Tudor Government

Tudor Government looks at English government across all the Tudor reigns, including those of Henry VIII, Mary and Elizabeth, and explores such themes as: the role of parliament law and order the government of the church the personal role of the monarch.

This marvellous new book sets the developments in the government of England under the early Tudors in the context of recent work on the fifteenth century and on continental Europe.

This book is a study of change in the methods and principles of English government in the sixteenth century, from the 'household' methods of the Middle Ages to the bureaucratic organization of a national monarchy. The most important decade, 1530-40, is given most concentrated attention, but the earlier and later phases are also touched upon. The study deals with the organs of central government: the financial machinery and the new courts; seals and secretariats and the rise of the secretary of state; the council and the making of the privy council; the royal household and its retirement from national government. When this neglected aspect of its history is studied, the sixteenth century is once again seen as an age of revolution. It becomes clear that it was Thomas Cromwell who was the principal figure in the government of the 1530's, and both his mind and his real intentions are shown in a fresh light.

This is a collection of specially commissioned research essays by scholars on the government of Tudor England, designed as a tribute from a group of advanced students to their supervisor. Professor Sir Geoffrey Elton, to whom the volume is dedicated, is internationally celebrated, and the most influential living historian of the period. Each essay reflects the special interest of the author, within the broader theme of 'Law and Government'. The book will be read by many who have been influenced by Professor Elton's teaching, but who may not necessarily be students or historians of Tudor England.

Annotation This volume reconstructs the lives of Henry VII's new men - low-born ministers with legal, financial, political, and military skills who enforced the king's will as he sought to strengthen government after the Wars of the Roses, examining how they exercised power, gained wealth, and spent it to sustain their new-found status.

The first volume of a two-volume assessment of the constitutional impact made by the first two Tudor kings, Henry VII and Henry VIII.

The papers collected in these volumes revolve around the political, constitutional and personal problems of the English government between the end of the fifteenth-century civil wars and the beginning of those of the seventeenth century. Previously published in a great variety of places, none of them appeared in book form before. They are arranged in four groups (Tudor Politics and Tudor Government in Volume I, Parliament and Political Thought in Volume II) but these groups interlock. Though written in the course of some two decades, all the pieces bear variously on the same body of major issues and often illuminate details only touched upon in Professor Elton's books. Several investigate the received preconceptions of historians and suggest new ways of approaching familiar subjects. They are reprinted unaltered, but some new footnotes have been added to correct errors and draw attention to later developments.