alford on tudor history

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Politics and Political History in the Tudor CenturyAuthor(s): Stephen AlfordSource: The Historical Journal, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Jun., 1999), pp. 535-548Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3020999

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TheHistoricalournal,2, 2 (I999), pp. 535-548 Printed n the UnitedKingdom? I999 CambridgeUniversityPress

HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEWSPOLITICS AND POLITICAL HISTORY IN THE

TUDOR CENTURYSTEPHEN ALFORD

FitzwilliamCollege,Cambridge

ABSTRACT. Recentwritingon the Tudorcentury mphasizeshe importanceo thehistoryofpoliticsof thestudyof politicalprocesses.Tudorhistorians re, or themost art, lesswilling thanhithertoodescribe ureaucraciesr nstitutionsf government,ndmore oncernedopresent oliticsas something ynamic ather han tatic.Althoughheirwork emains ootedn thearchives,Tudorspecialistsare increasingly eceptive o the significance f (for example)political language,iconography,nd iterature. hisarticle xamines number f recent ontributions,n thecontext fpost-warTudor istoriography.t acceptshat he nsights f other isciplinesanenhancehestudyof sixteenth-centuryolitics,andwelcomeshe intellectual nd cultural urn n recentwriting,butmaintainshat Tudor ultures notalwaysbeingreconstructedith thesensitivityt needs.

In recentyears, historians of early modern Britain have spent some time examining thestate and nature of writing on the Tudor century. In his inaugural lecture as RegiusProfessorof Modern History in the University of Cambridge in I989, PatrickCollinsondiscusseda 'history with the politics put back', but the sort of politics he discussed wentwell beyond the interestsof other generations of sixteenth-century historians.ProfessorCollinson's history was a history of political process rather than of sovereign states, adiscipline capable ofdealing with ideas and ideologies aswell as social and ecclesiasticalpreoccupations.' More recently,John Guy has presentedan agenda for a 'new politicalhistory' of the sixteenth century, built in part on ProfessorCollinson'scall forpolitics tobe put back, but broaderin focus, sensitive to the work of historians of political thoughtand the insights of writing which moves beyond a consideration of lowland England.ProfessorGuy emphasizes the importance of studying the interaction between people,institutions, and ideas; of combining archival research with a sensitivity to literary andiconographical sources; of recognizing political language, and in particular thevocabulary of counsel; of understanding the impact of classical writing on sixteenth-centurynotions ofduty and service,and the effect this eventually had on conceptsof thestate; and of the wider reach of the polity, in Ireland, Wales, and the borderlands ofEngland.2

This is, potentially, a huge undertakingbased on an already substantial body of work- even a basic reading list would have to include studies by Margaret Aston, PatrickCollinson, Steven Ellis, Steven Gunn, John Guy, Dale Hoak, Markku Peltonen, J. G.

1 Patrick Collinson, 'De republicaAnglorum: r, history with the politics put back', in hisElizabethanssays London and Rio Grande, I994), pp. I-29.2 John Guy, ed. The TudormonarchyLondon, I997), pp. i-8.

535


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536 STEPHEN ALFORDA. Pocock, Quentin Skinner, David Starkey, and Maurizio Viroli.3 It represents animportant shift in focus for Tudor political history, which has conventionallyemphasized the administrative, bureaucratic, and constitutional dimensions of (mainlycentral) government. The two dominant figures of Tudor history during the first half ofthe twentieth century, A. F. Pollard and Sir John Neale, both wrote in a traditionwhich emphasized the development of modern forms of government. Their studies ofthe Tudor parliaments, for example, explored growing constitutional tensions betweengovernment and MPs which led, almost inevitably, to collapse in the I640s.4 Theapproach of the pre-eminent figure of the post-war period, Sir Geoffrey Elton, wasradically different in terms of interpretation, shattering Neale's model of puritanopposition in the Elizabethan parliaments 5 but although Elton dealt with the issuesofsovereignty and royal supremacy, his research was still primarily administrative infocus. In Elton's edited volume on The Tudor onstitution,or example, a book which hasinfluenced school and university students fornearly forty years, the text of the preambleto the Act of Appeals (I 533) - the classic statement of imperial monarchy- is absorbedinto a highly constitutional model of the Tudor 'state' centred on crown, council,secretariat, financial administration, courts, parliament, and the church.6It is perhapsworth comparing this approach with the thoughts of the medievalist K. B. McFarlaneon the relationship between the institutions of government and its operation:'Institutions sometimes seem to have a life of their own, but this is only an appearance.They are born, develop, change, and decay by human agencies. Their life is the life ofthe men who make them. 7

The recent rethinking of Tudor political history has been a gradual process, firmlyrootedin an historiographywhich goes back to the I95os, carefullywritten, and stronglydefended. In I979, Penry Williams presented an account of Tudor governance whichconcentrated 'on describingthe ways in which government actually worked, the people3 It should be emphasized that this is a limited selection of key studies: Margaret Aston, Theking's bedpost: eformationnd iconographyn a Tudorportrait roup (Cambridge, I993); Collinson,Elizabethan ssays;Steven Ellis, Tudorrontiers ndnoble ower: themaking f theBritish tate (Oxford,I995); S. J. Gunn, Early Tudor overnment,485-I558 (Basingstokeand London, I995) ;John Guy,

'Tudor monarchy and its critiques', in Guy, ed. Tudormonarchy,p. 78-iog; Dale Hoak, ed. Tudorpolitical ulture Cambridge, I995); Markku Peltonen, Classical umanismndrepublicanismn Englishpolitical hought,57o-i640 (Cambridge, i995) ; J. G. A. Pocock, ed., The varieties f Britishpoliticalthought,50o-i800 (Cambridge, I993); Quentin Skinner, Reason ndrhetoricn thephilosophyfHobbes(Cambridge, i996); David Starkey, ed., TheEnglishcourt:rom the Warsof theRoses o theCivil War(London, I987); Maurizio Viroli, From olitics o reason f state: theacquisitionnd ransformationf thelanguage f politics, 25a-i600 (Cambridge, I992).4 For example, A. F. Pollard, Theevolutionf parliamentLondon, I920), especially pp. i66-86;and J. E. Neale, 'The Commons' privilege of free speech in parliament', in R. W. Seton-Watson,ed., Tudor tudies London, I 924), pp. 257-86.5 For a statement of Elton's position on Neale, see G. R. Elton, 'Parliament', in ChristopherHaigh, ed., Thereignof Elizabeth (London and Basingstoke, i984), pp. 79-I00.6 G. R. Elton, ed., The Tudor onstitution: ocumentsndcommentaryCambridge, ig60; 2nd edn

I982).7 K. B. McFarlane, Thenobility f latermedieval ngland Oxford, I997 edn), p. 280, a quotationemployed by Steven Gunn in his illuminating discussionof the historiographicalinheritances ofElton and McFarlane: Gunn, Early Tudor overnment,p. 2-5.


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HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEWS 537who ranit, the impact that it made upon society, and the reasonsfor its survival'. It was,above all, a book 'more concerned with processes than with structure .8 The collectionof essays edited by Christopher Coleman and David Starkey, Revolutioneassessedi 986),presentedan account of politics which substantially revised Elton's interpretation of therevolutionary I 530s.9JohnGuy's exploration of' Thomas Cromwelland the intellectualorigins of the Henrician revolution' (i 986) effectively rewrote the PastandPresent ebateof the I 96os, and it could do this because of the doctoral work of Graham Nicholson andVirginia Murphy on the intellectual context of the politics of Henry VIII's divorce.10Atthe same time, Tudor historiansare still debating Elton's impact on the subject. Paperspresented at the Institute of Historical Research in March I996, examining his writingson law, parliament, politics, religion, and practice of history, have recently beenpublished in the Transactionsf theRoyalHistoricalSociety.11Tudor overnment,y David Loades, reflects this complex historiographicalheritage. 2It is a book primarily aimed at a student audience, representative of traditionalconcerns meeting new horizons. It presents readers with the mechanics of whatProfessorLoades believes to be essential features of the Tudor system.Working out fromthe centre of government, and an account of the role of political, legal, and fiscalinstitutions, the book considers the regions, county organization, urban government(including two case studies of Norwich as a county borough and the smallNottinghamshire town of Retford), the church, and the nature of franchises andlordships. The approach is clear and uncomplicated, and the book ends with whatstudents may consider a godsend - a three-page epilogue in the form of a summary,dealing with the issue of whether the polity was more united in I6oo than it had beenat the beginning of the Tudor century.

At the same time, Professor Loades has inherited a tradition which seems to bestruggling with its own identity, and so the message of Tudor overnments sometimescuriously mixed. The first sentence of the book maintains that 'Constitutional historyhas been out of fashion for a generation', and the first page establishesa general thesis:that 'recent political historyhas paid little attention to the skeletonof government', andthat, more to the point, Tudor politics makes little sense without a governmental'framework'. 'Statics' rather than 'dynamics' are ProfessorLoades's major concerns,but for a book which sets out to explain in clear terms the basic skeleton of government,

8 Penry Williams, The Tudor egime Oxford, I 979), p. vii.Christopher Coleman and David Starkey, eds., Revolution eassessed: evisionsn the historyofTudor overnmentndadministrationOxford, I986).10 John Guy, 'Thomas Cromwell and the intellectual origins of the Henrician revolution', inAlastair Fox and John Guy, Reassessinghe Henrician ge: humanism, olitics, and reform Oxford,

I986), pp. I5I-78, reprinted in Guy, ed., Tudormonarchy,p. 2I3-33; G. R. Elton, 'The Tudorrevolution: a reply', Past andPresent,9 (i 964), pp. 28-42; G. L. Harriss, 'A revolution in Tudorhistory?' Past and Present, I (I965), pp. 87-90; G. D. Nicholson, 'The nature and function ofhistorical argument in the Henrician reformation' (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, I977). V. M.Murphy, 'The debate over Henry VIII's first divorce: an analysisof the contemporarytreatises'(Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, I984); Graham Nicholson, 'The Act of Appeals and the EnglishReformation', in Claire Cross, David Loades, and J. J. Scarisbrick, eds., Law andgovernmentnderthe Tudors Cambridge, I988), pp. I9-30; Virginia Murphy, 'The literature and propaganda ofHenry VIII's first divorce', in Diarmaid MacCulloch, ed., Thereign f HenryVIII: politics, olicyandpiety (London and Basingstoke, I995), pp. I35-58.Transactionsf theRoyalHistoricalSociety, ixth series, 7 (I997), pp. I77-336.

12 David Loades, Tudor overnmentOxford, I997) .


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538 STEPHEN ALFORD'Structures of authorityin the sixteenth century' seems an odd choice for a subtitle. Theimpact of this mixed historiographical nheritance has some rather disconcerting results.An interesting measure of this is the introductory essay on 'Theories of authority',which charts the development of sixteenth-century political thinking and measuresitagainst practical experience of government. There is a tension between this briefintroduction to intellectual history and Tudorgovernment'snstitutional analysis ofgovernment, and this becomes the major underlying (and probably unintentional)theme of the book. ProfessorLoades acknowledges that Steven Gunn (in Early Tudorgovernment)nd Penry Williams (in The Tudor egime) ave written fine studiesof politicaldevelopment, but he reacts almost instinctively to recent uninterest in institutionalstudies of Tudor government (p. viii). Loades recognizes that in The Tudor onstitution,Elton seriously underplayed local government (p. viii); Tudor overnmentemedies thisby considering the localities (including Ireland) as well as the centre.13 At the sametime, ProfessorLoades's account of the royal court, in his own words 'the theatre andfocus of a personal monarchy' (p. 246), covers eighteen pages and it is separatedfromthe section on 'Crown and council' by over two hundred.There are important conceptual problems associated with writing an institutionalaccount of Tudor government. First of all, it is dangerous to assume that there was aninstitutional structure or pattern to Tudor government which, apart from clear changesof function or personnel,remainedsubstantially unchanged. From the other side of thetraditional divide, medieval historians have dismantled inherited nineteenth-centurywriting on a constitutional framework or the fifteenthcentury.14 So there are profoundimplications for the sixteenth if (as Professor Loades seems to suggest) we need tounderstand 'the framework' (singular) of the Tudor period (p. viii). There were, ifanything, multiple frameworksand many interpretations. The challenge of writing thehistory of this period lies in the complexity of reconstructingwhat were, in effect, livingorganizations. Exchequer, Chancery, King's Bench, and privy council did not leadindependent existences. They were firmly located within a political system, and theirrelationships were necessarily dynamic.

This tension between the formal structure of Tudor politics and its informalreality isclear in ProfessorLoades'sexploration of the monarch's council as part of the 'centralmachinery' of government. The emphasis is 'executive and judicial', and his accountfocuses on the administrative duties of the council and its development over thesixteenth century. For ProfessorLoades, advising the monarch was the most 'nebulousof the council's functions' (p. I9). The monarch's council clearly and undoubtedly hada range of administrativeandjudicial functions,and yet ProfessorLoadeshimself makesthe point that there was (in theoryat least) no sense ofcollective orcabinet responsibility(p. 19). The distinctionisbetween 'council' and 'counsel'. 'Counsel' did not necessarilymean 'council' or vice versa, and writers n the sixteenth century often did not make thedistinction clear.15 There are more difficulties which make an institutional recon-struction of advice to the Tudor monarchs almost impossible. Counselling the monarch

13 Elton, ed., Tudor onstitution,p. 462-82.14 John Watts, Henry VI and thepolitics of kingship (Cambridge, I996), pp. I-9, I3-I4; Christine

Carpenter, Locality ndpolity: a studyof Warwickshireanded ociety, 40I-I499 (Cambridge, I992),pp. I-I3; Christine Carpenter, The Wars of theRoses: politicsand the constitution,. I437-I509(Cambridge, I997), pp. 6-26.

15 John Guy, 'The rhetoric of counsel in early modern England', in Hoak, ed., Tudor oliticalculture, pp. 292-3IO.


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HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEWS 539was not limited to sworn councillors, and the council was subsumed within the royalcourt, both in terms of physical architecture and personnel. 6Audiences with the kingor queen generally went unrecorded, but there are occasionalglimpses of (for example)Elizabeth I walking in the privy garden with an ambassadoror locked away in a one-to-one consultation. At the same time, there are recorded debates in the council for theearly part of Elizabeth's reign. The actual operation of politics is arguably moreinteresting for students than tallies of the number of the men formally admitted to thecouncils of the Tudors. The personality of a king or queen - and certainly his or her sexand age - had a huge impact on the assumptions courtiersmade about the nature ofcounsel appropriatefor that monarch.Counsel was a comment on the relationship between a governor and the governed. Itlegitimized and strengthened royal decisions but, if it was abused (or perceived to beabused) the effect could be extremely serious. The Tudor monarchswere absolute, butany political system must have an element of consent and a way of expressing, howeversubtly and loyally, dissatisfactionor disquiet. Michael Bush's study of Thepilgrimage fgraceexplores and explains perhaps the most dangerous breakdown of the relationshipbetween subject and monarch in the sixteenth century, when, in October I 536, around6o,ooo men gathered to oppose the Henrician regime.18The subtitle of the bookemphasizes that it is a study of the rebel armies, and its reconstruction of the hosts isdetailed and complex. Thepilgrimage f graces neither pure analysisnor pure narrative.In a broad historiographical ntroduction, Dr Bush is preparedto downplay analysisassomething which can, without a strong narrative base, lead to weak explanations ofthe cause of the revolt (pp. 6-7).

The result is a long and detailed account of the creation of the rebel hosts in the northof England in October. Thepilgrimage f grace s undoubtedly the nearest a modernhistorian has come to reconsideringthe study of the revolt published by Madeleine andRuth Dodds in I9I5.19 Dr Bush has inherited the benefits of just over eighty years ofprofessional historical work on the Henrician period but also the difficulties. Byreturning to the original sources of the pilgrimage, he has avoided the obstructionspresented by Victorian archivists determined to mould the state papers in their image.Equally, Thepilgrimage f graces able critically to build on modern social studiesof thenorth. At the same time, the book deals with the delicate issue of the religiousimplications of I536 and the part the revolt has played in the work of a number ofReformation historians, who have, according to Dr Bush, used the pilgrimage in 'apersistent struggle between a catholic and a protestant interest' (p. i).One of the most interestingfeatures of the sort of archival research undertakenby DrBush is its recovery of the authentic language of politics and protest. In a modernpolitical culture of spin and carefullyconstructedimage, the language of the pilgrimage- with its collective declarations of intent, repliesfrom the regime, and oaths sworn bythe pilgrims- is a fascinating insight into collective posturing and group identity. In

16 For a sketch of the 'politically fluid and culturally polycentric' nature of the Elizabethancourt, seeJohn Guy, 'The I590s: the second reign of Elizabeth I?' in John Guy, ed., ThereignofElizabeth : court ndculturen the ast decade Cambridge, I995), pp. I-2.17 Stephen Alford, The earlyElizabethan olity: William Ceciland the British successionrisis,i558-i569 (Cambridge, I998), pp. IO-I4-18 Michael Bush, Thepilgrimage f grace:a studyof therebelarmiesof October536 (Manchester,I 996).19 M. H. Dodds and R. Dodds, The pilgrimage of grace, I536-I537 (2 vols, Cambridge, I9I5).


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540 STEPHEN ALFORDmany ways, Dr Bush perhaps underplays the significance of his reconstructionof thepilgrim oaths of 1536. These oaths may have been in imitation of the Succession Act of1534, but over the course of the century they became an increasingly commonexpression of loyalty to a cause, and they have much to tell us about the way in whichsubjects explained themselves and regimes justified policy. At the risk of emphasizingone theme of a book which sets out to avoid a simple, single cause of the rebellion, thepilgrimage was a comment on the unacceptability of aspects of Henry VIII's regime,but the effect it had - forcing the regime to justify itself publicly in separate printedanswers to the rebels of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire- was startling.20

In part the source of this unacceptability was the attack on traditional religion.ButThepilgrimage f gracemakes wider connections. Dr Bush points out that the emphasis onpurgatory, saints, images, and pilgrimages during the Pontefract convocation ofDecember 1536 'was not typical of the pilgrims's religious complaint' (p. 413). Agreater concern was the physical destruction of the wealth of the church and, in turn,the impact on hospitality and charity. Dr Bush arguesthat 'the complaint belonged toa broad category of grievance which charged the government with showing contemptfor the wealth of the king's subjects,forthe constitutionand for the societyoforders;andtherefore accused it of bad governance' (p. 4I3). The point is a crucial one. Animportant theme which emerges from Thepilgrimage f grace s that issues we tend toseparate and treat in isolation - 'economics', 'society', 'politics' - were so heavilybound together in the minds of the king's subjects. In this sense, 'Master Poverty, theconductor, protector and maintainer of the whole commonalty' (p. 283) speaks notonly for economic grievance but for the state of the commonweal, and the pilgrim hostsin general linked corrupting influence on the king, the abuse of law, tyranny, heresy,and plunder.Detailed studies like Thepilgrimageof grace form a crucial bridge between ourunderstanding of the preoccupations of the centre of government and the social andeconomic complexities of the Tudor polity. Counsel, reform, and religiousstability wereall part of the package of kingship, and they became, during the late I 540S and earlyI 55S, increasingly associated with the monarchical dimensions of Protestantism.Theold debate on 'absolute' and 'limited' government in the sixteenth century is, in thissense, a false one. Monarchs like Henry VIII wereabsolute but they answered to Godand were expected to act on behalf of their subjects, take good counsel, and protectreligion.21When these accepted conventionswere challenged, the vocabulary of loyaltyand armed revolt of a remarkably organized degree could be employed to expressdissatisfaction. Sir Richard Morison, writing against the pilgrims, argued that thecommonwealth was like a body, and that it was the duty of the head to govern, but the

20 For an account of the discussionof the regime in I536, and particularly the debate on Henry'scouncil, seeJohn Guy, 'The king's council and political participation', in Fox and Guy, ReassessingtheHenrician ge,pp. I 2 I-47. The regime defended itself in print in the Answeremadeby thekyngeshyghneso thePetitions f therebellesn YorkeshireLondon, I536), which included a detailed discussionof men appointed to the council: sigs. A4r-A5v.21 Bishop John Hooper of Gloucester summarized the relationship between monarch and

subject in I 55 I: 'In a kyngdom, and monarchie, where one is appoynted to rule all the subjects ofthe same realm, are bound to obey the one kyng appointed by god, of what condition, stage ordegre, so ever they be, as the king him self, is bound to be obedient unto the lawe, & unto God,where as the lawes be not contrary to the law of god and the lawe of nature.' Godlyand mostnecessarynnotationsn the xiii. chapyteroo theRomaynesWorcester, I55I), sig. B2v.


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HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEWS 54Imetaphor of the body politic was all things to all people.22The body could, on occasions,remind the head of its duties.

Religion is, of course, only part of the story. There was a strong socialdynamic to theorganization of the rebel hosts and a tensionbetween the pilgrimageas an armed revoltand its explicit attempt to reinforce the traditional society of orders,apparently underattack by heretics and subversives. The sixteenth century in general seems to havebroken the relationship between high social rank and political participation, a factwhich, in another way, manifested itself in the declining influence of great councils ofthe realm. In the pilgrimage of grace and during the northernrebellionof I569, we seemto be presentedwith a northernaristocracy ncreasinglyout of touch and unhappy withpolitics in London, for whom land no longer meant automatic political importance orinfluence. Historians have emphasized the development of a service nobility during theearly Tudor period, men who relied more on royal favour and court office andpromotion than territorial power, a process which encouraged the political exclusion ofsome noblemen.jrohnDudley,duke f Northumberland,y David Loades, is in many ways a case study inservice nobility.23From the start of the biography, there is a strong sense of Dudley'smaterial and cultural rootlessness (p. x), a theme reinforced by an opening chapter onhis father Edmund, a man apparently dependent on Henry VII's unique brand of fiscalpolitical control. Northumberlands part of a biographical tradition in Tudor historywhich in its modern form was popular in the I960S and I970S and it depends, to quitea degree, on combining the story of Dudley with the general history of the reign ofHenry VIII. This can, at times, obscure our view of Dudley and his development, andin the early chapters he sometimes falls victim to Professor Loades's narrative tourthrough the reign. Still, the organization of the book - with separate chapters onDudley the young man, Lord Lisle, earl of Warwick, and duke of Northumberland,complemented by thematic accounts of the struggleforpolitical power I549-5 I and thecrisisof I553 - does give the reader a sense of transformationand development.ProfessorLoades presents the reader with Dudley the arriviste, lowly but doggedlyclimbing the Tudor political ladder and becoming, almost by accident, a member ofEdward VI's corporate regime. The way in which he did this seems to cause somedistaste. For ProfessorLoades, Dudley was a political and financial opportunist, skilfuland amoral, but capable of miscalculating his political environment. His ultimatemistake was to underestimatefatally 'the forcesof conventional morality' (p. x). Thebook sets out to counter the entrenched tradition ofJohn Dudley as a dangerous andovermighty subject. Service is the keynote. Professor Loades argues that Dudley'sinfluence over the council depended on strengthof personalityratherthan kinshipwithEdward or territorial and tenant power. One of the major themes of NorthumberlandsDudley's gradual accumulation of lands and offices, and these are usefully charted intwo appendices. There are glimpses of his household men, but nothing on the scale ofSimon Adams's reconstruction of the Dudley affinity.24Northumberlands a narrative analysis of Tudor power politics, but the one thingconspicuously absent from the book is the sense Edwardians had of the conceptual

22 David Sandler Berkowitz, ed., Humanist cholarship nd publicorder:two tracts againstthepilgrimage f graceby Sir RichardMorison Washington, DC, I984), pp. I I7-I8.23 David Loades, John Dudley,dukeof Northumberland,504-I553 (Oxford, I996).24 Particularly (for this period) Simon Adams, 'The Dudley clientee, I553-I563', in G. W.Bernard, ed., The Tudornobility Manchester and New York, I992), pp. 24I-65.


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542 STEPHEN ALFORDchallenge ofgoverning during a royal minority.This is one of the difficultiesof assumingthat there was a set 'constitutional' position in government. ProfessorLoades arguesthat Protector Somersetrelied 'upon the constitutional powers bestowed by his letterspatent', but 'Dudley had no patent, and no defined constitutional position' (pp.I 92-3) . ProfessorLoades certainly does not suggest that Seymour's power was solid andunassailable- the fourth chapter of Northumberlandharts in close detail the collapse ofthe protectoratein I 549 - but politics and political relationshipsat the centre of powerwere surelymore fluid. In fact, the regimesometimes had problemswith its identity. Ina powerful printed message to the people of Devonshire inJuly I549, Edward declaredthat 'we are your rightfull kyng, your liege lorde, your kyng anoynted, your kyngCrouned, the sovereigne kyng of England, not by our age, but by Gods ordinaunce', attwenty-one or ten years of age. At the same time, court preachers like John Hooperseemed to suggest that it was the king and his council - or even the king counselled-who was engaged in the godly reformation of the commonwealth. SirJohn Cheke, oneof Edward'stutors,defended the authority of the 'King's Majestyetc' againstrebellionin I549.25 The Edwardianregimewas what men like Dudley made it and authority andascendancy ultimately rested on securing the person of the king. This is one of thethemes of Dale Hoak's I982 essayon the Edwardianprivy chamber, where he explored'the most important department of the royal household' after I547, built in part on the'pioneering work' of David Starkey for the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII.26

ProfessorLoades realizes that the influence of the king, especially during the last yearsof the regime, is crucial. He steersa middle course between W. K. Jordan's view that byI553 Dudley was consideringa withdrawal from public life and Dale Hoak's argumentthat Edward was a conciliar puppet (p. I92).27 He also considers Edward's writtenpapers and detects in them a developing maturity - not as a direct influence on policybut as reflections of the king's 'social conscientiousness' (p. I94). More than this,Professor Loades recognizes that these notes were a stage in Edward's training inkingcraft. There is no doubt, as Professor Loades argues, that the king was beingintroduced to the political process. In January I552, for example, Edward met hiscouncillors in the 'inner privy chamber' at Greenwich and presented them with a listof important matters to be dealt with. It was a symbolic meeting, with the names of menin attendance carefully recorded.28More broadly, the king's exercises reflect the intellectual milieu of the period, and thecloseassociation between Protestantismand calls for Christian commonwealth. Edwardhimselfdescribedhis training 'in learning of tongues, of the scripture,of philosphie andall liberal sciences', under the supervision of Richard Cox, John Cheke, and JeanBelmaine.29Edward's tutors and court preachers helped to create a culture in which

25 A message entby thekyngesMajestie, o certain f hispeople,assembledn Devonshiren.p., I549),sig. B5r;John Hooper, An oversight,nddeliberacionpon heholyPropheteonas (London, [I550]);Sir John Cheke, The hurtof sedicion London, I549), sig. F3r.26 Dale E. Hoak, 'The king's privy chamber, I547-I553', in Delloyd J. Guth and John W.McKenna, eds., Tudor uleand revolutionCambridge, I982), pp. 87-io8; quotations at p. 88.27 W. K. Jordan, Edward VI: the thresholdf power. Thedominancef the dukeof Northumberland(London, I970), pp. 532-5; D. E. Hoak, The king'scouncil n thereignof EdwardVI (Cambridge,

I976), pp. I1205-28 British Library, Cotton MS Vespasian F I3 fo. 273r-v, printed inJ. G. Nichols, ed., Literaryremains f King EdwardVI (2 vols., Roxburghe Club, London, i857), II, pp. 489-go.29 British Library, Cotton MS Nero C io fo. i ir, printed in W. K. Jordan, ed., Chroniclendpoliticalpapersof King EdwardVI (London, i966), p. 3.


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HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEWS 543application and learning - particularly training in classical literature and the arts ofrhetoric- reinforced the model of the godly prince. The contrast to the intellectualtastes of Henry VIII must have been strikingfor Edwardians, but it set the tone for thereign of Elizabeth I, when the political elite of the late 1540S and early 1550S becameElizabethan governors. This is why Quentin Skinner's study of Reason ndrhetoricn thephilosophyf Hobbes i 996) has important implicationsfor the second half of the sixteenthcentury, especially in its reconstruction of the educational training and models ofbehaviour which informed and explained the operation of politics.30Profound interestin classical scholarship not only underpinned the self-image of privy councillors- SirNicholas Bacon covered the walls of his long gallery at Gorhambury with classicalsententiaeappropriate to his public duties3 - but affected practical governance.Memoranda 'in two parts', for example, helped the Elizabethan privy council toexplore political issues.32In September 1552, William Cecil subjected the question'Whither the K[ing's] Majestie shall enter in to the ayde of the Emperor' to rhetoricalexamination, and Edward VI added a 'conclusion .33

IIStudies of language and culture can challenge traditional perceptions of a period,adding a third dimension to practical politics, and establishing the intellectual contextof the actions of individuals. One contribution to Henrician research is Seth Lerer'sstudy of Courtly etters n the age of Henry VIII.34For a Tudor political historian itrepresents an instructive (but at times disconcerting) insight into how the sixteenthcentury can be treated by another discipline. Courtlyetterss a study of court literatureand reading in the period before, according to Professor Lerer, Machiavelli andCastiglione become absorbed into the culture. His principal focus is Chaucer's Troilusand Criseyde, rinted in the early sixteenth century by Wynkyn de Worde, RichardPynson, and William Thynne, but he considers also Henry VIII's letters to AnneBoleyn, Chaucer in anthologies and letterbooks, and the work of Thomas Wyatt.Professor Lerer argues that there is a tension between the public implications of thecourt - in part diplomacy and power - and private correspondence and reading. Hesubjects Henry's letters to Anne to close textual analysis, and establishesa connectionbetween the physical processof writing in the sixteenth century and artisticsymbolism.Above all, Courtlyetters onsiders the nature of reading and the texts which were read.One of the principles ProfessorLerer establishes from the start- that Tudor literaturewas 'read and written in the marginsof its manuscripts, the little quartosof its printers,the commonplace books of its men and women' - deserves some attention (p. 5).Reading in the sixteenth century is an important subject. It was not a solitaryoccupation but an active engagement with the text. In a letter printed at the beginningof A reportnddiscourse.. of theafairesand tateof Germany which may in itselfhave beena literary device - Roger Ascham remindedJohn Astley of how they had read Livy

30 Skinner, Reason nd rhetoric,p. I 9-I 0.31 Patrick Collinson, 'Sir Nicholas Bacon and the Elizabethan via media',Historical ournal, 3(I980), pp. 257-62. 32 Alford, EarlyElizabethan olity, pp. I6-20.33 British Library, Cotton MS Nero C IOfo. 73r-v.34 Seth Lerer, Courtlyettersn theage of HenryVIII: literary ulture nd heartsof deceit Cambridge,

I997).


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544 STEPHEN ALFORDtogether and 'after some reason-yngwe concluded both what was in our opinion to belooked for at his hand that would well and advisedly write an history'.35Perhaps theclassic case is that of the Elizabethan Gabriel Harvey, whose interaction with hisvolumes of Livy has been reconstructed by Anthony Grafton and Lisa Jardine.Professor Lerer emphasizes the physical environment of reading and writing, andmaintains that court architecture and the development of' small chambers surroundingthe King's private apartment' was part of an 'enchamberment of power' (p. 9I).Privacy was affected by architecture. Equally, privacy and intimacy could become afocus of politics and a route of access to the monarch.37Courtly etters s surely right to suggest that contemporaries were aware of thesignificance of behaviour in this sort of environment, both for the men and women'below stairs' and those above. The duties of officialswere set down in instructionsordiscussedin books like Of theoffice f servauntesI543), translated by Thomas Chalonerand dedicated to a gentleman of the privy chamber, Sir Henry Knyvet. Behaviourforcourtiers of a more senior rank was later discussed in Thomas Hoby's translation ofCastiglione and Roger Ascham's The scholemasterI570), a book concerned witheducation in its broadest sense. For ProfessorLerer TroilusandCriseyde layed an earlypart in this literature- Sir Thomas Elyot seems to have taken the poem seriouslyin hisPasquil heplayne I533), a point Courtlyettersmakes in its epigraph.This is, of course, a book written by a literary historian for other literary specialists.It uses a language of description and analysis which is at times difficult to penetrate.Some historians may feel uncomfortable at the way in which ProfessorLerer establishesa psychoanalytical framework and relies on Freud and Sartre to illuminate the'voyeurism' of reading the letters of other people (pp. I3-I4). Historians may raise aneyebrow or two at Professor Lerer's examination of the relationship between Henry'sletters to Anne Boleyn and the inherent violence of writing - violent because kniveswere used to sharpen quills and vellum was the carcase of a dead animal. 'If Henrywrites the world, he does so on'the multiple bodies of letter, buck, and lover' (p. I05).This sort of approach does raise important issues for receptive historiansgenuinelyinterested in interdisciplinary work on the sixteenth century. The responsibility of thehistorian is to reconstruct the past as honestly and authentically as possible.Consequently, historianswant to have proof that early modern men and women readbooks, understood what they had to say, and adjusted (or even reflected on) theirbehaviour because of them. This is one of the reasons why the work of ProfessorJardineand ProfessorGrafton is so interesting: there is something demonstrable and tangible inthe margins of Harvey's Livy. But imposing modern frameworks and constructs candistort the authentic political symbolism and language of the sixteenth century.Sixteenth-century commentators, for example, may have been more concerned aboutthe implications of court flattery and bad counsel than on the courtier as 'pimp andprostitute' (p. i).ProfessorLereruses Michel Foucault to tell us that the royal body could be read 'asthe locus of force relations, where the King's corporeal form is the site of national

35 Roger Ascham, Englishworks, d. William Aldis Wright (Cambridge, I904), pp. I25-6.36 Lisa Jardine and Anthony Grafton, 'Studied for action : how Gabriel Harvey read hisLivy', Past and Present, I 29 (I 990), pp. 30-78.

37 For example, David Starkey, 'Representation throughintimacy: a study in the symbolism ofmonarchy and court office in early modern England', in Guy, ed., Tudormonarchy,p. 42-78.


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HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEWS 545identity formation, diplomatic intrigue, and public spectacle (p. 5). But do we need thisto be explained to us using Foucault? In I483 Bishop John Russell of Lincoln asked'What ys the bely or where ys the wombe of thys grete publick body of Englonde butthat and therewhere the kyng ys him self,hys court and ys counselle?38 Describing thedifference between the physical corpse of Henry VII and the body politic, Edward Hallallowed us to glimpse the profound symbolism of 'an Image or a representation of thelate kyng, laied on Cusshions of golde... appareled, in the kynges riche robes of estatewith a croune on the hed, and ball and scepter in the handes', a model of kingshipshared in England and France.39It is possible to take the insights of a whole range ofinterdisciplinary studies- political theory, art, literature, sociology - but this workmust be done within certain limits, conscious of the authentic context. Reconstructingthe preoccupations of the period and applying them to literary texts can betransformative. Richard I, for example, was recognized as a political play, but itssignificance is only clear when the play is placed in the context of early modern kingshipas it was understood at the time.40Authentic reconstruction is an extremely hard task, and even historians who haveworked with a subjectfor a number of years can find it difficult to look at related issuesfrom a different angle. Norman Jones, in Thebirthof theElizabethange, experiences thischallenge in a book which bravely moves from considerations of royal marriage tomerchant trade and from the vestiarian controversy to family values.4 The bookattempts to consider how the first Elizabethans, with no sense of their place in historyor the historical mythologies which later developed around the person of their queen,experiencedlife. It is, ProfessorJones admits, an ambitious project. In effect it involvesapplying the insights of micro-historyto a large society, with the added complication ofdetermining the representativenessof the characters he has chosen- although, as theprologue makes clear, the individuals he considers did experience the decade and theirexperience is valid and important (pp. 2-3).ProfessorJonesseems to suggest that this is academic history with a different focus. InThe birthof theElizabethangehe looks through the microscope in an attempt to makehistorical mountains out of molehills. The book does not reconstruct the politics of thefirstElizabethan decade, but this is not its intention. Nevertheless, there are certainlywider implications. ProfessorJones argues that this combination of political, religious,legal, and social history provides 'the contexts in which political, religious and legalchoices are made' (p. i). One example of this - and it was one of the main problemsfacing the political elite and the commonwealth during the first decade - was therelationship between Elizabeth's marriage, the succession,and the securityof the realm.ProfessorJones considers notions of marriage, and his short study of A briefandpleasantdiscourse f duties in marriageby Edmund Tilney (I 568) and Sir William Cecil'smanuscript notes on the duties of husbands and wives is really very instructive. The

38 S. B. Chrimes, Englishconstitutionaldeas n thefifteenthenturyCambridge, I936), p. I75.39 Edward Hall, Theunion f the wonoble nd llustrefameliesfLancastre& rorke(London, I550),Henry VIII, sig. Ai. For the significanceof the effigyin Frenchroyalfunerals,seeRalph E. Giesey,Theroyalfuneral eremonyn renaissancerance Travaux d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 37, Geneva,1960), PP. 79-I24-

40 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Theking'stwobodies:a study n mediaevaloliticaltheology Princeton,I957), Pp.24 4I-

41 NormalJones, Thebirthof theElizabethan ge: Englandn the 560s (Oxford, I993).


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546 STEPHEN ALFORDemphasis, predictably, is on obedience, subordination, and mutual support; but it alsoincluded, for Tilney, the giving of wise counsel (pp. 88-9). Comparisonsbetween a manand his household and the king and his realm were common, and the problem ofreconciling this against the practical reality of a woman governing a kingdom causedserious intellectual difficulties, difficulties which were explored on one level in apamphlet debate betweenJohn Knox andJohn Aylmer in I559.42 During the I56os, theconsensus seems to have been this: female rule was tolerable within certain limits -eventual marriage, a settled succession, and the capacity of Elizabeth's councillors tocompel as well as counsel.These marital and national concernswere played out against a stronglyprovidentialbackdrop. ProfessorJones reveals that in completing the book he was struck by the'sheerangstof the I56os' (p. 2), a feelingofmiseryand crisiscaused by unstable politics,hunger, disease, and an economy shattered by war against France. The political elitewas traumatized and increasingly obsessed by the loss of England's final continentalpossession, Calais, by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. These problems werecompounded by an inability to settle England's religion in terms of an agreedecclesiasticalstructureand real reformationin the parishes. Thebirthof theElizabethanage tackles'the unsettledsettlement of religion', and this analysiscovers the attempt bythe regime to construct a church (which is familiar territoryfor ProfessorJones) and,interestingly, the popular response to more religious change - reactions to physicalchangesin parish furniture but also the influence of astrology and prophecy. These seemto have been common concerns. ProfessorJones points out that Roger Ascham andWilliam Camdenwere drawn to astrology (p. 38). Equally, the providentialdestructionof St Paul's Cathedral in I56 drew comments from both sides of the religious fence -for Catholics it was a punishmentfor the end of the massand forProtestantsa sign thatreformhad not gone far enough (p. 44).

This willingness to accept the reality of God's punishment for the slow pace ofreformation was certainly common. Elizabethan privy councillorswere convinced thatthe French king (along with the other powersof what they believed was an organizedEuropean conspiracy against Protestant England) could be used by God as aninstrument of his wrath. Prayers for the queen in illness linked the sins of her peopleto her own physical condition. ProfessorJones comments on the 'jarring note of divinevengeance against thosewho fail to performtheirresponsibility'in William Cecil's noteson marriage (p. 89), and Cecil, like many of his contemporaries,was quite capable ofseeing the samesort of relationshipwith God work on a national and international level.This wider, European dimension is missingfrom Thebirthof theElizabethange,and ina book which deals thematically with a number of issuesand a country which was, ona popular level, probably fairly insular this is no great surprise.But England was inmany ways defined by what it was not, and for all the perceived failings of itsreformationthe regime could still point to the virtues of reconstructingthe 'primitive'or 'apostolic' church. Persecution was only a short sea crossingaway, and the politicsof continental Europe and the existence of Mary Stuart Queen of Scots as an alternativecandidate to Elizabeth's crown energized the regime to a startling degree. Again, thisis not the subjectof Thebirth f theElizabethange,but if ProfessorJonesbelieves that hisbook provides the wider context of religion and politics these considerations are

42 Patrick Collinson, 'The monarchical republic of Queen Elizabeth I', in Guy, ed., Tudormonarchy,. I I3; Guy, 'Tudor monarchy and its critiques', p. 94.


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HISTORIOGRAPHICAL REVIEWS 547significant. They are part of a modern historiographical debate on radical politicalsolutions to what Elizabethans imagined to be a politics of emergency and crisis.43

IIIBeyond the obligation to rule with their subjects in mind, Tudor monarchs were notbound by a formal constitution or a stated way of doing things. Their authority camefrom God. At the same time, commonplaces on kingship were deeply ingrained in thepolitical culture of western Europe. Monarchs were capable of criticism and, on rareoccasions,direct opposition. The pilgrimage of grace was almost unique in its characterand capacity, but it underlined the sort of monarch subjects wanted to subjectthemselves to. Equally, monarchy was open to scrutiny by Protestants as well as byCatholics. Norman Jones makes a significant point when he quotes the Catholic JohnMartial, writing on behalf of his faith in I564. 'There is no blast blown against themonstrous regiment of women; there is no libel set forth for order of succession; thereis no word uttered against the due obedience to the sovereign' (p. 66). The directreference is to John Knox, but it is worth thinking about the counter-contribution ofJohn Aylmer and the long-term implications of the workofJohn Ponet and ChristopherGoodman. Patrick Collinson has argued that 'the polemical critique of monarchy' ismore appropriate than 'resistance theory' as a term for the work of these authors.44Thislinguistic shift emphasizes a significant point: books like this were part of a changingand complex debate on the nature of the polity which affected those inside the regimeas well as those outside. Even privy councillors desperate to encourage Elizabeth I tosettle the successioncould make an important comment on the nature of imperial powerby emphasizing parliament's duty to counsel the prince.45An equally significant pointis that these debates can be traced in public print or in private memoranda and letters:they are wholly political in the widest sense.Tudor politics was clearly informed by its intellectual context, and this context couldbe moulded by print, literature, or, in the case of Sir Nicholas Bacon at Gorhambury,a long gallery lined with classical sententiae. hetorical training and classical learningnot only gave Edwardians and Elizabethans a cultural senseof their own identities butcould have practical uses in the analysis of policy alternatives. David Loades brieflydiscusses the case of William Thomas (pp. 20o-2), an Edwardian clerk of the council,who counselled (or at least offered to counsel) the king by writing on political subjectsstronglyreminiscent of the themes of Machiavelli's ThePrince.4 Thomas was an experton the Italian language and Italian history, which suggests that even clerks of thecouncil could be extremely erudite, a suspicion lent some force by the multi-talentedElizabethan Robert Beale. The politics of the continent, strong Protestantism, and anawareness of the classical heritage of Europe are common themes in many Tudor

43 Patrick Collinson, 'The Elizabethan exclusion crisis and the Elizabethan polity', Proceedingsof the British Academy, 4 (I995), pp. 5I-92; Alford, Early Elizabethan olity, pp. 209-22; Guy,'The I590s', pp. I-I9. Collinson,Monarchical epublic',p. I I9.Alford, EarlyElizabethan olity,pp. I03-I 9, I42-57.46 British Library, Cotton MS Titus B 2 fos. 85r-gor. He seems tohave completed three writtendiscussions, all of which survive in British Library, Cotton MS Vespasian D I8: 'Wheather it beexpedient to varie with tyme' (fos. 2r-i iv); 'What Princes Amitie is best' (fos. I2r-igr); and'Wheather it be better for a common wealthe, that the power be in the nobilitie or in thecommonaltie' (fos. 20r-7v).


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548 STEPHEN ALFORDcareers. David Loades's John Dudley is, in some ways, a curious hybrid: a 'new'servicenobleman with limited intellectual tasteswho found it difficult to understand hisking's written Latin - a standard position in the late fifteenth century and typical ofsome Elizabethan noblemen but probably increasingly unusual.

Some of these details are lost or in danger of being left unrecovered if historianscontinue to write high political narratives with an interest only in fact and event orstudies of bureaucracies. But this seems highly unlikely. Students are now aware of theinherited traditionsof late medieval and Tudor history and are more willing to cross theboundary of I485. Characters like Henry VII now appear less willing to sign accounts(something late medieval monarchsmay have done but their bookshave not survived)and more determined to encourage a vibrant court.47The relationship between courtculture and politics is clearerfrominterdisciplinarywork, and some attempts have beenmade to consider the intellectual environment of Elizabethan politics and the queen'srelationship with her councillors. The study of the language of politics in the sixteenthcentury can only benefit from a determination to look at original documents and awillingness to consider a European tradition of political writing. Political historiansseem to have recovered political history, and it is an exciting read.

47 Principally S. J. Gunn, 'The courtiers of Henry VII ', EnglishHistoricalReview,Io8 (I 993),pp. 23-49, reprinted in Guy, ed., Tudormonarchy,p. I63-89.

alford on tudor history

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