Government Flashcards
Which method of government was adopted at the start of Henry VIII’s reign ?
- Councillor government
- Inherited a council chosen by his father- Thomas Lovell, Earl of Surrey, John Fisher
How many times did Henry VIII call parliament in his reign ?
-9 times
What brought the Councillor government to an end in 1514 ?
- Henry became disenchanted with the reluctance of some of his father’s councillors to support a war with France
- Increasingly wanted to control decision making
- Surrounded himself with like-minded courtiers- reinforced his suspicions of the old guard
- Becomes impressed with the organisational skills of Thomas Wolsey
What did Wolsey attempt to do to the Privy Chamber ?
- Before 1519, one area that lay outside Wolsey’s control
- Tried to remove Henry’s minions and replace them with his own supporters
- Was unsuccessful- they came back
What was the Court of Chancery ?
- Where Wolsey made decisions that created legal precedents
- Cases were dealt in enclosures, land and wills
- Used the court to uphold fair justice
What was established within the Court of the Star Chamber?
- A committee of judges
- For the poor to push their cases on the nobility
What was the main issue with the Court of Chancery ?
- Became popular
- Clogged up with too many cases
- Justice was slow as a result
- Wolsey got distracted by foreign policy
What was the Court of the Star Chamber ?
- Wanted to increase cheap and fair justice
- Plans to improve the legal system enforced here
- Heard cases of alleged misconduct of nobles and gentry
- Wolsey encouraged it for the use of private lawsuits
What were the issues with the Court of the Star Chamber ?
- Became overworked after 1519
- Nobility didn’t like his reforms
What did the number of cases in the Court of the Star Chamber increase too ?
12 to 120 in a year
What was Sir Robert Sheffield charged with in the Court of the Star Chamber ?
- Negligence as a justice of the peace
- Alleged case of misconduct
What was the Act of Resumption 1515 under Wolsey?
- Increased revenue from Crown Lands
- Regained some lands that had been granted away
What was the Tudor Subsidy ?
- Wolsey set up a national committee (was the head) to assess taxpayers wealth
- This replaced local commissioners who were over generous to the local nobility
- Provided more accurate valuations of the taxpayers wealth (more realistic tax)
- Replaced the fifteenths and tenths tax
How much money did the Tudor Subsidy raise ?
- Raised Extraordinary Revenue for Henry’s war in France- over £300,000 !!
- Amount was insufficient and led to the Amicable Grant
What was the name of the tax that the Tudor Subsidy replaced ?
-Fifteenths and Tenths
What was the Amicable Grant ?
- Additional tax to fund Henry’s war with France.
- Caused rebellions in London and East Anglia
What was a failure of Wolsey with the Amicable Grant ?
- Taxpayers showed strong resistance- Wolsey had to backtrack and settled for voluntary contributions
- Nobility alarmed by the widespread anger and informed King
- The King left Wolsey to apologise, rebels were pardoned, Wolsey pays off their prison expenses
What did Wolsey do with enclosures ?
- Campaigned against enclosures- people lost their common rights to land
- Laws of 1589 and 1514-15 were against enclosing
- 1517- launched a national enquiry to discover extent of enclosure
- Cases launched against 260 landlords
What was criticisms of Wolsey and his battle against enclosures ?
- Abandoned enclosure policy for 18 months in 1523.
- Enclosures still continue
- Stirred up further hatred from nobility
What were the Eltham Ordinances ?
- Introduced to reform the finances of the Privy Council
- Reduced the number of Gentleman in the Privy Chamber ( the one area he didn’t’t have control of)
- Reduction of royal household expenditure
- Removal of Henry’s Groom of the Stool- William Compton and replaced him with Henry Norris
How did Wolsey try to get the divorce through Scriptural Arguments ?
- Tried to justify the divorce in the eyes of the catholic church
- Argued the marriage relied on Catherines word that her marriage to Arthur hadn’t been consummated
- If this wasn’t the case, Henry was misled and their marriage isn’t valid
- Based off Leviticas
- Henry became convinced that the lack of a male heir was god’s punishment
How did Wolsey try to get the divorce through Diplomatic manoeuvres ?
- Charles V in control of Italy
- Wolsey tried to free the pope from Charles V by using an alliance with France and the renewal of warfare in Italy to distract the emperor
- Policy FAILED-Charles was too strongly entrenched in Italy to be evicted by France
How does Wolsey try to get the divorce through Legal Efforts ?
- Held divorce hearings in England, where he would make the judgement as papal legate
- Cardinal Campeggio sent as the pope’s representative but delays the hearing
- Wolsey and Henry became impatient
- Court finally met
- Catherine refused and appealed to move the hearing to Rome
- Pope agrees to move hearing
- Wolsey’s effort fails
What were the 4 main factors that led to Wolsey’s downfall ?
- Failure to secure Henry’s divorce to Catherine of Aragon
- Failure to achieve Henry’s foreign policy aims
- Boleyn family was hinting that Wolsey was delaying the divorce
- Reputation and personal ambitions got in the way
What changes did Cromwell make to the structures of government ?
- Developed a more modern form of government
- Less centred on the household
- More bureaucratic approach that involved creating departments to deal with specifics
- Higher value placed on talent as opposed to status
- Brought councillor government to an end
What changes did Cromwell make to the privy council?
- Reduced to 20 men
- Who took responsibility for the business of government
- Made sure no individual could dominate it like Wolsey previously did
What did Cromwell believe he would achieve through his government changes ?
- Believed if the system ran well it would end the dominance of any one person
- Wolsey previously dominated it
What was the Court of Augmentations 1536 ?
- Established to deal with income from the dissolution of the monasteries
- Receivers in the regions dealt with dissolved estates and reported to central staff
What was the Act of Union 1536 ?
-Wales became incorporated into the English legal and administrative system
What did an Act of 1543 in Wales state ?
- It was to be divided into 3 shires, each with JP’s appointed by the king
- Wales was to send 24 MP’s to parliament
- English common law was to be the law of the land
- English became the language of documentation and officials had to use it
What was the Council of the North?
- Was to be responsible for law and order north of the River Trent
- Nominating and overseeing JP’s
- Dealing with serious crimes including treason
- Authority increased after the Pilgrimage of Grace
- Kings authority was felt more directly
What was the Act in Restraint of Appeals ?
- 1533
- Appeals could not be made to Rome
- Meant Catherine couldn’t appeal against her marriage annulment
What was the Act of Supremacy ?
- 1534
- Declared Henry the “Supreme Head of the English Church”
- Accomplished the Break from Rome
What was the Act of Succession ?
- 1534
- Declared Henry’s marriage to Catherine to be void
- Succession restricted to children from his second marriage
- Treason to criticise Henry’s marriage to Anne
What was the Treason Act ?
- 1534
- Anyone who criticised Henry was guilty of treason
- Opposition dealt with severely
What was the Act Annexing First Fruits and Tenths ?
- 1534
- Bishop paid annates to the king instead of the pope
- Strengthened royal supremacy
What were the clergy accused of to pressure the pope ?
- 1531
- Prameniure (using papal authority against the crown)
- They were fined
- Had to acknowledge Henry as the ‘Supreme Head of the English Church”
How did Supplication of the Ordinances pressure the pope ?
- Clergy were to enact no church law without royal permission
- Existing church laws to be examined
- Provoked resignation of Sir Thomas More
How did the Act in Conditional Restraint of Annates pressure the pope ?
- 1532
- Withheld the payment of the annual annates to the papacy
What year was Cromwell appointed as chief minister ?
-1532
What caused Cromwell to rise swiftly after Wolsey’s death?
- Promised to enable Henry to secure his marriage annulment
- Suggested Henry make a break from Rome
- Persuades parliament Henry should be declared Head of the English Church
What did the Crowns income increase from and too under Cromwell ?
- From £150,000 to £300,000
- Doubled
What was the Reformation Parliament ?
- 7 sessions of parliament that met on and off
- Legislation which attacked clergy and established royal supremacy
What was restored at the end of Henry VIII’s reign ?
-Councillor government was restored
What changed in the privy council at the end of Henry’s reign ?
- Emergence of privy council with a fixed membership
- Supported by a secretary who kept a formal record of all proceedings
Who held the power in government at the end of Henry’s reign ?
- Conservatives in the council
- Were catholics
- Norfolk, Stephen Gardiner and Thomas Wriothesley
What did Norfolk do to try and stay in power ?
- Engineered Henry’s marriage to his nieces Catherine Howard 1540
- She was executed for treason in 1541
Who were the reformers in the privy council at the end of Henry’s reign ?
- Earl of Hertford
- John Dudley
- Archbishop Cranmer
What did the reformers in the privy council achieve ?
- Achieved Catherine Parr marriage
- Obtained use of the dry stamp and it was used to alter Henry’s will after his death
- Hertford as Protector of Edward
