What follows is a description of the structure of the Ministry of Magic, focusing on the person of the Minister for Magic. This is from my Alexandra Potter universe, but also applies to the Fawkes’ Gift universe, which shares a common history.

This document contains some spoilers for Alexandra Potter, but more “world spoilers” than “plot spoilers”.

I share it with you so that it might inspire you to create original histories for the Ministry of Magic in your own fics.

The Establishment of the Ministry of Magic

The roots of the Ministry of Magic can be found in 1651, the result of the English civil war in which Parliament rebelled against King Charles I. Prior to the Ministry of Magic, magical Britain had been run by the Warlock’s Council, a group of royally appointed wizards who enforced the King’s will.

Anti-royal sentiment had been growing in magical England for some time as part of a greater dissatisfaction with being part of the Muggle world. Remember that this was a time before the Statute of Secrecy when the existence of wizards was still well-known. And so, when Parliament rebelled against King Charles, many wizards felt that this was their chance to not just free themselves from the King, but to secure for themselves greater autonomy from Muggle rule altogether.

Thus, when the civil war started in 1642 the magical community was a part of it, with the Warlock’s Council on one side and the rebels on the other, led by Brandon Swann.

Brandon Swann was the latest in a long line of formidable wizards - the Swann family being one of the most prominent in Europe, having an uncanny ability to pop out wizards of extraordinary martial skill - but he was especially powerful (see Fawkes’ Gift for an entry from his journal in which he duelled the then-wielder of the Elder Wand).

In the middle years of the war Brandon Swann met with Oliver Cromwell and they came to an agreement by which Swann would ally himself and his forces with Cromwell. In exchange, after the end of the war Swann would be given the authority to form a magical government largely independent from that of the Muggle one.

Eventually victory went to the rebel forces, King Charles I was executed, the Warlock’s Council disbanded. Swann plundered the Archive of Winchester, the greatest accumulation of magical artifacts and texts in Britain, previously guarded by the Warlock’s Council. Many of the items there passed to what would eventually become the Ministry of Magic, but some were distributed to important allies as rewards for their roles in the war. Others - those Swann considered less important magically - were auctioned off.

After the execution of Charles, Parliament - now under the leadership of Cromwell as Lord Protector - passed a battery of Acts which would form the basis for magical government.

The most important Act passed was that creating the position of First Wand of England. The First Wand of England is a Great Officer of State - the only such office to be created by Parliament, not the Crown. The First Wand was granted the authority to pass Decrees which were binding to all magical citizens of England - in effect, the ability to create magical laws. The wording of the Act maintained the supremacy of Parliament over the decrees of the First Wand, but it was still a significant power.

Other Acts were passed too. A new order of Knighthood was created called the Order of Merlin. The leader of the Order of Merlin was the Wizard of the Silver Sceptre, and this wizard had the ability to induct or bar wizards into the Order. Knights of the Order of Merlin were supposed to be wizards of martial ability who swore an oath to uphold the law. Their purpose was twofold: to enforce the decrees of the First Wand, but also to uphold the supremacy of Parliament.

The third great Act to be passed was the Winchester Act. This act created three positions. The greatest of these was the First Lord of the Wand. Accordingly, the other two positions were the Second Lord of the Wand and the Third Lord of the Wand. These three wizards - with the First Lord as their leader - were given management of the Archive of Winchester and guardianship of the contents of the vault there, which housed a great many powerful magical artifacts. The exact contents of the vault was and is shrouded in mystery, and only a select few know what wand the title refers to.

The final Act to be passed created a body of magical Law Lords known as Warlocks. These Warlocks would be the judges of magical crimes. Two special positions were made within this body: The Chief Justice and the Chief Warlock. The Chief Warlock presided over the body of Warlocks, known as the Wizengamot. The Chief Justice had the power to appoint Warlocks and the Chief Warlock, but not to remove them. A Warlock served for life unless the Wizengamot voted to attaint them.

The position of First Wand of England, Wizard of the Silver Sceptre and Chief Justice were granted to Brandon Swann. The First Lord of the Wand was given to Swann’s war-ally, Garrick Newcastle. In addition, the Swann was made Duke of Cambridgeshire.

With these powers Swann began to create what would come to be the Ministry of Magic. He used his first decree to create the Sheriff of England (what would become the Department of Magical Law Enforcement) - run by wizards of the Order of Merlin. With another decree, and using the incomes from the Duchy of Cambridgeshire, he created the Magical Mint and appointed Agnes Malfoy Witch of the Mint, in charge of Minting a currency for magical England, the primary unit of which were small gold coins called Rounds (so-called after the Roundheads of the civil war).

He also appointed the first Warlocks who would form the first Wizengamot.

When the Statute of Secrecy was passed in 1688 all of Parliament was obliviated of knowledge of the magical world, and the laws passed by Parliament regarding the magical world were placed under secrecy spells to protect them from Muggle notice or remembrance. And so it seemed that the dream of magical autonomy had come to pass.

In this time the influence of the First Wand of England spread north and soon his authority included Scotland, the magical community of which never having been as separate from magical England as the Muggle Kingdoms had been (though named the First Wand of England, he had always had authority in Wales).

This period also saw the Currency Crisis of 1701 - largely believed to be engineered by the Goblins. This saw the end of Rounds as a currency and a treaty with Gringotts for Goblin gold to be used as wizarding currency. (See the first scene of Alexandra Potter chapter 9 for a more detailed discussion, also the visit to Gringotts in chapter 4).

Constitutional crisis hit when Swann died in 1745. In his will he attempted to pass all his positions to his son, which would have effectively set up a wizarding royalty in all but name. War broke out - the first exclusively wizarding war in the history of England, in which wizards realised many things were different to the mixed wizard/Muggle wars they were used to. The new spread of apartation (now called apparition), which only a few wizards had been able to use back in the civil war but was now much more common, changed things too.

The war came to something of a stalemate, with neither side able to find the other or break through the defences on each other’s strongholds. Finally, the Order of Merlin, under the leadership of Regulus Black, held a convention in 1752 with the Wizard of the Silver Sceptre - Swann’s son - absent. They decided to make an appeal to Parliament - which was temporarily allowed knowledge of the magical world. This was the final time Parliament would make laws regarding the magical world.

The constituency of Hogsmeade was created and a vote was held to elect a Member of Parliament for Hogsmeade. As only wizards knew about Hogsmeade, this would effectively be the wizarding representative in Parliament. The positions of First Wand, Wizard of the Silver Sceptre and Chief Justice would be granted to the MP for Hogsmeade. Every general election Hogsmeade would elect a new MP, and the positions would pass to him.

The position of Chief Justice was weakened to only be the ability to select, from the Warlocks of the Wizengamot, the Chief Warlock. From that time onwards the Wizengamot would select its own members.

Parliament was obliviated again, the election was held and Regulus Black was elected MP for Hogsmeade. His first act was to unify magical government into a single body - the Ministry of Magic.

Fast Forward

Over the years many changes would occur in the Ministry of Magic, with various departments coming and going, but the constitutional foundation has remained largely unchanged since 1752.

In 1762 the incomes from the Duchy of Cambridgeshire were taken from the Swanns and seized by the Ministry of Magic to be nominally held by the serving Minister for Magic. In practice they are controlled by the Wizard/Witch of the Mint (still appointed by the Swann family), who managed to work their way into the Ministry as controller of Ministry finances via the seizure of the Duchy, even though the Mint no longer existed (disappearing with the failure of the Round). It was claimed that the Duchy had always been intended to be used to fund magical government and this justified the seizure.

In 1804 the Aurors were created to combat the growing threat of the French Empire and the Order of Merlin became functionally defunct.

The greatest change to the Ministry was the incorporation of the Archive of Winchester into the Ministry in 1843. The Archive had grown greatly over the years, being responsible for many aspects of life in magical Britain - Floo transport and magical border control to name two. They had control of these aspects because they were based on the powers of unique magical artifacts under the control of the Archive of Winchester.

When the Archive was incorporated into the Ministry it was divided into several departments - the Department of Mysteries and the Department of Magical Transportation being the biggest and most important. The three Lords of the Wand endured and the First Lord of the Wand became the Minister for Magic’s deputy.

Over the years the Minister for Magic has accumulated several more titles as part of the colonial expansion of the British Empire. Principal among these are Duke of Bombay and Count of Calcutta, two titles which bring significant income to the Ministry of Magic. Magical India isn’t unified like Muggle India, nor was it ever completely under British rule. Rather, magical India is composed of a multitude of independent city states. Some are under British administration, the majority are not. Administration of magical Britain’s Indian territories falls to the Viceroy of India, appointed by the Minister for Magic.

The Minister also holds the titles of Sheriff of Canada and Australia - positions which originally extended the Minister’s legal authority to those colonies - but these titles are largely defunct.

In 1901 another constitutional crisis was triggered when a wizard stood for election in a constituency other than Hogsmeade (i.e. a Muggle constituency) and won. For the first time ever there were two magical MPs and it was unclear who should become the Minister for Magic. In the end the Wizengamot decided in favour of the MP for Hogsmeade, saying that the weight of centuries of convention made it clear that the MP for Hogsmeade would be the Minister for Magic. Following this crisis the Minister for Magic passed a decree, banning wizards from standing for election in any constituency other than Hogsmeade.

Conclusion: the contemporary situation

The Minister for Magic is not a single position but rather a collection of titles, the three most important titles being First Wand of Britain, Chief Justice and Wizard of the Silver Sceptre. By convention, these titles are held by the sole magical Member of Parliament, the MP for Hogsmeade. The MP for Hogsmeade is a member of Parliament in name only: he rarely if ever sits in on a session of Parliament, and the Statute of Secrecy prevents him or her from voting. He has an office in the Palace of Westminster, but it is always empty.

The MP for Hogsmeade is elected by the town of Hogsmeade, and thus only those people who live within the town limits may vote (other wizards may vote in the General Election in the constituency in which they live, but this will not affect who is the Minister for Magic). House prices in Hogsmeade are therefore extremely high, and the town council - which has control over approving new construction in the town - has come to be politically powerful. Sitting on the Hogsmeade Town Council is of equivalent prestige to sitting on the Wizengamot.

While legally Parliament maintains authority over the magical world - the authority of the First Wand of Britain deriving from an Act of Parliament which specifically stated Parliament’s supremacy - given the Statute of Secrecy Parliament has no real role in magical government.

 

I love reading your essays, Taure. I rarely fully agree with what you say, but your ability at worldbuilding like this far dwarfs my own. It's mentioned in chapter 5 of my story that the Ministry is (de jure, if not de facto) subject to the crown, but I don't think I could have come up with such an elaborate backstory to explain why (or why not, as the case may be). Bravo.

 

I love your world-building-- but I prefer Mira Mirth's construction of Magical government. Her narrative is that the Statute of Secrecy is the reason for the Ministry's existence-- the Ministry originally comes into being solely for the enforcement of that law. Then, gradually, and with much resistance from Purebloods, the Ministry grew in authority and size.

Purebloods want to downsize the Ministry and reduce its interference in their lives. Muggle-born wizards/witches want to increase the involement of the Ministry, in imitation of muggle government. This creates an interesting argument of political legitimacy between the two groups.

Its a nice mirror of current politics as well, with the debate between the Left and the Right echoed in "On His Way to Greatness".

 

I love your world-building and the level of detail you put into it.

That said, am I the only one who thinks that Taure has way to much time on his hands?