Governmental Structure Flashcards
What does GR Elton argue?
Tudor politics depended on ‘the sharing of power’ - not all concentrated in one figure, but many sets of hierarchies (eg village elders, patriarchs within families, the monarch, lords…etc)
What does GR Elton note was central to Court politics?
Access and exclusion, as centred around the monarch’s person
What did the monarch have the exclusive right to do?
Appoint their own chosen Council
What were the three elements of Tudor politics?
Parliament, Court, Council
What did Thomas Smith [contemporary c16th] say about Parliament?
‘every Englishman is intended to be there present, either in person or by procuration and attorney’
What does GR Elton say Parliament was?
‘premier point of contact between rulers and ruled,’
What function does GR Elton suggest Parliament had?
‘stabilising mechanism’, to satisfy aspirations of the ambitious without allowing them to interfere with king’s power
What does Lawrence Stone note?
A mid-C17th ‘crisis of the aristocracy’, but which had much earlier roots and caused questioning of prestige as well as decline in material wealth
What does Lawrence Stone argue about prestige and titles?
There was an ‘insatiable demand for honour and titles’ - but as the number multiplied they became regarded as more empty, creating a paradox (worsened by social mobility and increasing competition for titles)
What does Edmund Dudley’s ‘The Tree of Commonwealth’ (1509) argue?
Three tiers to the social order - kings/princes; knights/lords; common people
What does the 1547 Homily on Obedience emphasise?
The soical order as a ‘most perfect order’ ordained by God; thus treason as direct offense against god, but also could be interpreted as critique of social mobility
What was local governance often based upon?
Custom, rather than law - hence valuation of village elders and tradition
When was England finally fully mapped by cartographers?
Only during the reign of Elizabeth I
Sir John Lowther
Urged nobility to preserve their wealth, as “gentility and nobility of blood… is nothing else but a decent of riches”
