Book contents
- Royal Justice and the Making of the Tudor Commonwealth, 1485–1547
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
- Royal Justice and the Making of the Tudor Commonwealth, 1485–1547
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the Text
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The New Justice System
- Part II Seeking and Requesting Justice
- Part III Delivering and Contesting Justice
- Chapter 7 Before the King’s Most Honourable Council
- Chapter 8 Answers and Arguments
- Chapter 9 ‘A Final Peax’: Passing Judgment
- Conclusion Justice and the Tudor Commonwealth
- Appendix Personnel in the Court of Requests, 1493–1547
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 7 - Before the King’s Most Honourable Council
from Part III - Delivering and Contesting Justice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 November 2023
- Royal Justice and the Making of the Tudor Commonwealth, 1485–1547
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
- Royal Justice and the Making of the Tudor Commonwealth, 1485–1547
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the Text
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The New Justice System
- Part II Seeking and Requesting Justice
- Part III Delivering and Contesting Justice
- Chapter 7 Before the King’s Most Honourable Council
- Chapter 8 Answers and Arguments
- Chapter 9 ‘A Final Peax’: Passing Judgment
- Conclusion Justice and the Tudor Commonwealth
- Appendix Personnel in the Court of Requests, 1493–1547
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Chapter 7 turns to the recipients of petitions for royal justice and their initiation of litigation. The chapter begins by weighing up the evidence for direct royal involvement in these judicial processes, with particular attention paid to a set of documents signed by Henry VII and Henry VIII personally. Otherwise, based on a survey of the signatures and annotations scattered across the Court of Requests’ early Tudor archive, this chapter identifies the men who delivered justice in this tribunal day to day. Mapping onto the evolutionary trajectory set out in Chapter 3, the overall impression is of transition from a diverse and changeable group of bill handlers within the royal household under Henry VII, followed by a spell in which the household clergy oversaw all business in Requests, and culminating in a smaller quorum of legally trained judges and Masters of Requests by the end of the period. The chapter then spells out the procedures followed once a petition was in the hands of this frontline personnel, and the measures they took to preserve the traditional prioritisation of the poor litigant.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023