A reply to Helen Speight

Abstract

I530s, as set out in the thoughtful essay above, offers an alternative to my own and to Professor Elton's, and is shaped by the 'county community' school of historians who have in the past three decades added much to our knowledge of the nature, composition and attitudes of the local governing classes. From this 'provincial rather than a court-based vantage point' [Speight p. 638], the importance of events, individuals and local affairs appears quite different than it would to a central government of king, court and Thomas Cromwell; our differing interpretations present an interesting illustration of the degree to which an historian's interests may inform her conclusions. As it happens, the foundations of both arguments occupy a good deal of common ground. We agree that government in the southwest, as elsewhere in England, depended on the co-operation of the ruling gentry elites who traditionally monopolized local offices; that there was reform in the government of the provinces of the Tudor state during the sixteenth century [Speight p. 638]; that 'Cromwell took a particularly active interest in local government and showed an acute awareness of its importance' [Speight p. 637]; that he influenced the appointments of some western sheriffs, but did not try to pack the commissions of the peace, the composition of which exhibited a remarkable continuity throughout the period (the argument that he was influential in