what some historians wouldcharacterise as a reign of terror. Like any sensible person, and in line with the thoughts of hissovereign, Lee was alive to the possibility that a Catholic nation suchas France or Spain was likely to invade. Lee took active measures todefend the coasts, recruiting soldiers and hunting out resources torepair the royal castles which had been falling into disrepair. At thetime of their construction, Welsh castles such as those built by EdwardI were designed as Welsh outposts, military strongholds in a freshlyconquered and belligerent colony. By the 1530s, the age ofcastle-building was over. Having mentioned above that Henry VIII hadused the monastic income to fund his extensive building projects; thismay surprise the reader of this piece. But do not be surprised. HenryVIII was a palace builder. He wanted large, glamorous and opulentresidences to relax in and house a Renaissance court that was worthy ofthe name. The type of uncomfortable and old-fashioned castle thatEdward I had deemed necessary in the thirteenth century was deemed ananachronism. They were also hugely expensive. This meant that Lee hadto make do with the castles he already had and hope that there wasntan invasion. Since his prayers were answered in this respect, we cannotjudge Lees success in this area. All we can say is that he seems tohave taken all the precautions a reasonable man could have taken. Lees greatest success and the biggest anvil dragging his reputationdown is his policy regarding law and order. This essay has discussed atsome length the lawlessness and turbulence that abounded in the WelshMarches prior to the arrival of Bishop Lee. His reports were in partresponsible for the reforms found in the 1536 Act, an act which gavethe Council of Wales the means to take Welsh matters in hand. Itensured that the patchwork of private judicial enclaves and palatinatesbecame a large English common law blanket under Lee’s jurisdiction.There is no doubt that Lee earned his nickname of the hanging bishop.Indeed, his entire policy on law and order was to hang people, the morethe better. Hanging was to be done frequently and publicly, especiallyif the criminal in question was of a more respectable background thanthe common criminal. Davies credits Lee with saying that executing agentleman was better than dispatching a hundred petty wretches andclaims he boasted that he had exe cuted four of the best blood inShropshire. Even if this is true, it is a sound policy. One of themajor scourges of the Wars of the Roses had been the major families andtheir constant liberty-taking where the law was concerned. Greatfamilies would wage private wars and other nobles would keep a hold ontheir territories by fear and licensing thugs and criminals to run riotthroughout their lands. The Marcher lordships were no different. Therewas little respect for the law. One way to instil a healthy fearfulrespect of the law was to prove that no-one was above it. If a wealthylanded gentleman could swing from the gallows for a crime then anyonecould. This author is no fan of capital punishment and would point tothe fact that people still kill each other in states where the deathpenalty exists. But in the case of Bishop Lee, it would be incrediblydifficult to argue that his policy of hanging did not act as adeterrent. The Marches and the rest of the principality quickly fellinto line. T he chronicler Elis Gruffyd claims that Lee executed fivethousand men in six years and this would certainly accord with theprinciple ascribed to Lee that it was better to hang a hundred innocentmen than let a guilty one escape the noose. If Lee really did despatchfive thousand souls to meet their maker, then it is easy to see whyWales became a more orderly region under his rule. In 1538, the manhimself said that order and quiet such as is now in England prevailedall over Wales. A key question when determining Lees success is the extent to whichLee benefited from the reforms of 1536, and whether the success of Leewas really the success of administrative reform as imposed byWestminster. After all, the key thread running through the criticism of the Marcherlordships is that they lacked a uniform legal system and an effectiveand unified administrative machine. The Act of 1536 gave Wales boththese things and therefore, the argument could be made, brought orderto the Principality. Before this argument is debunked, it is necessaryto give it a full airing by going over exactly how the Act aided BishopLees pursuit of order. Much was made in the previous section of the legal, jurisdictional andpolitical patchwork that existed in the Marches. Naturally this causedserious administrative problems for Bishop Lee. The extensive rightsgranted to the Marcher lords in the previous century still existed,even if the political and military justification for such a delegationof royal authority no longer did. This left the Council prettypowerless where the lordships were concerned, and meant that any reformLee undertook had to be confined to the Principality. Not that that wasan easy task, for the Principality had, in many places, Welsh andEnglish law operating side by side. These jurisdictional problems weresolved in one fell swoop by the 1536 Act; Lee went from having littleor no jurisdiction to having legal authority over all of Wales. Withoutthis reform of Marcher and Principality law, Lees task would have beenmuch more difficult than it was. Lee now had the power to punish History of the Reformation in Wales History of the Reformation in Wales The Reformation is one of the most studied, most discussed and heavily analysed periods of English history, arousing controversy and interest through the works of academics and the private study of interested individuals alike. J.A. Froude called it [T]he greatest incident in English history, but it would be just as easy to call it an act of sacrilege motivated by a selfish tyrant, interested more in perpetuating his own line than fulfilling his self-proclaimed role as defender of the faith. No matter the differences of historical opinion, its importance cannot be denied, and nor can its impact. Yet few authors have deigned to focus on the impact of this turbulent course of events on the principality of Wales, nor has there been much discussion of the role of its governor, Rowland Lee. This essay will do exactly that. It will begin with an analysis of the Reformation Acts as this author has dubbed them, the statutes enacted by Henry with the specific aim ofremaking the English church in his image. These measures affected thecountry as a whole, and any aspects peculiar to Wales will be examined. The essay will continue with a detailed look at the Welsh Acts,†statutes often called (wrongly) Acts of Union. Obviously, their effectis specific to Wales, and the attitudes of the Welsh people will be especially noteworthy here. Finally, the scope of the inquiry will turn to the man who implemented those policies as President of the Council of Wales: Rowland Lee, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. To some he was a blood-thirsty man,the hanging bishop who instigated a reign of terror. To others he was a skilled and efficient administrator, a man who was given a job to do and who took the actions necessary to its success. Once this essay isfinished, the thoughts of the writer will be well known, it will be upto the reader to make the final judgement. The background to the Reformation is long and complex, and is morethan a simple matter of a childish egotists desire to take what he hasbeen told he cannot have. Nor is the motivation as simple as apolitical need to secure the continuation of his line through the birthof a healthy son. Both of these were factors in Henrys thinking, butthey were not as simplistic as they have been portrayed. Henry was ascholar and had the capacity for intelligent, theoretical and theological thought. The Reformation was in part the end result of atheory of kingship based on the kingship of David in the Bible, and ona notion of imperium, that a king was the sole final arbiter of allmatters within his realm. Unfortunately, we do not have the available time or space to go into the causes of the Reformation in more detail. All that need concern the reader for the purpose of this study is that the Popes refusal to annul Henry VIIIs marriage to Catherine of Aragon (thereby invalidating the papal dispensation that had made the marriage legal inthe first place) led Henry to break with the Church of Rome and taketotal control of the church in England. The Church of England, as it became known, had the King at its head; he was the defender of the faith, and no foreign power could determine religious policy in his realm, just as it could not determine administrative policies or set taxation. There is a logical (if not theological) sense in this policy,and it was one that fitted with Henrys newfound theory of kingship. (i) The Reformation in General: A Legislative Revolution Henry was a king who ruled with parliament, and this makes analysis ofhis policies easier, since there is a clear legislative framework toalmost every reforming measure he undertook. Indeed, the parliamentthat enacted this legislation was dubbed the Reformation Parliament.It was through Parliament and the legal apparatus at his disposal thatHenry and Cromwell conducted the reformation of the Church, which wasto become Henrys church. The birth of the Reformation (at least in legal terms) came in the formof the Act of Restraint of Appeals (1533). It stated that as King ofEngland, Henry owed submission to no man, not even the Pope. The actproceeded on the basis that a king owed allegiance and obedience to Godand God alone. No earthly being could tell him how to interpret theScripture, or prevent him from annulling a marriage he had adjudgedsinful. In both theory and practice, it created an autonomous Church ofEngland, with the King at its head. The Act (as with almost alllegislation) was politically motivated, for (as its name implies) itbarred an English citizen from appealing to the Vatican against anydecision made by an English ecclesiastical court. The motivation forthis was obvious. It meant that if an English ecclesiastical courtruled that the marriage between the King and Catherine of Aragon wasinvalid, Catherine could not appeal to the pope. If she did, anyresponse would have no legal force within the Engli sh realm. Since theecclesiastical courts were now as much the kings courts as any otherlegal forum, they would dispense a decision in line with hisinterpretation of the law. This may seem tyrannical and corrupt tomodern eyes, but in Tudor England it made perfect sense. The courtsystem existed because the king was meant to dispense justice but couldnot hope to adjudicate every case himself. Personal intervention ofthis sort was impracticable. With this in mind, for a king to advisethe court of the correct decision was a constitutional act of theutmost legality. Part of the coronation oath was the preservation ofjustice; that is (in theory) all interference in a court case was; theking assuming duties he had previously sworn to perform. It is clear that dealing with his political and marital problems werefar more important to Henry and his government than reforming theChurch itself. The second key measure in the Henrician/Cromwellianreform programme was the Act of Succession (March 1534). The Actconfirmed the bastardy of Mary Tudor, (who had lost her title ofPrincess and was now referred to as the Lady Mary). Mary wasdisinherited and the Princess Elizabeth was named the kings truesuccessor. More importantly, the Act provided that any subject, if soordered, should swear an oath recognising its provisions. Most peoplecomplied without question, but both Thomas More and Bishop John Fisherrefused to take it. Both men paid for this allegiance to the Pope withtheir lives. The Princess Dowager (as Catherine of Aragon was nowdesignated), and her daughter also refused, but their relationship tothe Emperor restrained Henry, who left them to their own devices. It wasnt until later in 1534 (November) that the real changesbegan. The Act of Supremacy gave a legal, statutory definition of thekings position within the structure of this newly created Church ofEngland. It gave the king a statutory title of Supreme Head of theChurch of England and assigned the king all prerogatives to the saiddignity of supreme head of the same church belonging and appertaining.In effect, the pope was being displaced as the head of the church inEngland. Henry of course, had a different view. It was the kings ofEngland who had been displaced by the pope, based on spurious doctrinethat contradicted the Holy Scriptures. God had always intended that theking be master of all matters in his realm. That was why He selectedkings personally, putting them on the throne through his divine powers.His intervention at Bosworth Field had put the Tudors in control of thekingdom of England, and Henry was not about to let some bishop of Romeusurp his God-given authority. That would be to defy the will of God.Naturally, Henry was able to find theologians with concurring views.Richard Sampson, Bishop of Chichester wrote a treatise on the subjectthat made the very point Henry was making in the Act of Succession. Itsaid that The word of God is to obey the King, and not the Bishop ofRome.† Despite all of this, the Church of England remained an essentiallyCatholic church, since Henry had little interest in Protestantism.Indeed, many of the measures he did introduce of an evangelical naturewere later reversed. The Ten Articles of 1536 are a prime example ofHenrys attempts to steer a level course between the extremeCatholic/conservative and Anglican/evangelical wings of his new church.He was eager to keep it a broad church, but not willing to countenanceheresy (he burned papists and people who denied the sacraments withequal vigour). They were supposed to constitute a formulary for the newand improved Henrician church and were not without their controversies.For one thing, it only explicitly recognised three sacraments(baptism, penance and the Eucharist), where the Catholic Churchrecognised seven. Emphasis was laid upon the words of the Scriptures,and the merits of simple Christian life (something difficult torecognise in the grandiose magnificence of Renaissance royal co urts).It was not however, an anti-Catholic formulation as such. It did notcondemn the Mass, nor did it condemn the Catholic call for good works.It was a balancing act, with a little something for everybody, and Weirhas described it as a tentative move in an evangelical direction. Ifit was such a move, it was one that Henry soon reversed. The Act of SixArticles in 1539 resolved any latent ambiguity that existed in theEnglish church, returning it to a clearly Catholic structure. Clericalmarriage was condemned and the vows of chastity were now held to besacred and unbreakable, which put Archbishop Cranmer in an unfortunateposition as his marriage had been an open secret for some time. He wasundoubtedly not alone in finding himself in what was now a compromisingsituation, and it is somewhat ironic that Henry was enactinglegislation to combat illegal marriages. One thing of course, remainedunchanged; papal supremacy was not restored, nor could it be. Henry hadspent years espousing his ow n supremacy over the church, and it hadbeen the guiding principle behind his reign for the past decade. Evenif he had wanted to reverse what he had done and re-enter the CatholicChurch, it would be a political mistake of the highest order, and notone that he was prepared to make. Only one man could have dominion overEngland, and that man was its king. (ii) The Dissolution of the Monasteries: Royal Motives and a Welsh Perspective The Dissolution of the Monasteries was seen by some as an unwarrantedattack on a helpless class of people with no means to defendthemselves, and by others as a necessary purging of a corrupt andparasitical class of clergymen who served no pastoral or practicalpurpose. In reality, it was in the main, a land grab. There was anincreasing likelihood of war with France and Henry had gained fewfriends following Englands break with Rome. As the arch-pragmatist andchief minister Cromwell saw it, the monasteries were an untappedresource. Now that the king was overall arbiter of the churchsfuture, he had a legal authority over the monasteries that he had neverhad before. With this new ecclesiastical power came a desire toexercise it. Cromwell managed to push through an extremely efficientprogramme of dissolution, despite the objections of the kings newbride, Jane Seymour. In four short years, all five-hundred andsixty-three religious houses would be closed, and their inmatespensioned off. This freed up an enormous amount of land and finances which, naturallybecame the property of the Crown. With the injection of the abbeysrevenues into the treasury, the royal income doubled. This new moneywould help to finance Henrys extensive (and expensive) buildingprojects and the acquisition of new property (among other things). TheCrown also annexed monastic lands worth  £120, 000 a year, a massiveamount of money at the time, which amounted to one fifth of thekingdoms landed wealth. The Reformation was a time when the king had no significant standingarmy, despite the threat from the Catholic powers of France and Spainand the not unlikely threat of civil rebellion. To offset this risk,Henry redistributed a third of this new land to secure the loyalty ofimportant men, men who he would come to depend on when the northerupted in rebellion in 1536-7. Whilst the church held one quarter of all Welsh land it was notprolific in its membership. In 1500, Cistercian monasteries averagedonly six monks. Augustinian monasteries averaged five monks, with theBenedictine order averaging a mere three monks a monastery. Theso-called Great Abbey at Tintern only had thirteen monks. All in all,the dissolution displaced two hundred and fifty monks, nuns and friars,not an extreme number. Indeed, Henry could easily have described them as a minor casualty that benefited the whole nation. The effect on the people of Wales was somewhat more serious, as thepoor relied on the benefactory nature of the Welsh monasteries andpriories. This was a country where fifty per cent of the populationsuffered from malnutrition and an equal percentage of newborn babiesfailed to survive their first year. A lifespan of thirty-five years wasalso not uncommon, which is low, even for medieval Europe. The sheerpoverty and susceptibility to illness (a result of their malnutrition)of the Welsh working class made them dependent on the principalitysforty-six monasteries for alms and food. What made this worse was thatall of the Welsh monasteries were relatively poor, and so all of themwere dissolved in the initial cull of the lesser monasteries. In onefell swoop, Welsh monasticism was ended; for the Welsh there was noadjustment period, no breathing space; all of their monasteries went atonce. With the monasteries gone, a vital source of relief was cut off,a fact that no doubt hit hard in poor h omes throughout Wales andengendered a lot of distaste for the Tudor regime. A dynasty that theWelsh people had supported at its inception was taking away a vitalsource of support. It was to get worse too, as the new Church ofEngland cracked down on idolatry and (in Welsh eyes) took an axe to thepeoples heritage. (iii) The Idolatry Crackdown: A Welsh Perspective As has been stated above, the Reformation began as an essentiallypolitical process, resolving the question of absolute dominion andwhether the church was to be ruled from Rome or by the divinelyappointed sovereign of the nation in question. However, as the TenArticles of 1536 demonstrates, the Reformation did incorporate somereform of the church into its programme. A part of this thatparticularly affected Wales was the crusade against idolatry andimages. In 1538, Thomas Cromwell issued an Injunction ordering every parishchurch to stock an English bible to be made available for all whowished to read it and interpret the Scriptures themselves. As we willsee below, this was of little benefit to the Welsh. In the same year, asimilar Injunction ordered that every shrine in the country was to bedestroyed. This is where the popular image of thugs running around thecountry smashing up churches comes from, and it is a view that is notwithout some justification. As always, Cromwell was very effective, andeven the shrine of Thomas Becket (one of the countrys holiestpilgrimage places) was lost as a result of the zealous evangelicaldestruction squads. This had a particularly damaging effect on Wales,where cultural-religious relics were highly venerated. In a move thataccorded perfectly with the Reformations attempt to completelyassimilate the Welsh nation and culture, the principalitys relics wereruthlessly swept away, with almost nothing (if any thing) surviving thecull. Village processions would often have sacred images carried inthem, these priceless relics were lost. One such relic was the healing cup of Nant Eos. This sacred relicwas in reality no more than a cracked piece of wood, but to the Welshit had mystical powers. Whilst such a phrase sounds laughable to modernears, there is little doubt that the Welsh believed in the cupsproperties. Not only did it have remarkable healing properties, itpossessed the ability to cleanse your soul, keeping you out of hell andin extreme cases, it was believed to bring you back from that foulplace of purgatory. To the Welsh therefore, this was not merely avenerated image, but a physical key to salvation and a medical toolthat went far beyond contemporary healing techniques. As we have seen,Tudor Wales was a grim place and to remove relics such as the cup ofNant Eos was to eliminate hope itself for many of the people whobelieved in them. At a time when the Acts of Union were doing theirvery best to dilute and destroy the very basics of Welsh culture, thepolicies of the Reformation were providing a complementar y service inthe field of religious relics. (i) Why unify? The Welsh Problem The Welsh problem had been of concern to Henry VIII for some time bythe coming of the Reformation. Even though he had never been anyfarther west than Bristol, he was aware that the country which hadhelped his father to the throne was an alien one, out of step with therest of his realm. In a period of heightened nationalism, thedifferences between the Principality and its ruler were brought into amuch sharper focus, and became more clearly defined as a threat to theuniformity of the Henrician imperium. The Welsh language was an ugly tongue when compared to the Latin,French and Greek he had learned at the hands of his tutors, and it hadan alien sound to it. To a paranoid man, it could also be construed asthe ideal way to foment rebellion; after all, it is hard to root outtraitors when you cannot understand what they are saying It wasnt just the Welsh language that concerned the king. Walesstill had a distinct legal system, based on Gaelic traditions whichwere alien to a country based on Norman ideals. The Welsh system was sodifferent that it did not even recognise the English distinctionbetween civil and criminal cases; one of the central tenets of thecommon law system. Outrageously to a modern western audience,manslaughter and deliberate homicide were not even considered realcrimes. In England, such acts were offences against the community, tobe judged in royal courts, and nothing could alter the prosecutorsright to pursue a criminal case. In Wales (and Ireland), it was the kinwho had been wronged, and they who sought a remedy, and as in somemodern cultures, the family could seek financial reparations. None of this was, strictly speaking, a threat to society, or the soundadministration of the Principality. What was (or at least should havebeen) a genuine cause for central concern was that the conquest had notmanaged to eliminate the operation of the law of galanas, a lawregarding blood feuds and the appropriate resolution of such disputes.The principle of compensation was fundamental to the justice of thefeud, and it is not impossible that compensation could have included alife in return for a life. As we have seen above, tolerance was not one of Henry VIIIs qualities.He did not recognise alternative forms and systems of justice,especially when they were operating in his imperium. The root cause ofthe Reformation was his determination to see that his law was the law,and that no legal system, ecclesiastical or civil, could co-exist withhis own. Henry himself said that the Welsh laws were sinister usagesand customs used by the lords of the March for thraldom and tyranny. Of a more practical concern, there was a serious problem with law andorder throughout Wales and it was this that was the root cause ofHenrys acts of union. As Henry himself said in 1520: realms withoutjustice be but tyrannies and robberies Wales was not as much of aproblem as the Marches, which were a patchwork of autonomous fiefdoms,where lawlessness and violence abounded. The main problem with theMarcher lordships was centuries old. The constant threat of rebellionin Wales had led to the Marches becoming a buffer zone between thePrincipality and England, a medieval Rhineland, designed to keep theWelsh wolf from the door. To combat the Welsh threat, extensive powershad been delegated to the Marcher lords, powers that had never beenreclaimed. Within any one lordship, the lord had legislative power and,as Susan Brigden has said, they possessed virtual judicialomnicompetence within their own domain. There were a total of onehundred and thirty-seven separate jurisdictions where the king s writsimply did not run. They were notorious hideouts for outlaws andcriminals, a situation not helped by the fact that a murderer couldsimply cross state lines into another lordship to avoid punishment.For serious, career criminals the Marches were a safe haven that theking could simply no longer permit. The situation is believed to havebeen so bad that J.A. Williamson described Wales as wild anduntroubled by Parliaments laws, or by any law at all, being in aworse state of crime and disorder than England had been in the civilwars. For a king so obsessed with sovereignty and control over hisown domains, reform of the Marches and the principality as a whole wassimply a matter of time. All of these things, coupled with thetheoretical imperative that England was an empire, ensured that theActs of Union were not a long time coming. (ii) The Acts of Union: Aims and Effects Before the Acts are examined, one thing must be made clear; Henrywanted control of Wales, he did not want to set up an effective Welshgovernment, capable of managing its own affairs and getting a grip onlaw and order. He was not interested in bolstering the Welshadministration by giving them the tools to get the job done. What hewanted was a full scale incorporation of the Principality into theEnglish sovereignty. Once this was accomplished, the traditionalEnglish mechanisms could see to law and order in the tried and testedways. As has been exhaustively discussed above, the biggest problem wasthat the very nature of the Marcher lordships hindered the maintenanceof law and order. Therefore, they were a primary target of the 1536 Actwhich saw to their abolition. Some were combined with the unshiredWelsh lands to create the new counties of Monmouth, Brecon, Radnor,Montgomery and Denbigh (in 1543 Monmouth was transferred to England andtwo new counties of Glamorgan and Pembroke were crea ted). The rest ofthe lordships were incorporated into adjacent English counties. Crimescommitted in Marcher lordships could not be avoided by fleeing toanother jurisdiction; they were to be tried in English courts. Thepractice of cymortha, the imposition of obligatory gifts (a majorsource of revenue for Marcher lords) was forbidden. Any Marcherlordship official deemed guilty of corruption or oppression could betried and punished by the Council of Wales, whose powers wereincreased. The patchwork of anarchy had been abolished. Welsh law was another target of the 1536 Act. Henrys distrust of alienjurisdictions could lead to only one natural outcome; English law wasestablished as the law of the land throughout Wales. There were to beno more dual systems, with Welsh and English law operating side byside; from 1534 onwards, the Welsh legal system was no more differentto the national system than was the Sussex or Derbyshire legal system.English rules of tenure and inheritance replaced older Welsh customs.There was only one law in Wales: the Kings law. Of course, the change in legal structure would have meant nothingwithout the mechanisms and means to enforce it. Courts of greatsessions and Justices of the Peace were introduced to bring the Englishcommon law to Wales. The Council of Wales (which sat in Ludlow castlein Shropshire) was now the equivalent of a Welsh Privy Council andCourt of Star Chamber combined, and under the leadership of BishopRowland Lee, was responsible for enforcing the law in Wales (below, wewill examine the success and question the methods of Bishop Lee). To ensure the erosion of the Welsh language, English was to be thenational legal language of Wales. All court hearings were to beconducted in English (which caused obvious problems) and all publicofficials in Wales had to speak English. This was a clever move, itwedded the Welsh gentry to the Crown, anglicising them and driving afirm wedge between them and the Welsh lower classes. Any student ofhistory knows that a revolution needs the support of the middleclasses; the Act of Union ensured there was no benefit to suchco-operation. The Acts of 1536 and 1543 were not all bad news for the people ofWales. Indeed, they had some very tangible benefits. For one thing, thelegal distinctions between Henrys English and Welsh subjects wereeliminated. The Welsh were no longer second class citizens, they couldexpect the same level of due process as their English neighbours anddecades-long impediments to the acquisition and inheritance of landwere therefore removed. Whilst Welsh courts operated on Englishprinciples they were not answerable to Westminster but to theChanceries in Caernarfon and Carmarthen; thereby giving the Welshcourts an autonomy granted to no other section of the kingdom. Mostimportantly to modern eyes (although the reaction at the time wasprobably fairly moderate), the 1536 Act entitled Wales torepresentation at Parliament for the first time in its history. In 1543it sent twenty-seven MPs to Westminster. Clearly, the incorporationinto England was total, with Wales deriving the benefits as well as thecultu ral assaults of a full-blown union with England. Whilst somehistorians claim that the Statute of Rhuddlan (1284) created a unionbetween the two countries, this is somewhat short-sighted. Rhuddlan putWales under the auspices of the English kings, but it made Wales acolony, where its own inhabitants were left to their own devices andtreated as less than their English counterparts. Whilst the acts of1536 and 1543 were a clear attempt to assimilate and dissipate theWelsh culture, it also took positive steps to bring the Welsh into thefold, giving them rights they had never before enjoyed. In Henryscase, the lord giveth at the same time as the lord taketh away.Whatever the pros and cons of Henrician reforms, the Welsh language isstill alive over four hundred and fifty years later, and the Welshcontinue to be proud of their culture and their history. Rowland Lee was appointed president of the Council of Wales as partof a move to gain greater central control of the realm. In Ireland, theEarl of Kildare was replaced as governor by Sir William Skeffington (amilitary captain) and Lord Dacre was replaced as warden of the westmarches in the north by the Earl of Cumberland. All of this happened inthe space of a single month. As has been outlined above, Wales was ananarchic area, in need of a firm hand. Lee was to be that hand, andover the next nine years he conducted what some historians wouldcharacterise as a reign of terror. Like any sensible person, and in line with the thoughts of hissovereign, Lee was alive to the possibility that a Catholic nation suchas France or Spain was likely to invade. Lee took active measures todefend the coasts, recruiting soldiers and hunting out resources torepair the royal castles which had been falling into disrepair. At thetime of their construction, Welsh castles such as those built by EdwardI were designed as Welsh outposts, military strongholds in a freshlyconquered and belligerent colony. By the 1530s, the age ofcastle-building was over. Having mentioned above that Henry VIII hadused the monastic income to fund his extensive building projects; thismay surprise the reader of this piece. But do not be surprised. HenryVIII was a palace builder. He wanted large, glamorous and opulentresidences to relax in and house a Renaissance court that was worthy ofthe name. The type of uncomfortable and old-fashioned castle thatEdward I had deemed necessary in the thirteenth century was deemed ananachronism. They were also hugely expensive. This meant that Lee hadto make do with the castles he already had and hope that there wasntan invasion. Since his prayers were answered in this respect, we cannotjudge Lees success in this area. All we can say is that he seems tohave taken all the precautions a reasonable man could have taken. Lees greatest success and the biggest anvil dragging his reputationdown is his policy regarding law and order. This essay has discussed atsome length the lawlessness and turbulence that abounded in the WelshMarches prior to the arrival of Bishop Lee. His reports were in partresponsible for the reforms found in the 1536 Act, an act which gavethe Council of Wales the means to take Welsh matters in hand. Itensured that the patchwork of private judicial enclaves and palatinatesbecame a large English common law blanket under Lee’s jurisdiction.There is no doubt that Lee earned his nickname of the hanging bishop.Indeed, his entire policy on law and order was to hang people, the morethe better. Hanging was to be done frequently and publicly, especiallyif the criminal in question was of a more respectable background thanthe common criminal. Davies credits Lee with saying that executing agentleman was better than dispatching a hundred petty wretches andclaims he boasted that he had exe cuted four of the best blood inShropshire. Even if this is true, it is a sound policy. One of themajor scourges of the Wars of the Roses had been the major families andtheir constant liberty-taking where the law was concerned. Greatfamilies would wage private wars and other nobles would keep a hold ontheir territories by fear and licensing thugs and criminals to run riotthroughout their lands. The Marcher lordships were no different. Therewas little respect for the law. One way to instil a healthy fearfulrespect of the law was to prove that no-one was above it. If a wealthylanded gentleman could swing from the gallows for a crime then anyonecould. This author is no fan of capital punishment and would point tothe fact that people still kill each other in states where the deathpenalty exists. But in the case of Bishop Lee, it would be incrediblydifficult to argue that his policy of hanging did not act as adeterrent. The Marches and the rest of the principality quickly fellinto line. T he chronicler Elis Gruffyd claims that Lee executed fivethousand men in six years and this would certainly accord with theprinciple ascribed to Lee that it was better to hang a hundred innocentmen than let a guilty one escape the noose. If Lee really did despatchfive thousand souls to meet their maker, then it is easy to see whyWales became a more orderly region under his rule. In 1538, the manhimself said that order and quiet such as is now in England prevailedall over Wales. A key question when determining Lees success is the extent to whichLee benefited from the reforms of 1536, and whether the success of Leewas really the success of administrative reform as imposed byWestminster. After all, the key thread running through the criticism of the Marcherlordships is that they lacked a uniform legal system and an effectiveand unified administrative machine. The Act of 1536 gave Wales boththese things and therefore, the argument could be made, brought orderto the Principality. Before this argument is debunked, it is necessaryto give it a full airing by going over exactly how the Act aided BishopLees pursuit of order. Much was made in the previous section of the legal, jurisdictional andpolitical patchwork that existed in the Marches. Naturally this causedserious administrative problems for Bishop Lee. The extensive rightsgranted to the Marcher lords in the previous century still existed,even if the political and military justification for such a delegationof royal authority no longer did. This left the Council prettypowerless where the lordships were concerned, and meant that any reformLee undertook had to be confined to the Principality. Not that that wasan easy task, for the Principality had, in many places, Welsh andEnglish law operating side by side. These jurisdictional problems weresolved in one fell swoop by the 1536 Act; Lee went from having littleor no jurisdiction to having legal authority over all of Wales. Withoutthis reform of Marcher and Principality law, Lees task would have beenmuch more difficult than it was. Lee now had the power to punish