Tudor Government Research Articles

Publicity and Persuasion in Early Modern England: The Babington Plot and its Aftermath, 1586‒88

Abstract: This article argues that the English Privy Council organised a persuasion campaign in the wake of the Babington Plot (1586). It examines a wealth of sources from a variety of genres, including prayers, sermons, ballads, and treatises, which are often analysed in isolation. It establishes the date of an anonymous sermon delivered at Paul’s Cross to condemn the Babington Plot, and it provides new information about the trials and executions of the traitors, making use of a little-known narrative written by the spy Maliverey Catilyn. The article reaffirms the traditional view that Tudor governments used popular propaganda to promote royal policy, which is of more utility than the theory of the ‘early modern public sphere’.

A Community of Councillors: Tudor Government and Prosopography

The Tudor privy council was the executive board of the English state and its members the leading political players of the era. Historians of Tudor politics have traditionally focused on kings and great men. When they deal with the privy council, they treat councillors in isolation, only exploring their links with others during moments of political strife. The result is a historiography dominated by faction and division. A prosopographical approach – a form of collective biography that helps identify the shared elements in a group’s experiences, and foregrounds the relations between its members - allows us to look at this group of men as a group, and in so doing to see them differently. Their many shared experiences - a childhood spent together at the same grammar school, a tour of Europe’s universities as young adults, joint military service, marriage into the same family, or time spent together hunting, hawking, and feasting - makes it much harder to divide councillors into neat opposing camps. More broadly, this paper uses the case-study of Tudor privy councillors to illustrate how tools taken from the Digital Humanities can enhance and expand the prosopographical approach: in particular modern relational database software moves us beyond simply identifying common themes in the lives of the members of this group, and allows us to explore patterns of interaction between them. Such an approach, moreover, has the potential to enhance our understanding of many other groups of the early modern period. ​

"Much joy and favour to you; you are the King’s now": Cardinal Wolsey as a Domestic Patron

This article explores the secular, political role of Renaissance cardinals, through an analysis of the domestic agenda of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey as Lord Chancellor of England from 1515 to 1529, while positioning him within the context of his near contemporary English and continental cardinal-politicians. Rather than looking to Wolsey’s involvement in foreign affairs, the article explores his use of domestic patronage in the early sixteenth century, in particular his promotion of select individuals for preferment within the structure of early Tudor government; it is particularly concerned with the selection of personnel for Somerset's commissions of the peace. The article stresses the importance of the household in selecting these individuals and discusses how these relationships were created and maintained. The article also explores Wolsey’s attitude towards the nobility and considers whether his attitude towards Somerset can shed any light on whether he was hostile towards the aristocracy. Indeed, the article demonstrates that Wolsey sought an alternative to dominant forces within the county structure. Instead, Wolsey looked to employ a broad group of reliable local knights rather than electing to forge a relationship with a single county representative. What seems clear is that the greater gentry very much acted as the crown’s enforcers within the county, largely in the hope of positioning themselves to receive royal and ministerial patronage in the form of land and office. Finally, the article highlights the significant changes to the composition of England's governing classes after Wolsey’s fall, with a clear shift from clerical to secular personnel.

The Religion of the Yorkshire Gentry, 1531–1553: The Evidence of Wills

Using the evidence of wills, this paper focuses on the religion of the Yorkshire gentry from 1531 to 1553. It is primarily based on 92 testaments, which have not been studied in detail before, for evidence of the reactions of Yorkshire’s gentry to the Henrician and Edwardian Reformations. Whilst the majority remained committed to the old religion — which commanded much loyalty due in part to the coexistence it allowed between privatised and communal forms of worship — there was a reformed minority amongst this group. The Henrician and Edwardian Reformations eroded the traditional religious landscape by three means: silence being imposed on committed Catholics by top-down governmental reforms; practical, pragmatic reformers collaborating with the Tudor government in pursuit of material gain; and the ideological allure of the New Learning. Whilst the watchword was conservatism in religious matters for most of these testators, the Reformation still made some notable headway amongst a few.

“Those in Their Possession”: Race, Slavery, and Queen Elizabeth’s “Edicts of Expulsion”

At the turn of the seventeenth century, Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council issued three documents that authorized the removal of “negars and blackamoores” from England. These documents have become a frequent point of reference in studies of race in early modern English literature, with most critics reading them as edicts of expulsion. Turning to histories of the Iberian slave trade and the Tudor government, Emily Weissbourd argues that these documents in fact implicate the Privy Council in a nascent slave trade in black Africans. This suggests that a discourse that linked blackness with slavery already circulated in the late sixteenth century in England.

The Speed and Efficiency of the Tudor South‐West's Royal Post‐Stage Service

AbstractThis article examines the roads upon which the Tudor government's postal arrangements rested, the methods deployed by central government for sending and receiving official mail nationwide, and the network of exchequer‐funded post‐stages that connected London with the south‐western periphery of the realm during periods of war, rebellion and political turmoil. The article also uses a large number of postal endorsements to measure objectively the speed and efficiency of the Tudor south‐west's royal post‐stage service. In doing so, the study's primary goal is to demonstrate that this mode of government dispatch was more rapid and reliable than the majority of historians, who have relied on anecdotal subjective evidence, recognize.

Monasteries and Society in the British Isles in the Later Middle Ages (review)

Reviewed by: Monasteries and Society in the British Isles in the Later Middle Ages David Robinson Monasteries and Society in the British Isles in the Later Middle Ages. Edited by Janet Burton and Karen Stöber. [Studies in the History of Medieval Religion, XXXV.] (Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press. 2008. Pp. xiv, 252. $95.00. ISBN 978-1-843-83386-4.) As the editors of this very welcome collection of essays state in their introduction, the growth of scholarly interest in British medieval monastic history over recent decades is to be applauded. Diligent new scholars have advanced the subject from strength to strength, often moving into hitherto unchartered areas and forcing a reassessment of the work of earlier generations. Notably, we have seen a shift away from a predominantly institutional approach to monasticism, and there is now much greater interest in what Janet Burton and Karen Stöber term “socio-cultural-economic” issues. A further development is the increasing attention paid to the smaller and superficially less interesting [End Page 335] houses, redressing the imbalance that at one time favored large and well-documented abbeys and priories. Burton and Stöber are two hugely energetic teachers and researchers at Welsh universities. Both through their own work, and as tireless conference organizers, they have contributed much to the recent developments. The fifteen papers they have gathered in this particular volume all emphasize the points made above, but the collection also highlights one other significant recent trend—namely, the need to challenge older assumptions about the quality of the religious life in the later Middle Ages. Indeed, not one of these essays looks at twelfth-century monastic growth, focusing instead on what follows between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. The book is divided into six sections or themes (for convenience, it is said), but the boundaries are far from rigid, and overlap occurs. The editors state that together the papers “offer insight into important interactions between two types of society in medieval Britain, the monastic houses and the broader communities of which they were part” (p. 7). On the whole, readers will surely agree with this assessment, though they may also feel the material is sometimes stretched too thinly over each theme, four of which are illustrated by just two essays a piece. In the first section, “The Meeting of Worlds,” there is a closely worded essay by Martin Heale on the selection of monastic superiors in the late Middle Ages. He argues for the importance of external influence, particularly the Tudor government in the decades before the suppression. Also in this section is an essay by Stöber on the social networks of monasteries in Wales, one on Cistercian hospitality by Julie Kerr, and another on the Cistercians and border conflicts by Emilia Jamroziak. Section 2 looks at “Religious Houses and Their Patrons and Benefactors.” Here the coverage extends to Ireland, and the Observant Franciscans at Adare are considered by Colmán Ó Clabaigh, who also offers insights into patterns of patronage of the Irish mendicants generally. Next, Andrew Abram shows how the small Augustinian house at Wombridge in Shropshire attracted and retained the support of a few minor knightly families throughout its history, ensuring its survival in an area where competition for monastic patronage was always intense. Closing the section, Michael Hicks presents an interesting essay explaining the rising costs that may have contributed to a decline in monastic patronage after about 1300. In section 3 the content turns to “Female Communities,” with an exploratory but assured contribution by Burton on the recruitment of nuns in Yorkshire, and another by Kimm Perkins-Curran in which she argues for the importance of local families in defining the duties of a prioress in Scotland. The fourth section deals with “Monasteries and Education,” in which James Clark gives a fresh and stimulating appraisal of the ongoing role of late-medieval monasteries in education. This is accompanied by Glyn Coppack’s essay on Carthusian Mount Grace, in which archaeological evidence comes to the fore. [End Page 336] The last two sections cover “Monasteries and Urban Space” and “Religious Houses in the Regions.” There is an essay on early Franciscan legislation and lay society (Jens R...

Religious Exiles and the Tudor State

Much of the best recent scholarship on the implementation of the Tudor Reformations has chosen as its leitmotif the themes of obedience, conformity and acquiescence, collaboration even. The revisionism of the 1980s and 1990s overthrew convincingly the notion of widespread popular enthusiasm for religious change. But given that changewassuccessfully imposed, part of revisionism’s legacy has been a somewhat optimistic assessment of the capabilities of the Tudor state. Whether allied to the cause of religious reform, or that of religious reaction, Tudor governments were apparently remarkably effective at enforcing their will, largely because of their ability to co-opt the energies and loyalties of locally-based elites and sub-elites. In terms of this volume’s twin themes, it appears to be a case of discipline successfully exerted; diversity effectively curtailed.

Mid-Tudor Politics and Political Culture

Contemporary discussions of Mid-Tudor politics are using the concept of “political culture” to bring nuance to our understanding of the politics of the era. Older debates about the nature of Tudor government have given way to explorations of how politics were shaped by the shared ideas, systems, and social values of the ruling elites and their subjects. These days the boundaries between politics, religion, and popular culture in Tudor England are very blurred. For the current generation of scholars, it is natural to blend high and low, popular and elite together, and to ask how they shaped the people and the decisions that were at the core of an earlier generation’s political history. Consequently, current discussions about Tudor politics are being framed in terms of “political culture” and situated in a wider British context. The dominant model of Tudor politics in the mid to late twentith century assumed government power over the people and argued about just how “top down” the Reformation in England had been. Sir Geoffrey Elton and his many students explored the institutions of governance and debated with Sir John Neale and Geoffrey Dickens about the nature of Tudor government. Was it despotic, centralizing, maturing, modernizing? And did the vagaries of the Reformation alter its nature? Those debates began to lose steam in the late twentith century as many of the people who had studied with Elton and his peers turned to the question of how a monarch could impose religious change. Where were the forces of resistance that one could expect, given the religious wars of their neighbors? And how did institutions respond to the reinvention of their identities? Did people meekly accept the alterations, and did the Reformation fundamentally change people’s relations to government? Many of these questions could only be answered by asking about how religious and political identity worked in Mid-Tudor England. Eamon Duffy’s Stripping of the Altars (1991) combined with Christopher Haigh’s English Reformations (1993) to put the question of religious identity together with politics in ways that prefigured the work of a number of their colleagues and students. Duffy demonstrated the power of

Mediating the Word: Language and Dialects in the British and Irish Reformations

Translating the Scriptures into the vernacular was a primary concern of Protestant reformers. This led to worries about the precise language-form in which they should be made accessible to lay folk. This article situates such evangelical debates within contemporary understanding of the nature and role of native tongues. Tudor and Stuart governments sometimes saw English as a tool of political control; humanists questioned the ‘copiousness’ of the vernacular; the Celtic tongues were readily identified with barbarity; the status of the written word might be contaminated by the use of dialect. Translators and authors sought to address these concerns, with great success in England, Lowland Scotland and Wales, but much less effectively in Gaelic-speaking Ireland and Scotland.

English Professional Theatre, 1530–1660 ed. by Glynne Wickham, Herbert Berry, William Ingram

ESC 28, 2002 stole several books, including English histories, on Christmas Day 1620. But Reading History in Early Modern England is well worth acquiring by honest means. It is a major contribution to our understanding of the cultural configurations of this period of significant change. DAVID FREEMAN / Sir Wilfrid Grenfell College English Professional Theatre, 1530-1660. Ed. Glynne Wick­ ham, Herbert Berry, and W illiam Ingram. Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 2001. 714. $140.00 (U.S.) cloth. W hat a feast! Trying in a brief review to do justice to a treasuretrove , to a rich reference work of this scope, is very difficult. The sixth volume in the series “Theatre in Europe: A documentary history,” this book maps the narrative history of the English theatre by presenting a comprehensive array of original doc­ uments (or excerpts) according to three scenarii. First, edited by Glynne Wickham, come eighty-nine chronologically arranged documents that show how and why successive Tudor and early Stuart monarchs attem pted to bring the theatre under their control. Next, edited by William Ingram, are one hundred and eight documents that depict the lives and fortunes of profes­ sional actors and their widely varying reputation in the eyes of the public at large. The final section, by far the largest, is edited by Herbert Berry; he presents three hundred and twenty docu­ ments illustrating the histories of the twenty-three playhouses that were built or rented in London from 1567 to 1642. Berry arranges his vast array of materials by theatre, and presents each playhouse in order of its opening date. The editors stitch together their materials with succinct introductions, notes, and other explanatory passages — and for each playhouse, Professor Berry also pinpoints its modern location. Sometimes the notes and explanations are quixotically misplaced; a more thorough copy-editing at the page-proof stage would have been beneficial. In counting the above numbers of documents, I have followed the numbering used in the volume; in many cases, however, a “document” really presents numbers of documents from differ­ ent originals. For example, No. 504, “The second Fortune play­ 718 REVIEWS house comes to an end, 1649-1739” (646-48), collects excerpts from seven narratives, plays, letters, advertisements, and his­ torical accounts. Hence it would likely take many hours just to enumerate all the different documents that comprise this vast volume. A ten-page bibliography lists all the printed sources, and a comprehensive index makes it easy to track down partic­ ular persons, places, or subjects. Much here is familiar because no such collection could ex­ clude well-known and crucial sources such as, say, the Fortune contract (No. 417). All the documents are fresh transcriptions from the originals, except in a few cases where those have been destroyed or mislaid. The texts are presented in modernized spelling and punctuation, with abbreviations silently expanded. Purists may question these decisions, which accord with the guidelines of the series; for the intended audiences (teachers and students) the texts are clear and intelligible. Those wishing to consult other versions are guided by notes, immediately be­ low each main entry-heading, that locate the originals and list previous transcriptions. One is impressed by the number of doc­ uments whose previous discovery and publication are the work of the present editors. As well, much here is new, as is shown by the number of transcriptions that appear here for the first time; the collection breaks much wholly new ground. Throughout their scholarly careers, the three editors have expended much of their energies on the discovery and study of original sources; their expertise and devotion are apparent on every page. Considerations of space have necessitated omission of all forms of am ateur and occasional theatricals, including masques, although documents outlining the Tudor governments’ moves to control the Corpus Christi and other local religious plays are included. As well, the volume does not present overviews of the history of dram atic companies (as opposed to playhouses) or the careers of playwrights or their plays. As the editors ad­ mit, “these are serious omissions” (7), but they are perhaps understandable given the length of the book as it is. While the term inal date of 1642 is...

Language and nationality: the role of policy towards Celtic languages in the consolidation of Tudor power

This article considers the attitude of the governing elite in sixteenth‐century England to the minority languages spoken by subjects within their jurisdiction, concentrating on Cornish, Welsh and Irish. Perhaps influenced by the tendency of nineteenth‐century nationalists to equate nationality and language, historians have assumed that Tudor governments were hostile to languages other than English and wished to suppress them. An examination of a variety of sources leads to the suggestion that this was not the case. There was a certain amount of apprehension in the political sphere in the 1530s but in the second half of the century cultural perception of languages dominated as attempts to spread the Protestant faith led to an encouragement of the range of vernaculars. The conclusion points to parallels between sixteenth‐century and contemporary sympathy towards minority cultures in the context of the devolution debate.

Shorter note. Tudor Government. Structures of Authority in the Sixteenth Century. David Loades

Journal Article Shorter note. Tudor Government. Structures of Authority in the Sixteenth Century. David Loades Get access SJ Gunn SJ Gunn Merton College, Oxford, UK Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume 114, Issue 457, June 1999, Pages 702–703, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/114.457.702 Published: 01 June 1999

Shorter note. Tudor Government. Structures of Authority in the Sixteenth Century. David Loades

Shorter note. Tudor Government. Structures of Authority in the Sixteenth Century. David Loades

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Lay Taxes in England and Wales 1188–1688. By M. Jurkowski, C. L. Smith and D. Crook. Images of Rule. Art and Politics in the English Renaissance, 1485–1649. By David Howarth. Inventing a Republic. The Political Culture of the English Commonwealth, 1649–1653. By Sean Kelsey. Tudor Government. Structures of Authority in the Sixteenth Century. By David Loades. The History of the Reign of King Henry VII and Selected Works. By Francis Bacon. Edited by Brian Vickers. The English Levellers. Edited by Andrew Sharp. Peerage Creations 1649–1800. A Chronological List of Creations in the Peerages of England and Great Britain. Compiled by J. C. Sainty. Officials of the Royal Household, 1660–1837. Part 2: Departments of the Lord Steward and the Master of the Horse. Compiled by J. C. Sainty and R. O. Bucholz. The Early Parties and Politics in Britain, 1688–1832. By Brian Hill. Divided Loyalties, The Question of the Oath for Irish Catholics in the Eighteenth Century. By Patrick Fagan. Maps of the Mediterranean Regions. Published in British Parliamentary Papers 1801–1921. By Susan Gole. Print Politics. The Press and Radical Opposition in Early Nineteenth‐Century England. By Kevin Gilmartin. Gladstone. Edited by Peter J. Jagger. The Mid‐Victorian Generation 1846–1886. By K. Theodore Hoppen. Benjamin Disraeli Letters. Volume Six, 1852–1856. Edited by M. G. Wiebe, Mary S. Millar and Ann P. Robson. Irish Home Rule 1867–1921. By Alan O'Day. Facing Fascism. The Conservative Party and the European Dictators, 1935–1940. By N. J. Crowson.

Early Modern

The Task of Healing: Medicine, Religion and Gender in England and the Netherlands, 1450–1800. Edited by Hilary Marland and Margaret Pelling Clandestine Marriage in England, 1500–1850. By R. B. Outhwaite Tudor Government: Structures of Authority in the Sixteenth Century. By David Loades Wales and the Reformation. By Glanmor Williams Reformation and Society in Guernsey. By D. M. Ogier Medicine and the Reformation. Edited by Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham Scottish Education since the Reformation. By R. D. Anderson Civic Agendas and Religious Passion: Châlons‐sur‐Marne during the French Wars of Religion, 1560–1594. By Mark W. Konnert The Town Finances of Elizabethan Ipswich: Select Treasurers' and Chamberlains' Accounts. Edited by John Webb Conforming to the Word: Herbert, Donne, and the English Church before Laud. By Daniel Doerksen Italy in the Seventeenth Century. By Domenico Sella Ethics and Politics in Seventeenth Century France: Essays in Honour of Derek A. Watts. Edited by Keith Cameron and Elizabeth Woodrough The Thirty Years War: The Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618–1648. By Ronald G. Asch Charles I. By Michael B. Young The Rise of Brandenburg Prussia. By Margaret Shennan The English Civil War. Edited by Richard Cust and Ann Hughes Popular Politics and Religion in Civil War London. By Keith Lindley Faction and Faith: Politics and Religion of the Cornish Gentry before the Civil War. By Anne Duffin Inventing a Republic: The Political Culture of the English Commonwealth, 1649–1653. By Sean Kelsey Violence and Religion: Attitudes towards Militancy in the French Civil Wars and the English Revolution. By Judy Sproxton John Locke. By W. M. Spellman Citizens without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789. By Daniel Gordon The English Print 1688–1802. By Timothy Clayton The Long Eighteenth Century: British Political and Social History 1688–1832. By Frank O'Gorman Benjamin Collins and the Provincial Newspaper Trade in the Eighteenth Century. By C. Y. Ferdinand The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, Volume III: Party, Parliament, and the American War 1774–1780. Edited by W. M. Elofson and John A. Woods The Abolition of Feudalism: Peasants, Lords and Legislators in the French Revolution. By John Markoff Bolingbroke: Political Writings. Edited by David Armitage

Tudor government: structures of authority in the sixteenth century

Tudor government: structures of authority in the sixteenth century

The Hidden Editions of Thomas East

Thomas East was a specialist in music printing during one of the richest eras of musical composition in England (1588-1608). In this span of twenty years, the English madrigal was born, great strides were taken in Protestant genres of psalm-tune settings and anthems, and William Byrd, the foremost composer of his day, brought forth his superb collections of English secular song, motets, and Mass settings. Like most of his London colleagues in the printing field, East was a member of the Stationers' Company, the London livery company empowered by the Tudor government to regulate the trade of printing and publishing.' East's work, however, was not fully controlled by this Company; as is well known, the Queen had granted a twenty-one year monopoly for music printing and printed music paper to Thomas Tallis and Byrd in 1575 (which was renewed by Thomas Morley for another twenty-one years in September of 1598). Thus, as a music printer, East also operated within the confines of the notorious Elizabethan system of patent monopolies.2 Due to the special protections of the monopolistic system, East enjoyed a nearly exclusive role as the printer for Byrd from 1588 to 1596. After Byrd's monopoly expired, East worked closely with composers as prominent as Morley, John Wilbye, and Thomas Weelkes among others; he also premiered many of the most acclaimed anthologies of English Renaissance music (see Table 1, Music Printed by Thomas East).

Tudor Frontiers and Noble Power: The Making of the British State.

This controversial book offers a novel perspective on Tudor government and British state formation. It argues that traditional studies focusing on lowland England as 'the normal context of government' exaggerate the regime's successes by marginalizing the borderlands. Frontiers were normal in early-modern Europe, however, and central to the problem of state formation. England's peripheries were more extensive than the core and provide the real yardstick by which the effectiveness of government can be measured. Ellis demonstrates their importance by means of a detailed comparative study of two marches - Cumbria and Ireland - and their ruling magnates. He demonstrates the flaws in early Tudor policy, characterized by long periods of neglect, interspersed with sporadic attempts to adapt, at minimal cost, a centralized administrative system geared to lowland England for the government of outlying regions which had very different social structures. Ellis analyses the 1534 crisis in crown-magnate relations, reassesses the resulting policy of centralization and uniformity, and identifies the central role of these developments in establishing a British pattern of state formation.

ONE AND MANY ‐ THE OFFICE OF SECRETARY OF STATE

This article seeks to explain the nature of the office of Secretary of State in the United Kingdom, and how these arrangements have come about. It traces the office from its mediaeval origins, and finds the explanation partly in the development of Tudor government, and partly in the politics of the eighteenth century. It then traces the modem development of this doctrine and some of the ramifications to which it has given rise. Fourteen out of the twenty‐two members of the British Cabinet hold the same office. Yet simultaneously they are described by fourteen different titles. The office that they share is that of ‘Secretary of State’: their various titles are the ‘Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs’, the ‘Secretary of State for the Home Department’ and so on. The purpose of this article is to explain these curious arrangements, which rival in complexity the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity, and to show how they have come about.