Hi. I've started to build a world for my group to use in a few months time, and have started to flesh out each nation/people. I'm only on the first nation at the moment, and I think it's going well, but I wanted to run some of ideas past you to get a feel for if they're sensible and workable.
The nation in question (by the name of Perianor), is formed up of five previously independent city states, all of which were a principal part of a large Elven empire (known as Altea) a millenia ago. Through various wars and peace negotiations, they eventually rejoined and formed a kingdom, with each ruling family taking on roles as governors of their provinces.
A king was crowned, who is advised by a Council of Lords. The council is comprised of the following people:
The King's Heir
The Court Wizard (Chief Advisor)
Lord Marshal of the Army
Lord Admiral of the Navy
The 4 governors of the other provinces
Now, each governor is given permission to rule his/her province as they see fit, collecting taxes, raising militia etc, while the Chief Advisor assumes the King's position as Governor of the 'Royal Province'.
So I guess what i'm asking is does this seem like a sensible system of government? I'm really trying to avoid tyrannical overlords and absolute monarchs, as they seem too linear.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Well, what you've got here sounds like a hereditary monarchy, unless I'm misunderstanding the role of King's Heir. (That is, if the King's Heir is going to succeed to the throne, you've got a hereditary monarchy, period.) Whether that is an absolute monarchy depends on the political situation - whether the Council of Lords has enough influence to put a check on the King's power.
An alternative would be to have the King be non-hereditary, in which case the role of King's Heir is non-existent. (Instead, perhaps the King chooses his son to be governor of his province.) When the King dies or retires or is deposed, the Council chooses one of the governors to ascend to the throne.
Something like that might not be the most stable arrangement, since infighting and bickering between the provinces is sure to break out from time to time. But not all governments need to be entirely stable. It may be a historical anomaly, or it could be held together by force of tradition or an external threat that forces some level of cooperation.
I think your system here is pretty good. Probably one of the bigger problems though is how is/was the King chosen? Was he originally part of the 5 City States or was he descended from a line of Emperors from the Older Empire you mentioned? If the Emperor was chosen from one of the City-States, would he not have more sympathy for, and lend a larger ear to, that City State? If favoritism is a theme you are going for, this would be an easy way of accomplishing that.
Another possible problem would be how much actual control the Governors have in relation to the King and his Council. You mentioned they have a large degree of local autonomy. Given the history of the Kingdom, this is a good and realistic concept. How ever, what role does the King play in the governance of his Kingdom. Is he more of an arbiter, managing disputes between the Governors with out any real power. Or is more of an Absolute monarch, allowing his Governors the autonomy because he has a general apathetic attitude concerning the everyday mechanics of the Kingdom.
As with everything in Government, the devil is in the details.
Thank you both for your feedback. At the moment, it is a hereditary monarchy, although at several stages it has been an elected one. Originally, at the beginning of the union of the provinces, there was no king, as each local ruler saw only themselves as King. Elections did exist for a time, with each governor being a candidate. They were eventually removed, after about a solid century of the same family being elected.
So the system was reshaped, with the governors still mainting control of their lands (the King's eventually became the capital), with limits on the power of the King, leading to the forming of the council as it is now. All important matters affecting the kingdom are discussed and resolved, but only the Governors have full rights to vote. It is like so:
Each Governor: 1 vote each
The Military: 1 vote between both
Chief Advisor: 1 vote
King's Heir: No vote
The King has the deciding vote in tie situations, and has the right to dismiss certain matters, so he is quite like an arbiter in many respects, but still retains power to make war/declare peace etc. The king's heir does not recieve the right to vote, as his position on the council is his 'royal training', i.e. he observes, listens and offers input, with the expectations that he learns all he needs to know about being a King.
There are also definate divisions and prejudices between provinces however. The King's sister in law is the Governor of another province, so many suspect favouritism between them because of family ties. There is another province, which in the past had invaded and occupied one of its neigbour provinces, so there is bad blood between their people and their leader's descendants (the same province responsible for the invasion has often openly doubted and questioned the king's place as well).
In a decentralized system in which provincial governors rule "as they see fit," there is always going to be a certain struggle between the centralizing tendencies of the monarch and the desires of the peripepheral satraps for greater autonomy. Decentralization only works when the ruler realizes the value of some autonomy but retains the necessary power and prestige to deter any rebellions. A situation as you describle in which the armed forces are under the total command of regional lords is inherently dangerous; there is no actual check preventing the Lord Marshal from taking the army, which he presumably has the total loyalty of, and making himself the new king, abolishing this inconvenient decentralized system as soon as he gains power. The government would have to be a government of angels to be stable, in which the Marshal is never disloyal and the King is never suspicious of his fellow lords. Such a situation seems unlikely. Unless the king has the supreme loyalty of the soldiers of his realm, he has no physical check on being deposed, unless the prestige of the office is simply so great that no mere mortal would even conceive of overthrowing it. Since this is a government formed by mortals, however, not one imposed by Time-of-Troubles-style physically present deities, it stands to reason that an ambitious Marshal (or other lord) would not find it totally beyond the pale to seek personal advancement.
In fact, since the Lords can raise their own militias, the King appears to be the only person in this arrangement who can't have a personal army. That seems like the invitation for a coup if I ever saw one. It's possible that the situation is held together by a kind of primitive collective defense, where if any one Lord rebels or conspires against the King, every other lord crushes him. That kind of power dynamic, however, would mean that the King would become totally irrelevant; the 5-way balance of power, not the King, would be the primary political entity in the kingdom. In that case it would be a Hereditary Monarchy only in name, and a military junta in practice. Much like the Japanese Emperor in the Shogunate, the King would likely be reduced to a religious puppet, taking cues from the guys with the swords and spears.
I have to agree with Holy Carp!. The King appears to be little more than a figure-head at best, a puppet at worst. The King needs a way to enforce his Royal vision upon his Kingdom with out relying solely on the good will of the Governors. Personally, I think the best solution would be to merge the offices of Marshal and King. By giving direct command of the armies to the King, it assures the Governor's loyalty, even if that loyalty is one born of fear.
Another problem I see is that the Governors possess their own militias. Now this sounds good in principle but in practice it just leads to rebellion. A good way of suppressing the Governors' natural independent tendencies but still allowing them the local autonomy to protect their lands would be to have the King (who is now the head of the Army) assign certain Legions to the Governors. The assigned Legions would be under the command of the Governor unless a Royal order was handed down; meaning the King has the ultimate authority but chooses to delineate that authority to the Governors who are '˜on the ground' and thus better able to manage local problems.
Both of these ideas, taken together, strengthens the Kings power and assures his longevity through an increased power base.
A good example of a kingdom with powerful regional governments was the Achaemenid Persian empire. The Empire was so large that the Satraps had to have a great amount of autonomy, but there were also strict controls on their power. They were responsible for keeping the roads free of bandits, so they had to have some troops, but there was also a regular royal army stationed in each satrapy commanded by a general appointed directly by the King. The satraps were constantly watched and visited by royal agents who made sure everything was running smoothly.
One thing you could do is have the king be one of the governors--in a sense resembling traditional celtic or saxon over-kingship, where the king is simply the most powerful and respected war leader and comes into his true authority in time of war.