Conclusion Flashcards
Overall royal authority
When Henry VII acceded to the throne with a weak claim and with a number of enemies who seemed poised to bring him down at the earliest possible opportunity, it might have been difficult to envisage the successful rule which characterised much of the Tudor dynasty. Henry VII never considered himself fully secure as monarch, and this helps to explain the peculiar nature of much of his rule. Yet he was broadly successful in gaining security, restoring the Crown to financial health and giving England relative security in its relations with foreign powers. Most importantly of all, perhaps, his death was followed by the first untroubled succession in almost a century, which was a tribute to the political skill which characterised his reign, even if this was little appreciated either by his heir or by the country more widely.
At one level Henry VIII appeared to make the monarchy more powerful.
His frequent resort to the execution of those who had displeased him led his rule to be characterised as tyrannical. Moreover, the break with Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries enhanced both his power and, in the short term, his riches. On the other hand, the scope of parliamentary legislation undoubtedly expanded during his reign so that sovereignty rested at times with the ‘king-in-Parliament rather than with the king as an individual.
Despite the difficulties (and potential danger) of the mid-Tudor years when the minor, Edward VI, and Catholic female, Mary I, held the throne, respect for royal authority survived. Elizabeth I’s inheritance (as laid down in Henry VIlI’s will) went unquestioned. The power of the monarchy was maintained during the long reign of Elizabeth I, though her sex and her virginity both necessitated a distinctive approach to government which was completely different from anything which might have been undertaken by a male ruler. Though doubtless unfair, the criticisms of her which came, however obliquely, from male courtiers, contributed to a more general feeling by the start of the seventeenth century that she had ruled too long and that the time was right for the restoration of male rule. What they got, however, was the somewhat ineffectual James I (James VI of Scotland), whose rule quickly became the object of criticism. Under James I’s son and successor Charles I, criticism eventually brought about a breakdown in relations, which led in 1642 to civil war between the supporters of the king and those of Parliament. The forces of Parliament proved victorious and in 1649 Charles was tried for treason, found guilty and executed. Within two generations of the death of Elizabeth, the powers of the monarchy had been destroyed and England had become a republic.
Overall effectiveness of government
The quality of government varied during the Tudor period. Under Henry VIL, government was broadly efficient, especially when it came to the collection of revenue. However, this efficiency came at the expense of popularity, and there was much rejoicing amongst the political nation when Henry VII died.
Henry VIII repudiated his father’s legacy and often governed extravagantly. Moreover, he struggled to adopt a consistent approach to government. He twice sought to govern with the aid of a chief minister, in the form of Thomas Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell, each of them a remarkable man who rose from very humble origins to dominate the machinery of government. Each in the end overreached himself, lost royal favour and was brought down by members of the conservative nobility whose traditional predominance they had temporarily usurped. Henry lurched from dependence on a chief minister to operating within a conciliar framework, though with limited success. By the end of the reign his record as monarch was distinctly flawed, the benefits to the Crown of the acquisition of much of the wealth of the Church having been thrown away in pursuit of a futile foreign policy paid for by land sales and the disastrous debasement of the currency. Moreover, while he had demonstrated his power by bringing about the break with Rome of the English Church, his lack of a clear vision of what form an English Church might take caused much confusion. This placed his successors, the Protestant Edward VI and the Catholic Mary I, in much difficulty.
That she was able in some measure to resolve this confusion was perhaps
Elizabeth Is greatest domestic achievement. Much of her government was administratively sound; she chose her ministers, especially Lord Burghley, wisely, trusted them and most of the time even forgave them when she considered they had worked against her interests. However, Elizabeths government had fundamental weaknesses. In particular, the failure to undertake necessary institutional reform left problems for her successor, James I, which he was never able satisfactorily to resolve.
Relations with foreign powers
At the start of the Tudor period, Henry VIl’s emphasis for most of the reign was on peaceful coexistence with his continental neighbours. This policy attitude was shaped by two fundamental factors: his reluctance to spend money on foreign wars and the primacy of his aim to maintain the security of the dynasty. In the process he irritated many members of the traditional nobility, whom he was preventing from exercising what they considered to be their traditional right to pursue glory by waging war, particularly against the French.
Thus, the nobility broadly welcomed the accession of Henry VIII, who provided them with opportunities for glory. The price for this was paid not only by the Crown, which saw its finances depleted, but also by the country more generally when the policy of debasement added to the already evident inflationary pressures. Unsuccessful and expensive military activities marred the reigns of both Edward VI and Mary I. Moreover, the proposed marriage of the latter to Philip of Spain provoked rebellion in 1554.
Elizabeth I, having intervened on behalf of Protestant co-religionists in Scotland and France in the early years of her reign, became as reluctant as her grandfather to get involved in foreign conflicts. One consequence of that reluctance was that her intervention in the Netherlands on behalf of the Dutch rebels against Philip II of Spain was probably too long delayed.
Moreover, she was dragged reluctantly into outright war against Spain. The victory over the Spanish Armada enhanced the prestige of the monarchy in a way which had not occurred since the reign of Henry V (1413-22).
However, this level of prestige was not maintained as the war dragged on and Elizabeth had to raise unprecedented levels of taxation in order to finance the conflict. The war did not officially come to an end until after Elizabeth’s death.
Overall society and economy
The economy was the context in which there was, relatively speaking, least change. Internal trade continued to predominate. There was some attempt to correct the overdependence of the export market on the cloth trade to Flanders. The development of alternative markets for cloth in the northern Netherlands (Amsterdam) and north Germany (Emden) was not only economically healthy, it also coincided with the religious priorities of the Elizabethan regime, as it encouraged the exploitation of ‘Protestant markets at the expense of Catholic Flanders. The reign of Elizabeth also saw attempts to widen the export trade - to Russia and the Baltic as well as to North Africa and other parts of the Mediterranean.
Attempts at exploration, begun under Henry VII and largely ignored under Henry VIII, began again under Edward VI and Mary. At first such efforts were modest, but they became connected to attempts to widen trade and to support wider religious and foreign policies, as happened in Elizabeth’s reign with Drake’s circumnavigation. The first attempts at colonisation of the Americas in Elizabeth’s reign were short-lived and disastrous. However, further attempts at colonisation - in Virginia from 1607 and in Massachusetts from 1620 - proved successful, and much of the eastern Americas was colonised by English settlers during the seventeenth century, thereby laying the foundations of future empire.
The social structure of England changed little during the Tudor period.
The social dominance of the nobility was reinforced by the reluctance of monarchs, especially Henry VII and Elizabeth I, to create new peers. This would change under the early Stuarts. James I especially was very keen to increase the numbers of peers, though this necessarily diluted’ the exclusivity of the nobility as a caste. Many members of the greater gentry also enjoyed great wealth. This was especially evident amongst Elizabethan ministers such as Sir Christopher Hatton and Sir Ralph Sadler. The landed gentry was not an exclusive caste, and entry to its ranks was easily accomplished, for example, by lawyers and by merchants who had prospered through trade. On the other hand, there is much evidence to suggest that the condition of many of the poor deteriorated as real wages stagnated. In this context, therefore, the reform of the poor laws in 1598 and 1601 proved to be a considerable legislative achievement which remained in force until the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834.
Overall intellectual and religious change
The Tudor period witnessed considerable intellectual and religious change.
Much of this happened irrespective of the nature of the regime, but the break with Rome created a situation in which the Crown became the dominant force in religious matters in the realm.
When the Tudor age began, medieval culture and intellectual ideas remained predominant. England was still experiencing the age of Gothic. The first hints of intellectual change were in the air, and humanist ideas gradually became more influential, especially during the reign of Henry VIII. In the early stages of the reign, with the encouragement of the monarch, the humanism of thinkers such as More and Erasmus became very fashionable. There was, however, no simplistic relationship between humanism and religious change. Humanists could be found on both sides of the religious divide in the 1530s - and More was willing to sacrifice his life rather than compromise his religious principles.
The hardening of religious attitudes brought about by the Reformation reduced the freer exchange of ideas which had been a characteristic of the age of humanism, and this narrowing continued during the reign of Elizabeth despite the queen’s apparent nostalgia for the previous age and her suspicious attitude towards clergymen who were convinced about the correctness of their own ideas. Intellectual developments were relatively few during the reign of Elizabeth. However, the reign did witness a unigue cultural flowering.
Shakespeare came to the fore as a playwright in the mid-1590s, though many of his greatest dramas were written after Elizabeths death, and the stage in general flourished. Shakespeare was not alone. In addition to the theatre, the period was also a golden age of English music, though much of this was produced as part of the Catholic counterculture associated with William Byrd.
Overall role of key individuals
The Tudor age saw many exceptional individuals make their mark on the history of the period. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I are the most easily recognisable monarchs from English history in the popular mind. Each, particularly the former, had their flaws. However, their contribution, for better or for worse, to the development of English history was formidable.
A number of Crown servants were also touched with greatness and, perhaps also, notoriety. Cardinal Wolsey rose from humble origins to dominate Henry VIII’s government for 15 years; Thomas Cromwell emerged from obscurity to dominate for 8 years. Each of them had an ability to work with the most difficult of royal masters, partly because of an instinctive understanding of what the king’s needs might be. Lord Burghley had an easier task in serving Queen Elizabeth. Less creative than Wolsey or Cromwell, nevertheless his comprehensive grasp of political situations and his huge capacity for work ensured his indispensability. However, he stayed in power for too long and prevented the possibility of changes which might have modernised the quality of government.
At an intellectual and cultural level, the outstanding English figure in the first part of the Tudor period was Sir Thomas More. He was, perhaps, not quite the saintly figure revered by the Catholic Church, and was certainly a fawed figure as a politician. However, he stands first amongst English intellectuals of the period. Some writers, including practising politicians such as Bishop Gardiner and Sir Thomas More, wrote about the relationship between the individual and the State. At the start of Elizabeths reign, Bishop Jewels Apology asserted the continuity between the early Church and the Church established by the Elizabethan settlement. In the second half of the Tudor period, as illustrated above, the influence of individuals can be seen more in cultural than in intellectual areas.
Summary
The Tudor age was clearly a pivotal period in English history. Some of the changes experienced during this time were absolutely fundamental to the English historical experience. The most important of these was the break with Rome. Over time Catholicism, once the norm of ordinary people’s religious experience, became increasingly perceived as a foreign institution to which loyal English people could hold no allegiance. The restoration of the power of the monarchy was rather less important. The fall of the monarchy and the creation of a republic which lasted from 1649 to 1660 lent a temporary feel to the restoration of monarchical power which was characteristic of the Tudor age. None of this could realistically have been anticipated in 1603. England was an ordered and secure society which had witnessed few of the extremes of violence and persecution which had characterised many parts of continental Europe in the second half of the sixteenth century, and for that the Tudors deserve much credit.
