Centralization Of Scotland

There is a distinct difference between Scotland and the kingdom of Scotland. The kingdom of Scotland, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, was a collection of smaller localities that were connected to the same king. Because of this, the kingdom of Scotland was more focused on centralization of its government. At the same time, England was a centralized medieval state, but lacked the complete control of a central government. The lack of open warfare between the English and Scottish kings between 1217 and 1296 is due to a multitude of factors; however, the most prominent factors are the centralization of both governments and the expansion of the English judicial system.
The centralization of England’s government was well underway during
This is likely due to the roles of sheriffs as local government which linked directly back to the royal government. The office of sheriff changed drastically under the rule of King John I. John I began the system of custodial sheriffs who directed the revenue from counties to the royal treasury in an effort to ensure that there was as little chance of the king not receiving the proper amount as possible. However, the system provided the local governments with more autonomy than John I was willing to give them, so he rescinded the system. If the local governments were allowed too much autonomy, it would be easy for England to become a series of smaller kingdoms who were bound together solely by their royal lord. The largest factor in the centralization of the English government and main factor in the change of its general aristocratic dynamic was the Magna Carta.
The Magna Carta was introduced in 1215, at the end of John I’s reign. Although many of the sixty-three clauses of the Magna Carta were written as direct responses to specific actions of John I’s reign, it did help to
During the early thirteenth century, the local courts became more entangled with the royal court system because the king could better monitor the people if the courts were organized and efficient. The seventeenth clause of the Magna Carta stated that ‘common pleas shall not follow our court, but shall be held in some fixed place’ based on the court that was traditionally held at Westminster, although the Magna Carta does not specify a ‘common plea’. The Eyre, which was a pre-Magna Carta court system, became an integral part of the legal system. The Eyre ‘acted as the cornerstone of Angevin justice, the royal judges hearing all pleas as they toured the country’ in its first century, but it did develop after the Magna Carta. Even though the Magna Carta set guidelines for common pleas to be heard in a specific place at a certain time, the number of pleas grew with the centralization of the judicial system. Due to there being more pleas, it took longer for the Eyre to visit each county. Therefore assize judges were put into place with a system of appointed local knights to empty the county jail cells between visits. The Magna Carta does reinforce the Eyre with the eighteenth