Y13 H8 and gov.

1
Y13 H8 and gov.

• The Tudor Revolution in Government?

2
How does the Starkey thesis affect ones view of
Elton?

• Starkey
• Degree of faction throughout reign
• Centre of power?

3
Council vs. Court

• Council

1529
1536
1540
1509
Court
4
Henry VIII and gov

• We learned last week that Henry VIII effected a
  more open style of govt. than H8 which intially
  allowed the nobility to reassert their role in
  the country
• The minions effected some influence at the
  Chamber, but esp from 1512 onwards, Wolsey and
  his council held sway
• Henry was always watching though, and should he
  be displeased, was likely to be ruthless
• The structure of his govt. meant that the court
  was an area where influence could be effected
  hence the downfall of wolsey and more and later
  rise of Cromwell. Starkey looks at H8 in this
  way more of a faction-dominated govt.
• Elton argues that power of govt was taken away
  from the household at this time redirected
  towards govt departments

5
Eltons thesis one quotation, why dangerous?

• The plain fact is that H7 ascended the throne of
  a medievally governed kingdom, while Elizabeth to
  her successor a country administered on modern
  lines. Much had gone, much been freshly
  invented, much profoundly changed, in the
  intervening century, even though a great deal had
  been simply preserved. We are familiar with the
  notion that the 16c saw the creation of the
  modern sovereign state the duality of state and
  church was destroyed by the victory of the state,
  the crown triumphed over its rivals,
  parliamentary statute triumphed over the abstract
  law of Christedom, and a self-contained national
  unit came to be, not the tacitly accepted
  necessity it had been for some time, but the
  consciously desired goal.
• In the course of this transformation there was
  created a revised machinery of govt. whose
  principle was bureaucratic organisation in place
  of the personal control of the Kings estate.
  The reformed state was based on the rejection of
  the medieval conception of the kingdom and the
  Kings estate it conceived its task to be
  national, its support and scope to be
  nation-wide, and its admin needs, therefore,
  divorced from the Kings household.
• It would of course, be wrong either to see no
  signs of such changes before 1530 or to believe
  that the work was all done by the end of that
  monentous decade. Yet the rapidity and volume of
  change, the clearly deliberate application of one
  principle to all the different sections of the
  central govt. and the pronounced success obtained
  in applying that principle, justify one in seeing
  in those years a veritable administrative revn.
  Its unity Is further demonstrated and indeed
  caused by the personality which appears in every
  aspect of it. TC, whose own career displayed the
  bureaucrat, was behind this deliberate and
  profound reforming activity.

6
Elton
Arguments against, ways of disputing
Evidence sup.
Elton Thesis
7
J.J. Scarisbrick Do you agree?Underline the
judgments you support and dismiss

• The England which he had led back into the
  European affairs and exposed to the immense
  energies of continental Protestantismemerged
  from his reign with a new political wholeness
  thanks to the destruction of the independent
  Church, the final incorporation of Wales, the
  pruning of many liberties and refurbishing local
  Councils in the North and the West, which lay
  under the surveillance of a Privvy Council that,
  at least by the 1540s had established itself as
  the supreme, omnicompetent executive body.
  Thanks above all to TC this reign had given Eng
  much good gov. The admin. Machine was much more
  efficient and capacious than it had ever been
  as was the legala good deal had been done to
  discipline a societyto curb the peoples and
  their dangerous overlords in central and local
  govt. greatly strengthened the lines of force
  which ran between King and subjectAgain, never
  before had England felt the power of the state
  so widely and deeply as in the 1530s and 1540s.

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A Revolution in Govt?

• Elton sees Cromwell as adopt. new approach

Chancellor of Exch
Member of the Privy Council
Master of the Jewels
Member of Parliament
Master of the Rolls
Vicar General Vice Regent
TC
H8s Principal Sec.
Lord Privvy Seal
Reformed council of north, introd county admin
est court of augmentation and first fruits ,
central admin and finance.
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Do you agree with Scarisbrick now?How do you
account for the differences

• the concentrated display of the power and the
  ubiquity (ever-present) of central authority the
  like of which had not been seen hitherto and if
  the major administrative developments of the
  years of Cromwells dominance (and after) may be
  better described as a return to the medieval
  practice of building professional, bureaucratic
  govt.outside the royal household rather than a
  modern event, it remains true that the
  consolidation of the Council and the foundation
  of four new financial courts gave the central
  govt. a new, firm grip on the realm.

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Cromwell and Gov.
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A Tudor Revolution in Government?
Parliament
Council
Finances
A Tudor Revn. in govt?
Royal control over the whole kingdom
Royal household
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The schema of Elton
Does the focus of Eltons study affect his
interpretation?
Transition to modern hist?
Modern period
Medieval period
1500
1600
1000AD
1900
English Reformation / Tudor Revn
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Arguments against the revn ideaGuy, pp. 156 -
160

• Guy readjustment
• Privy Council oft subsumed within court
• Was a change from household of king to greater
  control by privvy council but need to extend to
  Elizabeth
• Henrician politics increasingly focused on the
  Court, therefore the Privy Council lived and
  moved there. Cromwell was therefore successful
  as a politician until 1538 9 because he
  responded to royal demands and immediate needs.
• Certainly is Cromwell based prog. for reforms.
  Ideology of Commonwealth is credible
• Privy council not created by Cromwell more a
  reaction to events. The later Privy council is
  dominated by relig conservatives opp to him
  therefore cant have been by design.
• In the verdict of posterity, Cromwell is amply
  vindicated, but the permanent privy council was
  createdless because he lived than he died
• Also, govt. extended beyond court etc The
  gentry believed that they had a right to a share
  of the kings authority. In this respect, the
  Henrician revolution in govt. changed nothing.

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Issues

• H8s personality, his control over issues
• Role of faction
• Whether govt reacted to events
• Role of individuals
• The importance of extra-conciliar and court
  factors
• How we view the Medieval system
• Whether real conciliar changes happened after
  Cromwell

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Faction

• Trad seen as in 1530s, present before?
• Wilson thinks not, only sporadic, weak
  amateurish
• Thus we can now speak without reservation of
  faction conflict in Tudor government. (1540
  onwards)
• Clear link with faction and role of inds.