Plassey, the Regulating Act, limited liability

A trading company wins at Plassey and walks out holding Bengal. Parliament's Regulating Act is the first admission by a state that a company has become a sovereign — and it does not take the crown back, it supervises it. Then limited liability caps what an owner can lose.

In plain words

A trading company wins at Plassey and walks away holding Bengal; Parliament regulates its rule instead of taking it back, and limited liability later caps what an owner can lose. The corporation is crowned, then armoured, and the Regulating Act is a state's first admission that a company had become a sovereign.

The mechanism

THE CORPORATION CROWNED, THEN ARMOURED — a body that can rule, tax and raise armies is fitted with an owner who cannot be reached

How it was checked

• EvidenceT7 PRIMARY DOCUMENT / MEASUREMENT; Status: COMMITTED; a capture
• Letter eraTHE SEAT MOVES TO THE BENCH 1713 to 1945
• Plate — Francis Hayman, Robert Clive and Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey, c. 1762 · National Portrait Gallery, London · Public domain · source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Clive_and_Mir_Jafar_after_the_Battle_of_Plassey,_1757_by_Francis_Hayman.jpg
• SourcesSECULAR RECORD / PRIMARY DOCUMENT