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Was there a Tudor Despotism after all?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2009

Extract

In the reign of James I, Sir Walter Ralegh, a prisoner in the Tower and under sentence of death, occupied some of his leisure in writing a History of the World. Unfortunately, he never got beyond 130 B.C.; but in his Introduction he did pause to comment on more recent history. Now that Elizabeth I was dead, he felt able to speak quite freely about her father:

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1967

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References

page 83 note 1 Ralegh, W., The History of the World (London, 1687), p. 8.Google Scholar

page 83 note 2 See the passage cited in Elton, G. R., ‘Henry VIII's Act of Proclamations’, Eng. Hist. Rev. (1960), 75, p. 228.Google Scholar

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page 84 note 1 The Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, ed. Firth, C. H. (Oxford, 1894), 2, p. 11.Google Scholar

page 84 note 2 Cited in Neale, J. E., Elizabeth I and her Parliaments (London, 1953), 1, pp.318–25Google Scholar

page 85 note 1 Stubbs, W., The Constitutional History of England (Oxford, 1878), 3, chapter xviii.Google ScholarSee also the valuable re-assessment of Stubbs in Helen, M.Cam, ‘Stubbs seventy years after’, Camb. Hist. Journal (1948), 9, pp. 129–47.Google Scholar

page 85 note 2 See e.g. Sayles, G. O., The Medieval Foundations of England (London, 1958), pp. 464–65 and references given on p. 465.Google Scholar

page 85 note 3 Roskell, J. S., The Commons in the Parliament of 1422 (Manchester, 1954)Google Scholar and his article ‘Perspectives in English Parliamentary History’, Bull, of the John Rylands Library (1964), 64, pp. 448–75;Google ScholarEdwards, J. G., The Commons in Medieval English Parliaments (London, 1958);Google ScholarBrown, A. L., ‘The Commons and the Council in the reign of Henry IV’, Eng. Hist. Rev. (1964), 79, pp. 130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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page 87 note 2 Stubbs, W., Seventeen Lectures, on the study of medieval and modern history (Oxford, 1886), pp. 246, 262.Google Scholar

page 88 note 1 Maitland, F. W., The Constitutional History of England (Cambridge, 1955), PP. 194–99.Google Scholar

page 88 note 2 John, Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Angliac, ed. Chrimes, S. B. (Cambridge, 1942);Google ScholarThe Governance of England, ed. Plummer, C. (Oxford, 1885).Google Scholar

page 88 note 3 F. W. Maitland, op. cit., p. 199.Google Scholar

page 88 note 4 Pollard, A. F., Henry VIII (London, 1930), p. 429.Google Scholar My italics. See also Williams, C. H., The Making of the Tudor Despotism (London, 2nd ed. 1935), chapter VIII.Google Scholar

page 89 note 1 Ibid. pp. 435-36.

page 89 note 2 Ibid. p. 438.

page 89 note 3 Trevelyan, G. M., History of England(London, 1926), pp. 269–70.Google Scholar

page 89 note 4 Ibid. p. 366.

page 90 note 1 The Tudor Constitution, edited and introduced by Elton, G. R. (Cambridge, 1960), p. 234.Google Scholar

page 91 note 1 Elton, G. R., England under the Tudors (London, 1955), p. 168.Google Scholar

page 91 note 2 Merriman, R. B., Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell (2 vols., Oxford, 1902).Google Scholar

page 91 note 3 Elton, G. R., The Tudor Revolution in Government (Cambridge, 1953).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 91 note 4 See e.g. Merriman, op. cit., i, pp. 89-94.Google Scholar

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page 92 note 1 Merriman, , op. cit., 1, p. 313.Google Scholar

page 92 note 2 Ante, , 5th Ser., 6, pp. 7980.Google Scholar

page 93 note 1 Proceedings in Parliament, 1610, ed. Elizabeth, R. Foster (New Haven and London, 1966), 1, p. xi and ii, p. 301.Google Scholar

page 93 note 2 31 Hen. VIII, c.8. The English is here modernized. Large excerpts from it are printed in Tudor Constitutional Documents, ed. Tanner, J. R. (Camb., 1922), pp. 532–35,Google Scholar and in The Tudor Constitution, ed. Elton, G. R. (Camb., 1960), pp. 2730.Google Scholar

page 93 note 3 Op. cit., i, pp. 123-25. But Maitland saw the significance of the supremacy of statute, namely that these powers derived from Parliament. Maitland, F. W., The Constitutional History of England (Camb., 1955), pp. 253–55. But once bestowed, how can these powers be withdrawn if the king does not choose to summon Parliament. See below, pp. 96-7, 98.Google Scholar

page 95 note 1 Ed. VI, c. 12.Google Scholar

page 95 note 2 Adair, E. R., ‘The Statute of Proclamations’, Eng. Hist. Rev. (1917), 32, p. 45.Google Scholar

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page 96 note 2 Cited in Huber, E. R., Dokumente %ur Deutschen Verfassungsgeschichu (Stuttgart, 1966), 3, p. 604. I owe this reference to Professor Francis Carsten.Google Scholar

page 97 note 1 Merriman, R. B., op. cit., 1, p. 123.Google Scholar

page 98 note 1 Merriman, R. B., op. cit., 1, p. 410.Google Scholar

page 98 note 2 Elton, G. R., ‘Henry VIII's Act of Proclamations’, Eng. Hist. Rev. (1960), 75, p. 220.Google Scholar

page 98 note 3 Cited by Elton, , Eng. Hist. Rev. (1960), 75, loc. cit.Google Scholar

page 98 note 4 Ibid.loc. cit.

page 99 note 1 The standard modern account is Neale, J. E., The Elliabethan House of Commons (London, 1949). See also The Tudor Constitution, ed. Elton, G. R. chapter 8.Google Scholar

page 100 note 1 Sir Thomas, Smith, De Republica Anglorum, ed. Alston, L. (Cambridge, 1906).Google Scholar

page 100 note 2 Ibid., p. 49.

page 100 note 3 Ibid., p. 46.

page 101 note 1 Neale, J. E., Elizabethan House of Commons, pp. 147–48.Google Scholar

page 101 note 2 The chronicler Hall believed that in the 15 29 Parliament, ‘the most parte of the commons were the kynges seruauntes’ (London, 1809 ed., p. 767).Google Scholar

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page 101 note 4 Merriman, R. B., op. cit., 2, p. 199.Google Scholar

page 101 note 5 Maitland, F. W., The Constitutional History of England, p. 252.Google Scholar

page 102 note 1 The Tudor Constitution, ed. G. R. Elton, p. 270.Google Scholar

page 102 note 2 Ibid. p. 313.

page 103 note 1 Cf. Maitland, F. W., The Constitutional History of England, p. 227.Google Scholar

page 104 note 1 Lords Journal, 1, p. 86.Google Scholar

page 104 note 2 Cited in Van Baumer, F. Le, The Early Tudor Theory of Kingship (New Haven, 1940), pp. 104–05.Google Scholar

page 104 note 3 ‘Sacred monarchy was the most operative politico-religious idea of the 16th century, and it was John Foxe who provided a historical justification for the peculiar form of it which underlay the Tudor assumption of supreme authority in both Church and State.’—Google ScholarFrances, Yates in review of Foxe's Book of Martyrs, ed. and abridged by Williamson, G. A., in Encounter (1966), 27, p. 86.Google Scholar

page 105 note 1 Baumer, , op. cit., pp. 220–21.Google Scholar

page 105 note 2 Ibid., p. 224.

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