ABSTRACT
The shires, like the Church, were administered by the Crown via a system of local government officers and courts. The Tudors possessed no permanent, expert and salaried bureaucracy. They relied instead upon the interest of the local elite (broadly speaking, the gentry rather than the overmighty nobility who might be perceived as a challenge to strong royal government) in stable, peaceable government and pater-nalistic protection of the people to run the country. In theory, the system of Assizes complemented and monitored the work of the Justices of the Peace. In some areas, the Crown was represented by a Council (e.g. the Council of the North) and JPs and Assize Judges worked with that institution.
