| Daniel Parry wrote: |
| That's interesting what you say, Gordon, about unbalancing the power base of leaders so there was no clear leader. Was this a particular Spanish habit ?
Daniel |
Indeed it was a Spanish peculiarity, as far as I know. I suspect that the French and English Crowns would have liked to operate in that way, but due to rather overweening subjects (usually) couldn't. But looking at the way that the Spanish Crown set up their various Vice-Royalties, with LOTS of checks-and-balances, it was definitely organic to the Spanish method of administration. Take Mexico, for instance (or rather "New Spain"). First, after Cortez generously gave it to Charles, Charles made Cortez Marquis del Valle, and then recalled him back to Spain (the various other lieutenants of Cortez then went rather wild on conquests of their own). He replaced Cortez with a three-man group of judges (one of them, Nuno de Guzman immediately went on slaving expeditions in contradiction to Royal orders and went home in chains for it). When the judgeship seemed to fail, Charles sent in a Viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, do sort things out, but would only keep a Viceroy in office for as short a period as possible to avoid their gaining too much influence. The Crown also set up various "Visitadores" who would inspect the state of things, and report directly to the Crown their findings, often to the detriment of the local administrators. I don't know for certain that this is the way that the Spanish Crown delt with Italy and Flanders, but I would suspect that there are certain correlations.
We have NOTHING on Spanish bureaucrats, believe me! And although it stagnated eventually, the system had sufficent checks and balances in it to manage to last 300 years without serious rebellions, something that most other Eurpoean nations (or Europeanized American nations, too) haven't managed as of yet. The Spanish Crown took their responsibilities as stewards of the New World rather seriously, and contrary to most mythology, did a rather good job of it.
Cheers,
Gordon