Henry VII: Government - Councils

Question 1

What is the Council?

Answer 1

• King’s traditionally ruled with a council who would advise the king, administer his wishes and aid with legal judgements

Question 2

What are the three main types of councillors?

Answer 2

• Members of nobility
• Churchmen
• Laymen

Question 3

Councillors: Nobility

Answer 3

• Councillors were often noblemen
- Lord Daubeney

• But the working Council rarely included the great magnates of the realm

Question 4

Councillors: Churchmen

Answer 4

• Councillors were often churchmen
- John Morton
- Richard Fox

• Often had legal training and were excellent administrators

Question 5

Councillors: Laymen

Answer 5

• These were either members of the gentry or lawyers
- Gentry are people of good social position, specifically the class of people next below the nobility in position and birth
• These councillors were skilled administrators

• Henry increasingly relied upon lower ranking gentlemen and lawyers as councillors
• This created a class of ‘professional councillors’ who were not tied to the court and could meet separately in London deal with legal and administrative concerns whilst the king was away

• Examples
- Sir Reginald Bray
- Edmund Dudley

Question 6

Council Learned in Law

Answer 6

• Council Learned in Law was a branch of the main council managed by Henry’s councillors with legal training
- The job of the Council Learned was to increase the king’s revenue and prerogative rights (the rights that a king had without having to refer to parliament)
- The Council Learned began in 1495 to defend the king’s estates, collect rents and money from the wardships and marriages of the king’s tenants

• The Council collected Bonds and Recognizances and worked outside of the legal system. Nobles who were fined or made to sign Bonds and Recognizances could not appeal the decisions of the Council Learned
• After Sir Reginald Bray’s death in 1503 Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley headed the Council with ambitious ruthlessness