1.8 henrys government

Question 1

Rule/Reign: What evidence is there that Henry ruled, in terms of his Privy Council?

Answer 1

-He ensured that his Lord Chamberlain, Sir William Paget, seek his approval on many matters.
-Henry retained influence over much of his foreign policy, royal supremacy, and theology (particularly in the 1540s).
-If Ministers pursued policy that Henry opposed, it had to be done behind his back, whilst he was concerned with personal affairs, implying he still played a part among his PC.

Question 2

Rule/Reign: What evidence is there that Henry reigned, in terms of his Privy Council?

Answer 2

-PC was made up of 20 members, and Henry did not attend its meetings, as he found writing state papers “tedious and painful”.
-Wolsey & Cromwell controlled implementation of policy once it had been decided. He allowed councillors to initiate policy.
-Henry listened to and trusted his councillors far more than previous monarchs had.

Question 3

Rule/Reign: What evidence is there that Henry ruled, in terms of his Court?

Answer 3

-Henry was in charge of appointing people to his court, in which there were 200 positions.
-Henry was fully involved with his court, unlike his father.
-The use, and importance, of patronage implies that Henry remained the ultimate authority.

Question 4

Rule/Reign: What evidence is there that Henry reigned, in terms of his Court?

Answer 4

-Henry made much more use of patronage than his father had, and awarded his courtiers a lot.
-Sir Ralph Egerton, for example, held 15 crown offices by 1525.

Question 5

Rule/Reign: What evidence is there that Henry ruled, in terms of his Privy Chamber?

Answer 5

-Particularly before 1519, this was the one area of government in which Wolsey lacked influence, as it was dominated by Henry’s ‘minions’, who all distrusted him.
-Henry initialled each page of the book in which usages of the dry stamp were recorded, implying that he had some control over it being used.

Question 6

Rule/Reign: What evidence is there that Henry reigned, in terms of his Privy Chamber?

Answer 6

-Henry allowed the use of the ‘dry stamp’, which forged the kings signature, meaning he would not have to take part in official business.
-This stamp was given out to three men at a time, like William Herbert, William Paget, and John Gate, and all uses had to be recorded in a book.

Question 7

Rule/Reign: What were the two main factions in the early years of Henry’s reign?

Answer 7

-Aragonese Faction & Boleyn Faction.
-However, factions were very fluid, and would change/arise in response to circumstances.

Question 8

Rule/Reign: Expand on the example of Sir Ralph Egerton. What positions did he hold?

Answer 8

-Egerton had emerged in 1501 in service of Arthur, and attended Henry’s coronation.
-He became Henry’s standard bearer, and a knight in 1513.
-Between 1514-24, he made £100pa as standard bearer, attended the Field of Cloth of Gold w/ Henry, and was appointed to a commission in Ireland & to Mary’s council.

Question 9

Rule/Reign: How did Egerton fall?

Answer 9

-In 1520, it was discovered that he had more than £400 set aside in cash.
-This sparked gossip, rumour, and envy in court.
-When he fell from the King’s favour, his offices were reverted to the crown, not given to his son as he had hoped.

Question 10

Wolsey: In what ways did Wolsey rule for Henry in terms of his finances?

Answer 10

-By 1515, income had decreased to £25,000pa, so Wolsey issued an Act of Resumption to reclaim some crown lands that Henry had given away at the beginning of his reign.
-Replaced fifteenths&tenths with the more realistic ‘subsidy’, which was based on taxpayer’s wealth.
-Organised the ‘Amicable Grant’, which funded the Second French War in 1525 (however this caused rebellion in East Anglia).
-Wolsey, overall, raised £322,099 in subsidies, £240,000 in clerical tax, & £260,000 in forced loans. This, however, was not enough to cover government expenditure of £1.7m between 1509-20.

Question 11

Wolsey: In what ways did Wolsey rule for Henry in terms of Politics and Law & Order?

Answer 11

-Etham Ordinances in 1526, where Wolsey tried to reform Henry’s royal household to contain his supporters and ensure political supremacy. He secured the removal of Sir Wiliam Compton as Groom of the Stool through this, and replaced him with Henry Norris.
-Wolsey helped increase the importance of law&order from 1516, trying to dispense cheap & impartial justice.
-He used the court to try and curb the power of nobility, and his 1517 inquiry resulted in legal proceedings against 264 landowners.

Question 12

Wolsey: In what ways did Wolsey have influence over religion?

Answer 12

-Wolsey was a Cardinal and as papal nagate, he had influence over the Archbishop of Canterbury.
-Wolsey dissolved 30 religous houses, and used the proceeds to build colleges in Oxford & Ipswich.
-He centralised the church in England.

Question 13

Wolsey: What was the Court of Chancery? The Court of Star Chamber?

Answer 13

-Court of Chancery: main court of equity in England. As Lord Chancellor, Wolsey was responsible for overseeing the legal system. He used the court to deal with enclosure, land left in wills, etc. However, the court was too popular and clogged up with cases, making justice very slow.
-Court of Star Chamber: An offshoot of the King’s Council, created in 1487. Wolsey wanted to use this court in order to dispense cheap and fair justice, and would hear cases of alleged misconduct by people who were dominant in their localities. He encouraged people to use the private lawsuits. The court was very popular, and Wolsey had to set up ‘overflow Tribunals’ to deal with excess cases.

Question 14

Wolsey: Give some general evidence that Wolsey was in charge.

Answer 14

-He coordinated the successful 1513 French invasion.
-Negotiated the 1514 Anglo-French peace treaty that restored ToE & Mary’s marriage.
-Court of Star’s success: threatened Sir Andrew Windsor, keeper of the King’s wardrobe, with ‘new law of the star chamber’.
-Sent Sir Robert Sheffield (speaker of the 1512 Parliament) to the tower as an accessory for felony & fined him £5333.
-Attacked the rising financial status of the privy chamber by placing a ceiling of £10,000pa on the groom of the stool’s account.

Question 15

Wolsey: Give some general evidence that Wolsey wasn’t in charge.

Answer 15

-Henry had wanted to return to imperial ‘Rex Imperator’
-Henry endeavoured to establish a European concert for the purposes of peace, unless constrained through Henry’s will.
-Wolsey’s work to balance the books was ineffective, shows he didn’t have proper control.
-Henry maintained Kingly role, building new palaces at Bridewell & spending a £40,000 on it before 1525, despite the unbalanced books. He had over 30 houses of his own.
-Wolsey had to ask Henry to advance £10,000 from the treasury, showing ultimate authority lay with Henry.

Question 16

Wolsey: What was the ‘King’s Great Matter’?

Answer 16

-Henry, dissatisifed with the state of his marriage and worried that his wife was above the age of childbearing, was in want of a divorce.
-Only one child from his marriage to Catherine had made it past infancy, Mary, and Henry was so desperate that he considered legitimising his bastard son, Henry Fitzroy.
-Henry had also fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, Thomas Howard (Duke of Norfolk)’s niece.
-Henry, therefore, required Wolsey to secure a papal dispensation for annulment.

Question 17

Wolsey: How did Henry argue that his marriage was invalid? What was the problem with this? What did Wolsey do?

Answer 17

-Henry found biblical justification for his annulment, as it was prohibited for a man to marry his brother’s widow. It was argued that Julius II’s dispensation that had permitted Henry’s marriage was invalid, and he was therefore free to marry Anne.
-However, Catherine claimed that her marriage to Arthur had never been consummated & the biblical ban did not apply.
-Wolsey, as Cardinal, brought Henry before a fake court in May 1527 to ‘accuse’ him of living in sin with Cath, and Henry admitted this. Catherine appealed this verdict to the Pope.

Question 18

Wolsey: Why did Wolsey fall?

Answer 18

-The continuation of Wolsey’s favour was entirely dependent on securing Henry’s annulment.
-In 1529, after 2 years of fruitless diplomacy, the Pope sent an envoy, Cardinal Campeggio, to hear the case along with Wolsey.
-The hearing opened in London on 15th June, and was adjourned by 30th July. Wolsey had failed to secure annulment, and was no longer the King’s favourite.

Question 19

Wolsey: What happened to Wolsey? Why was his fall not entirely unprecedented?

Answer 19

-Wolsey had been incredibly unpopular for forcing the 1923 subsidy & Amicable Grant through Parliament, so it was not unexpected that he would fall.
-In Oct 1529, he was charged with praemunire (a 1393 statute to prevent papal interference with the crown), and surrendered himself, and his possessions to the King.
-He was arrested on 4th Nov 1530, and died (before he had the opportunity to be executed) on th 29th November.

Question 20

Divorce: Why had the Church become significantly weaker?

Answer 20

-The Church had been subject to much scrutiny by the humanists, like Erasmus & the anticlerical satire of Simon Fish.
-The Church’s claims of legal supremacy had been challenged by Christopher St German in 1528, who had asserted the superiority of English law above canon law.
-Henry had been supplied with intellectual justifications in the Collectanea Satis Copiosa, which was a colection of historical documents that had been compiled by Cranmer & Edward Foxe. These justified the King’s divorce based on legal & historical principles.
-Henry had sought opinions on his marital situation from various continental universities. The favourable opinions were then presented to both houses of Parliament by Thomas More (the catholic Lord Chancellor that Henry was trying to humiliate).

Question 21

Divorce: How did Cromwell pressure the Pope?

Answer 21

-In 1531, the clergy were accused of praemunire. This began a substantiated attack on the clergy, and acknowledged the king as the ‘Protector and Supreme head of the English Church’.
-1532, Act in Conditional Restraint of Annates conditionally withheld the first year’s income from the office of bishop (which the papacy had trad. enjoyed).
-1532, House of Commons Supplication against the Ordinances, increased anticlerical pressure within Commons.
-1532, Formal submission of the clergy to Henry VIII, which provoked the resignation of More as Lord Chancellor.

Question 22

Divorce: What happened to William Warham? What happened with Anne? What did this mean for Henry?

Answer 22

-William Warham had been Archbishop of Canterbury, but he died in 1532. He was replaced by the Protestant Thomas Cranmer.
-By December 1532, Anne was pregnant. They married in secret on the 25th January 1933, and by May his marriage with Henry had been annulled by Cranmer, and she was crowned soon after.
-Elizabeth was born, legitimately on 7th September 1533.

Question 23

Cromwell: Who was Cromwell? Why had Wolsey’s downfall put him at risk? What did Cromwell do next?

Answer 23

-Cromwell had been a key servant of Wolsey, who had helped dissolve the monastery to open Cardinal College.
-He had been enitrely dependent on Wolsey for support in advancing his career, so it seemed that Wolsey’s fall meant the end of Cromwell’s career.
-However, Cromwell soon emerged through his work to resolve the Great Matter. He used the story of King Arthur & persuaded Parliament that it had the power to rewrite the constitution. Cromwell was responsible for much of the success of the Break with Rome.

Question 24

Cromwell: What Acts of Parliament were passed by Cromwell in relation to the break with Rome? (1533-4)

Answer 24

Act of Restraint in Appeals (1533), declared that the monarch possessed imperial jurisdiction which was not subject to foreign power. This declared that appeals could not be made to Rome regarding Church court decisions ‘in cases matrimonial’ and others.
-Act of Succession (Apr 1534), declared that: Henry’s marriage to Catherine was void; succession would be with Anne’s children, not Catherine’s; denying the validity of his marriage was treasonable; an oath should be taken to affirm acceptance of the marriage.
-Act of Supremacy (Nov 1534), gave legislative force to the royal supremacy, solidfying the break from Rome.
-Treason Act (Nov 1534), stated that treason could be spoken as well as written.
-Act Annexing First Fruits and Tenths to the Crown (Nov 1534) by Cromwell, increased the financial burden placed on the clergy. The annates that had been taken away from the Pope were now being given to the King

Question 25

Cromwell: What did the break from Rome mean for Parliament? For Henry?

Answer 25

-It had strengthened Parliaments role as a legislative body, and Henry now had control over the Church & religious policies.
-This was most clear in 1536, when Henry began his campaign of dissolving monsateries. This ensured that a vast amount of the Church’s land was confiscated by the Crown, increasing his own wealth & influence.

Question 26

Cromwell: How was Cromwell rewarded for his role in the Great Matter? What religous policy did Cromwell then pursue? Why did he do this?

Answer 26

-Cromwell became Henry’s Chief Minister, and was given various offices & roles. He became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1533, and Principal Secretary in 1534.
-He soon began orchestrating the dissolution of the monasteries, as this policy allowed him to pursue his evangelical agenda, as well as increase revenue.

Question 27

Cromwell: How did Cromwell justify closing monasteries? Use Hailes as an example?

Answer 27

-Hailes Monastery had housed a Shrine of the Blood of Christ, which mained viewed as corrupt.
-The Holy Blood was sent to be clarified & was within a year confirmed as false. This, therefore, warranted the closure of the monastery.
-In total, Cromwell dissolved up to 800 monasteries.

Question 28

Cromwell: What happened between Anne & Cromwell? What did Cromwell do as a result?

Answer 28

-Despite having originally been allies, Cromwell & Anne’s relationship had become fraught. Cromwell was insecure about his relationship with the king, and felt threatened.
-He chose to ally himself with the Conservatives, and they, together, presuaded Henry that Anne’s flirtation had evolved to adultery.
-Cromwell headed the interrogations of those close to Anne, and even resorted to torture to get the result he desired.
-Anne’s became more vulnerable to the conservatives after Catherine died in Jan 1536.
-Anne was accused of adultery, and incest, and executed on the 19th May 1536.

Question 29

Cromwell: What other examples of Cromwell’s influence are there?

Answer 29

-Cromwell put forawrd a Parliamentary Bill to require local communities to force fully able-bodied homeless beggars to work. This bill became the Poor Relief Act, passed under Elizabeth in 1597. This act was retained until the 19th century, suggesting how long lasting Cromwell’s influence was.
-He persuaded Parliament to pass an act for the punishment of the Vice of Buggery in 1533. This was the first legislation banning homosexuality, as well as being the first time the state tried to control private sectional behavioural morality.
-Cromwell gave Henry a translated bible, just after he had married Jane Seymour. It took only 10 days for Henry to approve the translation, and Cromwell ordered that every parish should get an english bible.

Question 30

Cromwell: What did Cranmer and Cromwell disagree about? What did this later mean for Cromwell?

Answer 30

-After Jane Seymour died (Oct 1537), Cromwell wanted Henry to arrange a marriage to Anne of Cleeves, to reconcile the League of Schmalkalden. Cranmer opposed this idea, and wanted Henry to marry for love (according to a later account).
-When Cleeves proved unsuitable, blame was attributed to Cromwell, and he had suddenly fallen from Henry’s favour.

Question 31

Cromwell: Who took advantage of this? What happened to Cromwell?

Answer 31

-Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, had loathed Cromwell, as he had dissolved a Norfolk priory that housed the tombs of many dukes before him. Howard was forced to move the bones, and was utterly humiliated. He also resented the fact that Cromwell had been made Earl of Essex in 1540.
-Hence, Howard seized opportunity to take down Cromwell, and simultaenously advance himself through offering his niece, Catherine, in marriage.
-Cromwell was accused of treason & heresy at a council meeting, in which Norfolk said “traitors do not sit amongst Gentlemen” and tore the insignia of the garter from Cromwell, and executed on 28th July 1540. Henry & Catherine Howard married on the same day.

Question 32

Factions: What happened to government after Cromwell died? Who had control in this style of gov?

Answer 32

-Cromwell’s death marked the end of Henry’s reliance on individual councillors, and a concilliar government was restored.
-This led to the emergence of a Privy Council with fixed membership, supported by a secretary who kept a formal record of proceedings.
-It is suggested that this style of government left control in the hands of the factions within the PC.

Question 33

Factions: Who were the Conservatives? What did they want? What evidence is there that they held power?

Answer 33

-The conservatives were made up of the Duke of Norfolk, Bishop Gardiner, Sir Thomas Wriothesley, and the Earl of Surrey. The wanted to promote both themselves, and catholicism.
-Catherine Howard was Norfolk’s niece, and their marriage had been orcestrated by Norfolk. This suggests that, during her time as queen, the conservatives benefitted from more political influence.
-Bishop Gardiner linked Thomas Cranmer to the Prebendaries Plot of 1543, in an attempt to diminish his protestant influence.

Question 34

Factions: What evidence is there that the conservatives did not have power?

Answer 34

-Henry, despite Gardiner’s attempt, still showed massive support for Archbishop Cranmer. Whilst he did allow him to lead an investigation into him, Cranmer maintained favour, and was even gifted Henry’s personal ring.
-Henry later refused to put Gardiner on Edward’s Privy Council.
-The conservatives’ influence deteriorated after rumors of Catherine’ sexual promiscuity & her affair with her distant cousin Thomas Culpepper. She was executed on 13th Feb 1542, and Henry took Katherine Parr, a protestant, for his new wife.
-Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, & Norfolk’s son, was executed as a traitor in 1547, further harming Norfolk reputation.
-Norfolk was ordered to be executed, but the king’s death saved him from such a fate. He was, however, kept as a prisoner for the entirety of Edward’s subsequent reign.

Question 35

Factions: Who were the Reformers? What did they want? What evidence is there that they held power?

Answer 35

-Some key reformers were Edward Seymour, John Dudley, Sir Anthony Denny, Sir William Paget, and Archbishop Cranmer. They also wanted to advance themselves, but wanted Protestantism.
-Reformers held key government positions. Denny, for example, was Groom of the Stool & had access to the dry stamp.
-Henry, despite Prebendaries Plot, did not waver in support of Cranmer.
-It was believed that the Reformers had forged a second will for Henry, and had signed it with the dry stamp (clear that they were abusing their powers).
-During Parr’s regency from July-Sep 1544, they likely enjoyed more influence.

Question 36

Factions: What evidence is there that the Reformers did not have power?

Answer 36

-Henry retained control over key policy, like foreign & religious policies.
-The will, it is suggested, was a reflection of Henry’s last conscious intentions, so it had not necessarily been as much of a forgery as it is suggested.
-Henry chose not to have a single regent for Edward, as the reformers might’ve hoped, but a Privy Council. However, Seymour was the clear leader of this.