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Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Simon Adams
Simon Adams
Affiliation:
The Institute of Historical ResearchLondon
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Extract

THE legacy of Sir Geoffrey Elton to the study of Tudor politics can only be described as paradoxical. For all his reputation as a doyen of what has been termed the Cambridge school of high political history, studies of politics comprise but a small section of his œuvre. He never wrote a substantial account of an episode in high politics in the manner of Maurice Cowling or J. C. D. Clark. If one excludes his textbooks, political subjects are treated primarily in his essays. Even these, though, are not numerous. The section ‘Tudor Politics’ in Studies I contains eleven essays and papers. Four are reviews, two are introductions to reprinted biographies, two are essays on Thomas More and two are the famous studies of Henry VII and Henry VIII (‘Rapacity and Remorse’ and ‘King or Minister?’), which are essentially analyses of personality. Only one article, the early ‘Decline and Fall’, deals with a specific political episode. For a man whose doubts about biography as an exercise are well known, there is a striking amount of biographical material here. Elton's real contribution is to be found in his later essays. Studies 3 contains the ‘Points of Contact’ trilogy, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’ and ‘Arthur Hall’. ‘Hall’, ‘Piscatorial Politics’ in Studies 4 and the final section of Parliament of England form a distinct corpus of Elizabethan political studies.

Type
The Eltonian Legacy
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 7 , December 1997 , pp. 247 - 265
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1997

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References

1 E.g. Cowling, Maurice, The Impact of Hitler (Cambridge, 1975)Google Scholar, or Clark, J. C. D., The Dynamics of Change (Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar.

2 The textbooks, specifically Tudors, Reformation and Reform and Renewal, will not be discussed here in any detail. It could be argued that omitting them weights the scales unfairly, but ultimately they are works of synthesis.

3 For examples, see pp. 250–1, 253 below.

4 See, for example, p. 251 below, and Maitland, 63, as well as his assessment of Pollard in the introduction to the reprint of Wolsey, Studies 1 (6), 110–15.

5 E.g. Political History, 129, 150–1.

6 Ibid., 4.

7 Studies 3 (36), 183.

8 See especially 35ff.

9 ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, Studies 3, 184 n. 1.

10 Political History, 178–9.

11 Ibid., 179.

12 Stone, Lawrence, ‘The Revival of Narrative’, Past and Present, 85 (1979), 3–24, see p. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Ibid., 20.

14 Studies 3, p. 184 n. 1. The reference is to Malament, Barbara, editor of After the Reformation: Essays in Honor of J. H. Hexter (Manchester, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in which the essay first appeared.

15 His command of the literature is best displayed in Political History and Practice, but see also his archival survey England, 1200–1640 (1969), in the series ‘The Sources of History’, of which he was general editor.

16 Studies 4 (57), see p. 119 n. 32.

17 The reference to the ‘disastrous disappearance of Leicester's papers’ in ‘Court’, Studies 3 (33:3), 53, is noted in Adams, S., ‘The Papers of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. I’, Archives, 20 (1992), 63Google Scholar. Elton was surprised to find Welsh Elizabethan parliamentary papers in the MSS of the duke of Northumberland (‘Wales in Parliament’, Studies 4, 98). For the explanation of their presence there, see my review of Studies 4, History, 79 (1994), 137Google Scholar. The third example is found on p. 253 below.

18 Reform and Renewal, vii.

19 ‘Redivivus’, Studies 3 (46), is the nearest approach to an overview.

20 Starkey, David, The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics (1985)Google Scholar. Brigden, Susan, ‘Thomas Cromwell and the “Brethren”’, in Law and Government under the Tudors, ed. Cross, Claire et al. (Cambridge, 1988), 31–49Google Scholar. Robertson, M. L., ‘Profit and Purpose in the Development of Thomas Cromwell's Landed Estates’, Journal of British Studies [hereafter JBS] (1990), 317–46Google Scholar.

21 Tudor Revolution, 425–6.

22 Ibid., 8.

23 Political History, 56.

24 Policy and Police, 2, 4.

25 ‘Commonwealth-Men’, Studies 3 (38).

26 Tudor Revolution, 373. In the later review ‘Tudor Government’, Historical Journal [hereafter HJ], 31 (1988), 428Google Scholar, he was more categorial: ‘Now the book on the Tudor revolution was not about politics; as its subtide explained, it was about administration.’

27 Polity and Police, 382.

28 Ibid., 164.

29 Nor anywhere else for that matter.

30 Reform and Renewal, 65.

31 E.g. ‘Cromwell worked in ways that became almost schematical’, and ‘the subjection of the Church was only part of Cromwell's great political programme’, ‘Redivivus’, Studies 3, 380–1. The programmatic emphasis can also be found in the work of members of Elton's school, e.g. Bradshaw, Brendan, The Irish Constitutional Revolution of the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 The classic description of the parasitical ‘Renaissance Court’ is to be found in Trevor-Roper, H. R., ‘The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century’, in Crisis in Europe 1560–1600, ed. Aston, Trevor (1965), esp. 68–78Google Scholar. The pervasive influence of 1960s provincialism can easily be seen in the first edition (1968) of Anthony Fletcher's very successful textbook Tudor Rebellions.

33 ‘Parliament’, Studies 3 (33:1), 20.

34 Elton used the term himself to describe the councils of Henry VII and early Henry VIII, see Tudor Revolution, 34–5, and Constitution (1982), p. 90. The Elizabethan inner ring is discussed in Adams, , ‘Eliza Enthroned? The Court and its Polities’, in The Reign of Elizabeth I, ed. Haigh, Christopher (1984), 63, 65Google Scholar.

35 ‘Court’, Studies 3, 53.

36 See Adams, , ‘Eliza Enthroned?’, 56–9Google Scholar.

37 ‘Court’, Studies 3, 56.

38 Studies in Church History, 4 (1967), 39–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 A dramatic illustration of the effect of Elton's reappraisal of the Pilgrimage can be found in the comparison of the relevant section (pp. 17–39) of the third edition of Fletcher's, Tudor Rebellions (1983) with the first twoGoogle Scholar.

40 ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, Studies 3 (36), 211.

41 Ives, E. W., ‘Faction at the Court of Henry VIII. The Fall of Anne Boleyn’, History, 57 (1972), 169–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Starkey's general line of argument can be found in the relevant chapters of Reign of Henry VIII. Reference is made to both in ‘Court’ and ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, Studies 3, 51 n. 87, and 210 n. 71.

42 Ives, , ‘Faction’, 182Google Scholar. Starkey, , Reign of Henry VIII, 118Google Scholar, and idem, (ed.) The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (1987), 110–11.

43 ‘Court’, Studies 3, 50, and Reform and Reformation, 267. ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’ may well have been written by the time they were published.

44 The main reports of the conversations are found in Chapuys's despatches of 30 September 1534, 23 March 1535 and 11 July 1535, Letters, Despatches and State Papers, Relating to the Negotiations between England and Spain, V, pt 1[1534–5] (1886), 608–11, 470–1, 512Google Scholar. It might be argued that deposition is not mentioned explicitly, but the references to Charles V declaring war on Henry VIII and executing a bull of excommunication can mean little else. In his account of the plotting (Studies 3, 209–10), Elton employed the summary of the despatch of 30 Sept. 1534 in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, VII (1883), art. 1206Google Scholar.

45 The fall of Anne Boleyn in the interval may have altered die situation. There is a hint of such an argument in ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’, Studies 3, 210.

46 Ibid., 209.

47 Ibid., 212.

48 The reappraisal is to be found in Reign of Henry VIII, English Court, and explicitly in Coleman, Christopher and Starkey, David, ed., Revolution Reassessed (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar.

49 The public exchange was limited to Elton's reviews of Revolution Reassessed and English Court, ‘A New Age of Reform?’ and ‘Tudor Government’, and Starkey's, reply, ‘Tudor Government: The Facts?’, HJ, 30 (1987), 709–16, 31 (1988), 425–34, 921–31Google Scholar. The underlying issue is the distinction between court and government. Both Elton's criticism of Starkey for writing the history of the Tudor court solely in terms of the Privy Chamber and Starkey's argument that the Tudor revolution was one-sided are valid.

50 Parliament, 377.

51 ‘Arthur Hall’, Studies 3 (39), 266.

52 Reign of Elizabeth I, 99. As I observed in my review of Studies 4 (see n. 17 above), no reason is given for the omission of this essay from that volume.

53 Jones, N. L., Faith by Statute: Parliament and the Settlement of Religion 1559, Royal Historical Society, Studies in History, xxxii (1982)Google Scholar. The latest version of Graves's, thesis can be found in Thomas Norton the Parliament Man (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar.

54 ‘Arthur Hall’, 260.

55 Ibid., 262.

56 Thomas Norton, 361–2.

57 ‘Arthur Hall’, 261.

58 Ibid., 266.

59 Neale, J. E., Elizabeth I and her Parliaments I. 1559–1581 (1965 edn), 103–4Google Scholar. See also the discussion of the numerous Grey supporters sitting for Seymour seats in 1563 in Bindoff's, S. T. chapter, ‘Parliamentary History 1529–1688’, in The Victoria History of Wiltshire, V (1957), 129Google Scholar.

60 Parliament, 358–60.

61 Ibid., 358.

62 Ibid., 358, 361. Elton does not identify the peer, but he was clearly the 11th Lord Stafford. ‘The Dudley faction’ is referred to on p. 362.

63 Doran, Susan, Monarchy and Matrimony: The Courtships of Elizabeth I (1996), 60Google Scholar.

64 Ibid., 60–1, 64. She relies heavily on the reports of the Spanish ambassador, Alvaro de La Quadra, particularly that of 15 November 1562. Elton was sceptical of ambassadors as sources for parliamentary proceedings, see his comments on Chapuys's, reports on the parliament of 1532 in ‘Commons Supplication’, Studies 2 (25), 112–13Google Scholar. Doran's, caution about the Dudley faction was derived in part from my conclusions in ‘The Dudley Clientele and the House of Commons, 1559–1586’, Parliamentary History, 8 (1989), 216–39Google Scholar.

65 Monarchy and Matrimony, 61, 64. Norton, 106.

66 Monarchy and Matrimony, 64.

67 Parliament, 358–9. Monarchy and Matrimony, 56–7, 61 2. Norton, 95–7.

68 Axton, Marie, The Queen's Two Bodies: Drama and the Elizabethan Succession, RHS Studies in History (1977), 46Google Scholar.

69 See Adams, , ‘The Release of Lord Darnley and the Failure of the Amity’, in Mary Stewart Queen in Three Kingdoms, ed. Lynch, Michael (Oxford, 1988), 137 n. 117Google Scholar, and Monarchy and Matrimony, 55–7.

70 Graves accepts the connection between Dudley and Gorboduc and denies categorically that Norton and Sackville were members of a Grey faction (p. 97), but other than that Dudley appears only peripherally in Norton. See my review, History, 81 (1996), 656–7Google ScholarPubMed.

71 This argument can be found in ‘Release of Darnley’, 136–7.

72 Ibid., 137 n. 117.

73 Ibid., 136.

74 Parliament, 33. Cf. ‘Release of Darnley’, 128, 138 42.

75 Parliament, 365.

76 Ibid., 367.

77 Alsop, J. D., ‘Reinterpreting the Elizabethan Commons: The Parliamentary Session of 1566’, JBS, 29 (1990), 216–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 Ibid., 221.

79 ‘Release of Darnley’, pp. 126, 138. For Robert Melville, see also Neale, , Elizabeth and her Parliaments I, 158–9Google Scholar.

80 ‘Reinterpreting the Commons’, 239. MacCaffrey, Wallace suggested that Molyneux may have been a partisan of Leicester's in The Shaping of the Elizabethan Regime (Princeton, 1968), 211Google Scholar.

81 Hasler, P. W., ed., The House of Commons 1358–1603 (3 vols., 1981), II, 163Google Scholar.

82 The original of the patent is now Longleat House, Dudley Papers, Box II, art. 12. The Dudley Papers are cited with the kind permission of the marquess of Bath.

83 For Gallys's tenancy, see the Windsor Castle accounts for the period 1562–74, Public Record Office, Special Collections 6/Elizabeth I/136–47. Gallys is not found among the officers of the Castle listed in these accounts. For the reference to his sword, see Longleat, Dudley Papers XIII, fol. 21.

84 This was my conclusion in ‘Dudley Clientele and the Commons’, 225–7, 233. Given the disappearance of the New Windsor records for the reign of Elizabeth I, we are dependent on Elias Ashmole's transcriptions (Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1126). Ashmole (fol. 46) notes the election in 1572 of Gallys and Edmund Dockwra, lieutenant of the Castle, and a letter of recommendation from Leicester. This certainly applied to Dockwra, but it is not clearwhether it included Gallys as well.

85 Hatfield House, Cecil Papers, MS 155, art. 28 (cited with the kind permission of the marquess of Salisbury). See the discussion in Adams, , ‘The Dudley Clientéle, 1553–1563’, in The Tudor Nobility, ed. Bernard, G. W. (Manchester, 1992), 240–1Google Scholar, in which I suggested Mollynex was probably Edmund rather than John. On the basis of further study of the internal evidence, I would now date this document to 1565.

86 The lists are published in Adams, , ed., Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–61, 1584–86, Camden Society, 5th ser., vi (1995), 432–8Google Scholar. To be fair, Molyneux's absence from these lists proves only that he was not a member of Leicester's household.

87 ‘Dudley Clientele and the Commons’, 231.

88 Adamson, J. S. A., ‘Parliamentary Management, Men-of-Business and the House of Lord, 1640–49’, in A Pillar of the Constitution. The House of Lords in British Politics, 1640–1784, ed. Jones, Clive (1989), 21–50, see 45–6Google Scholar.

89 Hollings, Stephen, ‘Court Patronage, County Governors and the Early Stuart Parliaments’, Paragon, n.s. 6 (1988), 121–35, see 122–3Google Scholar.

90 ‘Parliamentary Management’, 32.

91 N.R.N. Tyacke, ‘Wroth, Cecil and the Parliamentary Session of 1604’, and Croft, Pauline, ‘Serving the Archduke: Robert Cecil's Management of the Parliamentary Session of 1606’, Historical Research, 50 (1977), 120–5, and 64 (1991), 289–304Google Scholar.

92 Negative in the sense that Goring was immediately identified as speaking on Buckingham's behalf. See Adams, , ‘Foreign Policy and the Parliaments of 1621 and 1624’, in Faction and Parliament, ed. Sharpe, Kevin (Oxford, 1978), 163Google Scholar, Russell, Conrad, Parliaments and English politics 1621–1629 (Oxford, 1979), 133–5Google Scholar, and Lockyer, Roger, Buckingham (1981), 108–11Google Scholar.

93 ‘Dudley Clientele and the Commons’, 219, 232. I intend to explore the 1584 electioneering in further detail in my planned study The Decision to Intervene: England and the Revolt of the Netherlands 1584–85.

94 ‘Reinterpreting the Commons’, 239.

95 See the famous chapter on the ‘invasion of the boroughs by the country gentlemen’, in Neale, J. E., The Elizabethan House of Commons (1963 edn), 133–54Google Scholar.

96 ‘Piscatorial Polities’, Studies 4 (54), 112–13, 124–5. See also Robert Tittler, ‘Elizabethan Towns and the “Points of Contact”: Parliament’, and Dean, David, ‘London Lobbies and Parliament: The Case of the Brewers and Coopers in the Parliament of 1593’, Parl. Hist., 8 (1989), 275–88, 341–65Google Scholar.

97 ‘Dudley Clientele and the Commons’, 220–3. I have explored this subject further in a paper, ‘The Elizabethan Earl of Leicester as a Patron of Boroughs’, delivered to the Tudor seminar at Cambridge University in 1991. It will be published in a forthcoming collection of my essays and papers.