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Philip's government (Conciliar administration (Six councils were…
Philip's government
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Empire problems
Philip's empire was vast but the territories were diverse and lacked any sense of political unity. Whilst this was never something Philip hoped to achieve, it did hamper his ability to hear about, and react to problems.
Philip's postal service was the best in Europe, but communication was still slow: a letter to Brussels took two weeks whilst a letter to Mexico took two months
Philip was forced to respect the laws and traditions of his various territories - in some places this made it difficult to impose control, for example Portuguese taxes could not be used to fulfill Castilian objectives. Crown only controlled 31% of land in Salamanca and Philip was only recognised as a feudal lord in Basque regions
Philip's own indecision exacerbated the issue: his need to be involved in all areas of administration meant he couldn't focus all his resources/energies on a the most important issues.
Conciliar administration
Despite its appearance of centralization, Philip's government was really an ad hoc system of councils with the king at its centre.
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Philip made no attempt to unify the councils and instead treated them as individual bodies. in this way he hoped to know all aspects of a problem anywhere in his kingdom - in truth, his knowledge was fragmented and at times inaccurate. By keeping the councils separate, he made it so that only he had total knowledge - however this bred a culture of suspicion
Created Juntas in the 1580s. these were informal committees (members chosen by Philip) consisting mostly of lower nobility. membership was flexible meaning people could be swapped in and out depending on the issue at hand.
The Junta de noche was an inner group who dealt with major government decisions. It was dominated by Moura, Idiaquez, Chinchon and Vasquez. This group seriously undermined the authority of the Council of State
Like his predecessors, the councils were dominated by letrados
Factions in government
Philip encouraged factions because he believed that different and competing opinions would help to evaluate an issue in detail and reveal all the possible implications of a policy
Philip rarely attended meeting in the council of State so that nobles had the freedom to openly express their own opinions
Council of State was dominated by the factions of Eboli and Alba (Antonio Perez later took over from Eboli when he died)
These factional struggles could spiral out of control: for example After Perez was accused of Escobedo's murder, factional struggles between Perez and Vasquez (a member of Alba's household) virtually paralysed government.
Secretaries
The position of the secretary had grown under Charles and continued to grow under Philip due to the vast empire and the growth of paperwork
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Antonio Perez
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in 1578 he was accused of arranging the murder of Juan de Escobedo (secretary to Don John of Austria who Philip suspected wanted a kingdom for himself). Escobedo likely had information on Perez's double dealings which included accepting bribes and selling state secrets
Perez remained in prison for 11 years before escaping to Aragon and placing himself under the protection of the Aragonese courts
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