The Last Tudor Great Councils

Abstract

Henry VII called a number of Great Councils, as his predecessors had for at least two centuries before. Evidence has survived for five such Councils, held in 1487, 1488, 1491, 1496 and 1502. They advised the king on important matters of foreign policy and internal security, with the result that diplomatic and military action was taken and taxes were levied. They each lasted for perhaps two or three weeks, and were attended by lords spiritual and temporal, royal officials, and – on two occasions – by the elected representatives of boroughs. In three cases they coincided with meetings of the clergy in Convocation. Henry VII also held major sessions of his ‘ordinary’ council, lasting for several days at a time, sometimes for over two weeks, and attended by between twenty and sixty people; such large assemblies had been named ‘Great Councils’ in previous reigns, although under Henry VII this does not seem to have been the case. By the end of the Tudor period, by 1603, there is little question that both types of political assembly had disappeared; both the quasi-parliamentary Great Councils and the conciliar ‘Great Councils’. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to determine when this disappearance occurred and to offer some tentative suggestions as to how it happened and with what political consequences.