The Reformation Parliament

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The Reformation Parliament

• 1529 - 1536

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Reformation Parliament 1529 - 1536

• 1529 Henry calls parliament
• 1530 32 Small role for parliament
• 1532 (Jan) Act Against Annates
• 1532 (Mar) Supplication Against the
  Ordinances
• 1532 (May) Submission of the clergy
• 1532 (Aug) Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury

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Reformation Parliament 1529 - 1536

• 1533 (Jan) Anne Boleyn pregnant
• 1533 (May) Henry gets divorce
• 1533 Act of the Restraint of Appeals
• 1533 (Sep) Elizabeth born
• 1534 Act of Succession

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Reformation Parliament 1529 - 1536

• 1534 Act of Restraint of Annates
• 1534 Act of Supremacy
• 1534 Treason Act
• 1536 Anne Boleyn miscarries
• 1536 Henry marries Jane Seymour

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Reformation Parliament 1529 - 1536

• 1536 Act for the Dissolution of the Monasteries
• 1536 Act of Union

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Composition / Significance

• LORDS
• 51 peers, Lords Temporal 21 bishops, 29
  abbots, Lords Spiritual.
• COMMONS
• 310 members (74 counties, 236 towns
  boroughs). Membership increased in 16th
  century from 296 to 462 members.
• Henry VIII added 45 seats, Edward VI 34, Mary
  25, Elizabeth 62.

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Composition / Significance

• Commons kept under close scrutiny by the Privy
  Council, for example-
• Speaker was a Crown nominee, closely monitored by
  privy councillors.
• Privy councillors and men of business carefully
  steered debates.
• Business prepared by the Privy Council in advance
  of session.
• Privy councillors and men of business dominated
  the Commons committees. The Committee system
  originated in the Reformation Parliament, these
  committees speeded up business and soon became an
  essential part of management.

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Composition / Significance

• 1215-1509 saw 1,092 pages in Statutes of the
  Realm whereas there were 1,032 pages in Henrys
  reign alone.
• Showed that Kings power should be exercised in
  Parliament and not by the monarch alone.

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Composition / Significance

• General taxation could only be granted by
  Parliament.
• The issue of ex-religious lands heightened the
  role of parliament.
• Printing of Statutes and transcription of debates
  and speeches encouraged a parliamentary
  consciousness and a meticulous attitude to law
  and legal citation.
• Parliament exercised major powers in local
  affairs.

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The Debate

• G. R. Elton, England under the Tudors (1955)
• The Tudor Revolution established the supremacy
  and omnicompetence ability to deal with
  anything of statute.
• .established the sovereignty of the King in
  parliament, otherwise known as constitutional or
  limited monarchy.
• From the 1530s they Judges began to obey
  statute in a way they had never done before.

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The Debate

• A. G. R. Smith, The Emergence of a Nation State
  1529 1660 (1984)
• helped to increase the role and status of
  parliament
• During the 1530s parliament played an essential
  role in the enforcement of the Reformation.
• Penry Williams, The Tudor State (1963)
• The authority of parliament as a law-making body
  was already well established.

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The Debate

• David Starkey, The English Court from the Wars
  of the Roses to the Civil War (1987)
• There was no revolution in government, nor even
  an evolution in politics.But it was an old new
  world that had been tried before just as the
  pattern that had been discarded would be tried
  again.
• M. Graves Elizabethan Parliaments 1559 1601
  (1987)
• In the short term, this development strengthened
  the crown Henry wielded a power unequalled by
  any other English monarch. Yet he also ensured
  the rapid decay of that power.