Politics, Law and Counsel in Tudor and Early Stuart England / Edition 1

by John Guy

Overview

This book investigates the norms and values of Tudor and early-Stuart politics, which are considered in the contexts of law and the Reformation, legal and administrative institutions, and classical and legal humanism. Main themes include 'imperial' monarchy and the theory of 'counsel', Parliament and the royal supremacy, conciliar politics and organization, the relationship of law and equity, and the jurisdictional rivalry between the courts of common law and canon law. The author argues that norms of Tudor England were sufficiently pluralist to satisfy both 'absolutist' and 'constitutionalist' aspirations, whereas by 1628 they proved no longer effective as a mechanism for the orderly conduct of politics. The clash between two conflicting sets of values was translated into a clash of ideologies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780860788324
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/05/2000
Series:	Variorum Collected Studies , #691
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.88(w) x 8.81(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Contents: Introduction: The development of equitable jurisdictions, 1450-1550; A conciliar court of audit at work in the last months of the reign of Henry VII; Wolsey's Star Chamber: a study in archival reconstruction; Wolsey, the Council and the council courts; Wolsey and the Parliament of 1523; Thomas More as successor to Wolsey; Henry VIII and the praemunire manoeuvres of 1530-31; Thomas More and Christopher St German: the Battle of the Books; The Tudor commonwealth: revising Thomas Cromwell; The Privy Council: revolution or evolution?; The King's Council and political participation; The Henrician age; The Elizabethan establishment and the ecclesiastical polity; The rhetoric of counsel in early modern England; The origins of the petition of right reconsidered; Index.

Editorial Reviews

'This publication in a convenient and user-friendly format of fifteen essays written by Professor Guy over the past quarter century is to be welcomed....the usefulness of the volume lies...in the opportunity it provides to consider Guy's contribution to Tudor and Stuart history to date...The fact that these essays make us think hard about particular personalites and events, while at the same time offering an overall vision of the high politics of the century between the break from Rome and the outbreak of the civil war, is proof enough of their value.' Reviews in History.

From the Publisher

Fifteen otherwise not readily available scholarly essays, 1975-95, investigate the values underlying competing views of monarchy and polity that ushered in early modern English politics and law. Guy (affiliation unspecified) argues that the key to understanding this revolutionary (or evolutionary?) era lies in the mutually subversive views of absolutist vs. constitutional monarchy triggered by Henry VIII's break with the Catholic Church in the 1530s. Following "The development of equitable jurisdictions, 1450-1550," most of the articles focus on Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More as his successor, the Henrician Reformation, Tudor and Elizabethan political culture, and the origins of the Petition of Right regarding discretionary imprisonment. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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