Description
- Abstract:
- In 1715, the British government began the arduous process of integrating the British army’s disciplinary system into the overall institutional infrastructure of the state. Parliament and the crown, working through the Judge Advocate General’s Office, slowly brought hitherto largely independent courts martial under the supervision and review of central authorities. This process brought these civilian authorities into contact with officers and soldiers in the dynamic environment of the legal-military state, wherein all of these groups interacted to systematize military justice in Great Britain. The key issues involved were process and punishment, specifically insuring that some form of due process accompanied the capital sentences that the Mutiny Act and the Articles of War authorized general courts martial to inflict for specific crimes. As a result, government attempts to extend the central control represented by the legal-military state did not extend deeply into the system, leaving the lower tiers of the military justice process untouched. Thus while the government succeeded in defining crime and enforcing standardized procedure at the top level of the military justice system’s pyramidal structure, officers were largely free to exercise unrestrained discretionary powers in regimental courts martial and when inflicting summary justice. By 1781, printed manuals for conducting courts martial appeared, signaling officers’ acceptance of the central control represented by the legal-military state and beginning a new phase in the development of the British state’s relationship with its armed forces.
- Notes:
- Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2016)
Access Conditions
- Rights
- In Copyright
- Restrictions on Use
- All rights reserved. Collection is open to the Brown community for research.
Citation
Tatum III, William P.,
"“For the Good of the King’s Service”: The British Legal-Military State, 1715-1781"
(2016).
History Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0H130F1
