Last updated 10th July 2024: Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
For thirty years J. E. Neale’s portrait of the Elizabethan parliaments was the stuff of textbooks. Highly political and bedeviled by puritanical protobolsheviks, the Virgin Queen’s parliaments were painted as the nursery in which the modern parliamentary system, characterized by an organized Opposition, was born. In the last decade, however, Neale’s interpretations have been challenged and overturned, making obsolete most of the histories of Elizabethan England available to students. The purpose of this article is to assess the new research on Elizabethan Parliaments, to summarize what we now know about the role Parliament played in governing England, and to suggest what remains to be done.
In order to make sense of the newly emerging history of Elizabeth’s parliaments it is important to recap the working assumptions that dominated the first great era of Elizabethan parliamentary history, the Neale/Notestein age. Much of the recent work on Parliament has been in reaction to these mens’ work.
1 These arguments are expressed in Neale's 2 volume Elizabeth I and her Parliaments (London, 1953)Google Scholar. These books contain theses he had previously presented in numerous articles. His argument about the maturation of the Commons' records appeared in the “The Commons Journals of the Tudor Period,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 4th series, 3 (1920): 136–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Loach, Jennifer first reported her findings in “Conservatism and Consent in Parliament, 1547–59,” in Tittier, R. and Loach, J., eds., The Mid-Tudor Polity (Totowa, N.J., 1980), pp. 9–28Google Scholar. She elaborated them in Parliament and the Crown in the Reign of Mary Tudor (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar.
3 Neale, J. E., “The Elizabethan Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity,” English Historical Review 65 (1950): 304–332CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This article established the theme he would follow throughout Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments.
4 Hughes, Philip, The Reformation in England, 3 vols. (London, 1963), 3: 26nGoogle Scholar.
5 Hudson, Winthrop S., The Cambridge Connection and the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559 (Durham, N.C., 1980)Google Scholar.
6 Jones, Norman L., Faith by Statute. Parliament and the Settlement of Religion, 1559 (London, 1982)Google Scholar, “Profiting from Religious Reform: The Land Rush of 1559,” Historical Journal 22, (1979): 279–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Alexander, Gina, “Bishop Bonner and the Parliament of 1559,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 56 (1983): 145–63Google Scholar.
7 Garrett, C. H., The Marian Exiles (Cambridge, 1969), p. 59Google Scholar.
8 Bartlett, K. R., “The Role of the Marian Exiles,” in Hasler, P. W., ed., The House of Commons 1559–1603 (London, 1981), pp. 102–110Google Scholar. Sutherland, N. M., “The Marian Exiles and the Establishment of the Elizabethan Regime,” forthcoming in Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte (1987)Google Scholar. My thanks to Professor Sutherland for allowing me to see this article before its publication.
9 Elton, G. R., “Tudor Government: The Points of Contact. I. Parliament,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th series, 24 (1974), p. 200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Ibid., pp. 190–199.
11 Elton, G. R., “Parliament in the Sixteenth Century: Functions and Fortunes,” Historical Journal 22 (1979): 261CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Ibid., pp. 267–8.
13 Ibid., p. 277.
14 Elton, G. R., “Enacting Clauses and Legislative Initiative, 1559–71,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 53 (1980): 183–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Parliament” in Haigh, C., ed., The Reign of Elizabeth I (London, 1984), pp. 79–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 Elton, G. R., The Parliament of England 1559–1581 (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 378–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 Dean, David M., “Bills and Acts 1584–1601” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1984)Google Scholar. Lambert, Sheila, “Procedure in the House of Commons in the Early Stuart Period,” English Historical Review 95 (1980): 753–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Keeler, Mary Frear, “The Emergence of Standing Committees for Privileges and Returns,” Parliamentary History 1 (1982): 25–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Graves, M. A. R., “Freedom of Peers from Arrest: The case of Henry Second Lord Cromwell, 1571–72,” American Journal of Legal History 21 (1977): 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For contemporary works on procedure and privileges see Snow, Vernon F., ed., Parliament in Elizabethan England. John Hooker's “Order and Usage” (New Haven, 1977)Google Scholar, and Ward, P. L., ed., William Lombarde's Notes on the Procedure and Privileges of the House of Commons, House of Commons Library Document #10 (London, 1977)Google Scholar.
17 Graves, M. A. R., “The Management of the Elizabethan House of Commons: The Council's ‘Men of Business,’” Parliamentary History 2 (1983): 11–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Thomas Norton the Parliament Man: An Elizabethan M.P., 1559–1581,” Historical Journal 23 (1980): 17–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Graves', The Tudor Parliaments, Crown, Lords and Commons, 1485–1603 (London, 1985), pp. 115–153Google Scholar, where he expands on the “men of business,” membership, and attendance.
18 Elton, , Parliament of England, pp. 321–9Google Scholar.
19 D'Ewes, Simonds, The Journals of all the Parliaments During the Reign of Elizabeth (London, 1682)Google Scholar. A facsimile edition has been published by Irish Universities Press.
20 Dean, David, “Sir Symonds D‘Ewes’ Bills of ‘No Great Moment,’” Parliamentary History 3 (1984): 157–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
21 Hartley, T. E., ed., Proceedings in the Parliaments of Elizabeth I, vol. I, 1559–1581 (Leicester, 1981)Google Scholar. Hartley's introduction provides a valuable guide to the diaries' uses and limitations.
22 Hasler, P. W., ed. The House of Commons 1558–1603, 3 vols. (London, 1981)Google Scholar. For a summary of the work's weaknesses see Guy, J. A., “Law, Faction, and Parliament in the Sixteenth Century,” The Historical Journal 28 (1985): 441–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23 Kishlansky, Mark, Parliamentary Selection. Social and Political Choice in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1986), p. 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Ibid., p. 58.
25 Robert Tittler, “Elizabethan Towns and the ‘Points of Contact’: Parliament,” read at the A. H. A. meeting in New York, December 1985. It will appear in D. Dean and N. L. Jones, Interest Groups and Legislation in Elizabethan Parliaments, a special issue of Parliamentary History 8, 2 (1989)Google ScholarPubMed.
26 Hirst, Derek, The Representative of the People? Voters and Voting in England under the Early Stuarts (Cambridge, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has been the standard treatment of this issue. Diarmaid MacCulloch, in his studies of Suffolk, has pointed out the way religious ideology could affect a contest. See his “Catholic and Puritan in Elizabethan Suffolk,” Archiv fir Reformationsgeschichte 72 (1981)Google Scholar. David Harris Sacks, “Parliament, Liberty and the Represented: The Constituencies,” an unpublished paper delivered at the St. Louis conference on Parliament and Liberty from the Reign of Elizabeth to the English Civil War, October, 1986. Still on the problem of representation—why it was sought and how it was used—see Loach, J., “Parliament: A ‘New Air’?” in Starkey, D. and Coleman, C., Revolution Reassessed. Revisions in the History of Tudor Government and Administration (Oxford, 1986), pp. 117–34Google Scholar.
27 Smith, A. H., County and Court. Government and Politics in Norfolk, 1558–1603 (Oxford, 1974), p. 314Google Scholar. MacCulloch, D. N. J., Suffolk and the Tudors. Politics and Religion in an English County, 1500–1600 (Oxford, 1986), p. 335CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28 Dean, , “Bills and Acts,” p. 253Google Scholar. Loach, , Parliament and the Crown, p. 206Google Scholar.
29 Graves, M. A. R., The House of Lords in the Parliaments of Edward VI and Mary I: An Institutional Study (Cambridge, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Foster, Elizabeth Read, The House of Lords, 1603–1649 (Chapel Hill, 1983)Google Scholar.
30 See Elton, , Parliament of England, pp. 178–84Google Scholar for a good example of a careful reading of the history of a well known bill, in this case the treason act of 1563, 5 Eliz. I, c. 1. See also Leslie Ward's article on the treason act of 1563, forthcoming in Parliamentary History (1989).
31 Bindoff, S. T., “The Making of the Statute of Artificers,” in Bindoff, S. T., et. al., eds., Elizabethan Government and Society (London, 1961), pp. 56–94Google Scholar. Woodward, Donald, “The Background to the Statute of Artificers: The Genesis of Labour Policy, 1558-63,” Economic History Review 2nd ser, 33 (1980): 32–33Google Scholar. Elton, , Parliament of England, pp. 262–67Google Scholar. This statute is one of the few that has been studied in terms of its enforcement and impact. Davies, M. G., The Enforcement of English Apprenticeship (Cambridge, Mass., 1956)Google Scholar.
32 Gordon, M. D., “The Perjury Statute of 1563: A Case History of Confusion,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 124, 6 (1980): 438–54Google Scholar.
33 Jones, W. J., “The Foundations of English Bankruptcy: Statutes and Commissions in the Early Modern Period,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 69, 3 (1979): 59CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For another example of this sort of approach see Blakeney, Michael, “Sequestered Piety and Charity—A Comparative Analysis,” Journal of Legal History 2 (1981): 207–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which studies the language of 43 Eliz. I, c. 4.
34 Blatcher, M., “Touching the Writ of Latitat: An Act Of no great moment,’” in Bindoff, S. T., Elizabethan Government and Society, pp. 188–212Google Scholar.
35 Levine, Mortimer, “A More than Ordinary Case of ‘Rape,’ 13 and 14 Elizabeth I,” American Journal of Legal History 7 (1963): 159–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 The debate over 13 Eliz. I, c. 8 is in Hartley, , Proceedings, 1: 231–37Google Scholar. See my forthcoming book God and the Moneylenders. Usury in Early Modern England (Basil Blackwell).
37 Jones, N. L., “An Elizabethan Bill for the Reformation of the Ecclesiastical Law,” Parliamentary History 4 (1985): 171–187CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “Fine Tuning the Reformation, Parliament and the Reform of the Church Courts,” in J. A. Guy and H. Beale, eds., Law and British Society (London, 1984); idem, Faith by Statute, pp. 169–71. Elton, , Parliament of England, pp. 198–222Google Scholar.
38 Kent, Joan R., “Attitudes of Members of the House of Commons to the Regulation of ‘personal conduct’ in Late Elizabethan and Early Stuart England,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 46 (1973): 41–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Herrup, Cynthia, “Law and Morality in Seventeenth Century England,” Past and Present 106 (1985): 102–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
39 Alsop, J. D., “The Theory and Practice of Tudor Taxation,” English Historical Review 97 (1982): 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Innovation in Tudor Taxation,” ibid., 99 (1984): 83–93. G. L. Harriss, “Theory and Practice in Royal Taxation: Some Observations,” ibid., 97 (1982): 811-19. On the general issue of taxation in Elizabethan Parliaments see Alsop's “Taxation and Parliament,” in N. L. Jones and D. Dean, The Parliaments of Elizabethan England, forthcoming from Basil Blackwell.
40 Elton, , Parliament, pp. 158–60Google Scholar.
41 Elton, , Parliament of England, pp. 223–62Google Scholar summarizes “common weal” legislation for the first half of the reign. Clarkson, L. A., “English Economic Policy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: The Case of the Leather Industry,” Bulletin of the institute of Historical Research 98 (1965): 149–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Ramsay, G. D., “Industrial Discontent in Early Elizabethan London: Clothworkers and Merchant Adventurers in Conflict,” The London Journal 1 (1975): 227–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Green, Edwin, “The Vintners' Lobby, 1552–1568,” Guildhall Studies in History 1 (1974): 47–58Google Scholar. Dean, David, “Public or Private, London, Leather and Legislation in Elizabethan England,” forthcoming in The Historical Journal (1988)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Elton, G. R., “Piscatorical Politics in the Early Parliaments of Queen Elizabeth I,” in McKendrick, N. and Outhwaite, R. B., eds., Business Life and Public Policy: Essays in Honour of D. C. Coleman (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar.
42 39 Eliz. I, c. 14.
43 David Harris Sacks, “Monopoly and Liberty in Early Modern England: The Parliament of 1601 and Queen Elizabeth I's ‘Golden Speech,’” a paper delivered at the American Historical Association, Dec. 28, 1986. My thanks to Professor Sacks for allowing me to see his manuscript.
44 Fairclough, Keith, “A Tudor Canal Scheme for the River Lea,” The London Journal 5 (1979): 218–227CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Elton, , Parliament of England, pp. 56–7Google Scholar.
45 Hartley, , Parliaments, 1: 80Google Scholar.
46 Ibid., p. 183.
