By 1150, the king approved a series of pacts, called the Usatges, which "explicitly acknowledged legal equality between burghers … and nobility" (Woolard 17). In addition, the Aragonese gentry established the Corts, a representative body of nobles, bishops, and abbots that counterbalanced the King's authority. By the end of the 13th century, "the monarch needed the consent of the Corts to approve laws or collect revenue" (McRoberts 10). Soon after, the Corts elected a standing body called the Diputació del General or the Generalitat, which included the rising upper bourgeoisie.
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At home, because power struggles centered on control of the king, there was little progress in sorting out procedures for sharing power or expanding representative institutions. A consultative body of nobles, a royal court called the Assembly of Lords (Bharadari Sabha), was in place after 1770 and it had substantial involvement in major policy issues. The assembly consisted of high government officials and leading courtiers, all heads of important Gorkha families. In the intense atmosphere surrounding the monarch, however, the Assembly of Lords broke into factions that fought for access to the prime minister or regent, and alliances developed around patron/client relationships.
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The peerage in the United Kingdom is a legal system comprising both hereditary and lifetime titles, composed of various noble ranks, and forming a constituent part of the British honours system. The term peerage can be used both collectively to refer to the entire body of nobles (or a subdivision thereof), and individually to refer to a specific title (modern English language-style using an initial capital in the former case but not the latter). British peerage title holders are termed peers of the Realm. The peerage's fundamental roles are ones of government, peers being eligible (although formerly entitled) to a seat in the House of Lords, and of meritocracy, the receiving of any peerage being the highest of British honours (with the receiving of a more traditional hereditary peerage naturally holding more weight than that of a more modern, and less highly regarded, life peerage).
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However, Cromwell's success in Church politics was offset by the fact that his political influence had been weakened by the emergence of a Privy Council, a body of nobles and office-holders that first came together to suppress the Pilgrimage of Grace. The King confirmed his support of Cromwell by appointing him to the Order of the Garter on 5 August 1537, but Cromwell was nonetheless forced to accept the existence of an executive body dominated by his conservative opponents. In January 1538, Cromwell pursued an extensive campaign against what the opponents of the old religion termed "idolatry": statues, rood screens, and images were attacked, culminating in September with the dismantling of the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury. Early in September, Cromwell also completed a new set of vicegerential injunctions declaring open war on "pilgrimages, feigned relics or images, or any such superstitions" and commanding that "one book of the whole Bible in English" be set up in every church.
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The nobles of Kaliabar then sailed up the Brahmaputra in swift boats, taking with them the newly appointed sovereign Gadapani. Having heard of the march of Gadapani and the Kaliabar nobles towards Garhgaon, Ramdev Deka Gosain, the deputy Satradhikar or religious head of Dakhinpat Satra or monastery, tried to persuade the Phukans to abandon the project, to no avail. On the arrival of the Kaliabar fleet at Dakhinpat, Chota Bananali Gosain met Bandar Borphukan and asked him to give up the idea of conferring kingship on Prince Gadapani, pointing out that the Borphukan and Lora Raja were fellow disciples of the Dakhinpat Satra, and that one should protect the interest of the other. The Borphukan pleaded his inability to accede to the request on the ground that Gadapani was supported by the whole body of nobles, and he alone as an individual could not deviate from the unanimous decision of his colleagues. Angered by Borphukan’s refusal, Banamali Gosain cursed Borphukan, saying his power would disappear and he would lose his rank.
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