Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- I POLITICS AND THE REFORMATION
- 49 The State: Government and Politics under Elizabeth and James
- 50 Lex Terrae Victrix: the Triumph of Parliamentary Law in the Sixteenth Century
- 51 Human Rights and the Liberties of Englishmen
- 52 King Henry VII
- 53 Wales in Parliament, 1542–1581
- 54 Piscatorial Politics in the Early Parliaments of Elizabeth I
- 55 English National Self-consciousness and the Parliament in the Sixteenth Century
- 56 Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell
- 57 Lancelot Andrewes
- 58 Persecution and Toleration in the English Reformation
- 59 Auseinandersetzung und Zusammenarbeit zwischen Renaissance und Reformation in England
- 60 Humanism in England
- 61 Luther in England
- 62 Die europäische Reformation: Mit oder ohne Luther?
- II ON HISTORIANS
- Index of Authors Cited
- General Index
54 - Piscatorial Politics in the Early Parliaments of Elizabeth I
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- I POLITICS AND THE REFORMATION
- 49 The State: Government and Politics under Elizabeth and James
- 50 Lex Terrae Victrix: the Triumph of Parliamentary Law in the Sixteenth Century
- 51 Human Rights and the Liberties of Englishmen
- 52 King Henry VII
- 53 Wales in Parliament, 1542–1581
- 54 Piscatorial Politics in the Early Parliaments of Elizabeth I
- 55 English National Self-consciousness and the Parliament in the Sixteenth Century
- 56 Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell
- 57 Lancelot Andrewes
- 58 Persecution and Toleration in the English Reformation
- 59 Auseinandersetzung und Zusammenarbeit zwischen Renaissance und Reformation in England
- 60 Humanism in England
- 61 Luther in England
- 62 Die europäische Reformation: Mit oder ohne Luther?
- II ON HISTORIANS
- Index of Authors Cited
- General Index
Summary
In our period State action in economic and social matters can be seen as having four main ends in view: the maintenance of social stability and order; the encouragement and regulation of the internal economy; the encouragement and regulation of overseas trade and shipping; and the raising of revenue.
Thus Donald Coleman sums up a well-known problem and its usual conclusion. His phrasing is cautious: ‘state action’ must be taken to include the legislation of Parliament, but the possibility that the initiative behind such laws might have come from unofficial quarters is not expressly excluded. Nevertheless, the mention of public order and public revenue does suggest that the author had it in mind here to equate the state with its government. That conviction – that Elizabethan economic legislation originated in official circles and reflected thinking there – is well entrenched in the literature; it goes back at the least to Archdeacon Cunningham, who decided that ‘the more we examine the working of the Elizabethan scheme for the administration of economic affairs, the more do we see that the Council was the pivot of the whole system’, as initiators and executors. The only person who has dared to question the assumption was F. J. Fisher, though even he in the end resigned himself to the concept of government action, called forth in his view not by sovereign planning but by the haphazard pressures of the market and other circumstances.
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- Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics and Government , pp. 109 - 130Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992
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