The Danish-Norwegian monarchy was governed from Copenhagen, and the civil servants were the king's representatives in the local community. The highest civil servant was the county magistrate of the relatively recently established Buskerud county. It was divided into bailiffs, and Eiker was subordinate to the Buskerud county bailiff, with a bailiff residing in Lier. Eiker, Modum and Sigdal constituted a separate magistrate's office, where the magistrate during this period lived in Modum. The state's only local representative in Eiker, besides the parish priest, was thus the sheriff, who lived in Hokksund.