The Nature of Tudor Government in 1536 Flashcards
- structure & institutions of government - privy council, Parliament and the monarch - the role of nobles and the church in government - the Legacy of Thomas Cromwell
What was the role of the royal court?
- they moved around with the king
- varied membership
- Winter = 800, Summer = 400
- Events dictate size of court required by the king e.g. Field of the cloth of gold = 5000 members
- important because it displays power, is a mobile symbol, beneficial to nobility who needed to contact the monarch
What was the role of parliament?
- intermittent
- called and dissolved by monarch at will
- established by 1485 that Parliament needed to be summoned before new taxes were announced
- originally financial legal bodies —> soon became highest court
How far was factional struggle the cause of the execution of Thomas Cromwell?
.
What was the role of the royal household?
- upper
- Lord Chamberlain
- presence chamber (meeting foreign dignitaries)
- dining chamber
- Privy chamber and kings private apartments plus groom of the stool
What was the role of the Privy council?
- Permanent
- Sat virtually everyday
- worked on doctrine of collective responsibility after 1540 (prevents faction)
- more powerful as a reaction to the careers of Wolsey and Cromwell (3rd Minister)
- 1540, Public servants chosen for skills and not just rank
What did the Privy Council do?
- advise king
- controlled finances after 1554
- recruited armies
- controlled crown patronage
- enforced law and order
- regulated economic matter
- enforced the reformation (hunting and torturing jesuits)
- sat as a star chamber in a court of law
- investigated crime
What were Cromwell’s objectives in government?
- To ensure the authority of the crown both secular and religious admin
- to strengthen kings control and give him greater power
- to keep whole process under his personal control
How did Cromwell achieve central control over all areas?
- Act of Parliament (1536) abolished all significant remaining liberties and franchises throughout the realm
- Increase in Royal legal powers (e.g. to appoint judges and justices of the peace)
- Act of 1540, removed the privilege of sanctuary
How did Cromwell improve government machinery and admin to make it a more effective instrument of royal court?
- Court of Augmentations set up in 1536 to administer revenues and lands
- Re-organisation of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Courts set up to collect feudal revenues, settle wardships: Court of Wards, Court of First Fruits and Tenths, Court of General Surveyors
- Changes to the king’s Privy council (reduced to twenty men)
- Changes to the role of principal secretary (domestic and foreign policy)
- Strengthening of regional councils: Council of the Marches (wales), Council of the North (1537), Council of the West (1539-1540)
How could Cromwell be seen as successful?
Strengthening the administrative machine: supression of liberties and sanctuaries, incorporation of wales, creation of the privy council, subordination of the episcopate, strengthening of councils = limited
Efficient enforcement of the break with Rome
-strong privy council
How could Cromwell be seen as unsuccessful?
- Dependence on the traditional authorities of local gov
- did not significantly extend the royal bureaucracy into the localities
- no coercive power of the local authorities as a body
- admin machinery deteriorated e.g the secretaryship declined in authority
- Royal Commission in 1552 painted an unhappy picture of the financial courts by that year.
What evidence could suggest that the reforms of the privy council led to greater power sharing between monarch and regent and leading nobles and advisers? (EDWARDS REIGN)
- Somerset failed to keep to power sharing responsibilities, standard to be maintained
- this led to his downfall
- Collective responsibility
- elton says that by having new councils it was difficult for there to be a one true minister
- independent decisions
- day to day business - Northumberland acting as regent
What evidence shows that the reforms of the privy council DID NOT lead to greater power sharing between monarch or regent and leading nobles and advisers? (EDWARDS REIGN)
Northumberland used the council to secure his own power
Somerset was keen to share power
Council bullied
Northumberland took away most conservative members - Somerset consulted household instead of council
Cromwell took power away from old nobility
What evidence supports that Changes to the Privy Council led to more efficient government? (EDWARDS REIGN)
Paget and Cecil ensured efficient conduct 1550-1552
Changes such as making the council smaller led to it’s being more effective
Small = efficient
members picked for their qualities
Cecil’s appointment, agreed upon by more than one person instead of someone who could push things too far
What evidence opposes that Changes in the Privy Council led to more efficient government? (EDWARDS REIGN)
33 Members was too large 1550-1552
When Somerset was readmitted he plotted treason
Northumberland bullied the council into accepting the devise for Succession 1553
Somerset did not consult the council
