2.8 henrys government Flashcards
(36 cards)
Rule/Reign: What evidence is there that Henry ruled, in terms of his Privy Council?
-He ensured that his Lord Chamberlain, Sir William Paget, seek his approval on many matters.
-Henry retained influence over much of his foreign policy, royal supremacy, and theology (particularly in the 1540s).
-If Ministers pursued policy that Henry opposed, it had to be done behind his back, whilst he was concerned with personal affairs, implying he still played a part among his PC.
Rule/Reign: What evidence is there that Henry reigned, in terms of his Privy Council?
-PC was made up of 20 members, and Henry did not attend its meetings, as he found writing state papers “tedious and painful”.
-Wolsey & Cromwell controlled implementation of policy once it had been decided. He allowed councillors to initiate policy.
-Henry listened to and trusted his councillors far more than previous monarchs had.
Rule/Reign: What evidence is there that Henry ruled, in terms of his Court?
-Henry was in charge of appointing people to his court, in which there were 200 positions.
-Henry was fully involved with his court, unlike his father.
-The use, and importance, of patronage implies that Henry remained the ultimate authority.
Rule/Reign: What evidence is there that Henry reigned, in terms of his Court?
-Henry made much more use of patronage than his father had, and awarded his courtiers a lot.
-Sir Ralph Egerton, for example, held 15 crown offices by 1525.
Rule/Reign: What evidence is there that Henry ruled, in terms of his Privy Chamber?
-Particularly before 1519, this was the one area of government in which Wolsey lacked influence, as it was dominated by Henry’s ‘minions’, who all distrusted him.
-Henry initialled each page of the book in which usages of the dry stamp were recorded, implying that he had some control over it being used.
Rule/Reign: What evidence is there that Henry reigned, in terms of his Privy Chamber?
-Henry allowed the use of the ‘dry stamp’, which forged the kings signature, meaning he would not have to take part in official business.
-This stamp was given out to three men at a time, like William Herbert, William Paget, and John Gate, and all uses had to be recorded in a book.
Rule/Reign: What were the two main factions in the early years of Henry’s reign?
-Aragonese Faction & Boleyn Faction.
-However, factions were very fluid, and would change/arise in response to circumstances.
Rule/Reign: Expand on the example of Sir Ralph Egerton. What positions did he hold?
-Egerton had emerged in 1501 in service of Arthur, and attended Henry’s coronation.
-He became Henry’s standard bearer, and a knight in 1513.
-Between 1514-24, he made £100pa as standard bearer, attended the Field of Cloth of Gold w/ Henry, and was appointed to a commission in Ireland & to Mary’s council.
Rule/Reign: How did Egerton fall?
-In 1520, it was discovered that he had more than £400 set aside in cash.
-This sparked gossip, rumour, and envy in court.
-When he fell from the King’s favour, his offices were reverted to the crown, not given to his son as he had hoped.
Wolsey: In what ways did Wolsey rule for Henry in terms of his finances?
-By 1515, income had decreased to £25,000pa, so Wolsey issued an Act of Resumption to reclaim some crown lands that Henry had given away at the beginning of his reign.
-Replaced fifteenths&tenths with the more realistic ‘subsidy’, which was based on taxpayer’s wealth.
-Organised the ‘Amicable Grant’, which funded the Second French War in 1525 (however this caused rebellion in East Anglia).
-Wolsey, overall, raised £322,099 in subsidies, £240,000 in clerical tax, & £260,000 in forced loans. This, however, was not enough to cover government expenditure of £1.7m between 1509-20.
Wolsey: In what ways did Wolsey rule for Henry in terms of Politics and Law & Order?
-Etham Ordinances in 1526, where Wolsey tried to reform Henry’s royal household to contain his supporters and ensure political supremacy. He secured the removal of Sir Wiliam Compton as Groom of the Stool through this, and replaced him with Henry Norris.
-Wolsey helped increase the importance of law&order from 1516, trying to dispense cheap & impartial justice.
-He used the court to try and curb the power of nobility, and his 1517 inquiry resulted in legal proceedings against 264 landowners.
Wolsey: In what ways did Wolsey have influence over religion?
-Wolsey was a Cardinal and as papal nagate, he had influence over the Archbishop of Canterbury.
-Wolsey dissolved 30 religous houses, and used the proceeds to build colleges in Oxford & Ipswich.
-He centralised the church in England.
Wolsey: What was the Court of Chancery? The Court of Star Chamber?
-Court of Chancery: main court of equity in England. As Lord Chancellor, Wolsey was responsible for overseeing the legal system. He used the court to deal with enclosure, land left in wills, etc. However, the court was too popular and clogged up with cases, making justice very slow.
-Court of Star Chamber: An offshoot of the King’s Council, created in 1487. Wolsey wanted to use this court in order to dispense cheap and fair justice, and would hear cases of alleged misconduct by people who were dominant in their localities. He encouraged people to use the private lawsuits. The court was very popular, and Wolsey had to set up ‘overflow Tribunals’ to deal with excess cases.
Wolsey: Give some general evidence that Wolsey was in charge.
-He coordinated the successful 1513 French invasion.
-Negotiated the 1514 Anglo-French peace treaty that restored ToE & Mary’s marriage.
-Court of Star’s success: threatened Sir Andrew Windsor, keeper of the King’s wardrobe, with ‘new law of the star chamber’.
-Sent Sir Robert Sheffield (speaker of the 1512 Parliament) to the tower as an accessory for felony & fined him £5333.
-Attacked the rising financial status of the privy chamber by placing a ceiling of £10,000pa on the groom of the stool’s account.
Wolsey: Give some general evidence that Wolsey wasn’t in charge.
-Henry had wanted to return to imperial ‘Rex Imperator’
-Henry endeavoured to establish a European concert for the purposes of peace, unless constrained through Henry’s will.
-Wolsey’s work to balance the books was ineffective, shows he didn’t have proper control.
-Henry maintained Kingly role, building new palaces at Bridewell & spending a £40,000 on it before 1525, despite the unbalanced books. He had over 30 houses of his own.
-Wolsey had to ask Henry to advance £10,000 from the treasury, showing ultimate authority lay with Henry.
Wolsey: What was the ‘King’s Great Matter’?
-Henry, dissatisifed with the state of his marriage and worried that his wife was above the age of childbearing, was in want of a divorce.
-Only one child from his marriage to Catherine had made it past infancy, Mary, and Henry was so desperate that he considered legitimising his bastard son, Henry Fitzroy.
-Henry had also fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, Thomas Howard (Duke of Norfolk)’s niece.
-Henry, therefore, required Wolsey to secure a papal dispensation for annulment.
Wolsey: How did Henry argue that his marriage was invalid? What was the problem with this? What did Wolsey do?
-Henry found biblical justification for his annulment, as it was prohibited for a man to marry his brother’s widow. It was argued that Julius II’s dispensation that had permitted Henry’s marriage was invalid, and he was therefore free to marry Anne.
-However, Catherine claimed that her marriage to Arthur had never been consummated & the biblical ban did not apply.
-Wolsey, as Cardinal, brought Henry before a fake court in May 1527 to ‘accuse’ him of living in sin with Cath, and Henry admitted this. Catherine appealed this verdict to the Pope.
Wolsey: Why did Wolsey fall?
-The continuation of Wolsey’s favour was entirely dependent on securing Henry’s annulment.
-In 1529, after 2 years of fruitless diplomacy, the Pope sent an envoy, Cardinal Campeggio, to hear the case along with Wolsey.
-The hearing opened in London on 15th June, and was adjourned by 30th July. Wolsey had failed to secure annulment, and was no longer the King’s favourite.
Wolsey: What happened to Wolsey? Why was his fall not entirely unprecedented?
-Wolsey had been incredibly unpopular for forcing the 1923 subsidy & Amicable Grant through Parliament, so it was not unexpected that he would fall.
-In Oct 1529, he was charged with praemunire (a 1393 statute to prevent papal interference with the crown), and surrendered himself, and his possessions to the King.
-He was arrested on 4th Nov 1530, and died (before he had the opportunity to be executed) on th 29th November.
Divorce: Why had the Church become significantly weaker?
-The Church had been subject to much scrutiny by the humanists, like Erasmus & the anticlerical satire of Simon Fish.
-The Church’s claims of legal supremacy had been challenged by Christopher St German in 1528, who had asserted the superiority of English law above canon law.
-Henry had been supplied with intellectual justifications in the Collectanea Satis Copiosa, which was a colection of historical documents that had been compiled by Cranmer & Edward Foxe. These justified the King’s divorce based on legal & historical principles.
-Henry had sought opinions on his marital situation from various continental universities. The favourable opinions were then presented to both houses of Parliament by Thomas More (the catholic Lord Chancellor that Henry was trying to humiliate).
Divorce: How did Cromwell pressure the Pope?
-In 1531, the clergy were accused of praemunire. This began a substantiated attack on the clergy, and acknowledged the king as the ‘Protector and Supreme head of the English Church’.
-1532, Act in Conditional Restraint of Annates conditionally withheld the first year’s income from the office of bishop (which the papacy had trad. enjoyed).
-1532, House of Commons Supplication against the Ordinances, increased anticlerical pressure within Commons.
-1532, Formal submission of the clergy to Henry VIII, which provoked the resignation of More as Lord Chancellor.
Divorce: What happened to William Warham? What happened with Anne? What did this mean for Henry?
-William Warham had been Archbishop of Canterbury, but he died in 1532. He was replaced by the Protestant Thomas Cranmer.
-By December 1532, Anne was pregnant. They married in secret on the 25th January 1933, and by May his marriage with Henry had been annulled by Cranmer, and she was crowned soon after.
-Elizabeth was born, legitimately on 7th September 1533.
Cromwell: Who was Cromwell? Why had Wolsey’s downfall put him at risk? What did Cromwell do next?
-Cromwell had been a key servant of Wolsey, who had helped dissolve the monastery to open Cardinal College.
-He had been enitrely dependent on Wolsey for support in advancing his career, so it seemed that Wolsey’s fall meant the end of Cromwell’s career.
-However, Cromwell soon emerged through his work to resolve the Great Matter. He used the story of King Arthur & persuaded Parliament that it had the power to rewrite the constitution. Cromwell was responsible for much of the success of the Break with Rome.
Cromwell: What Acts of Parliament were passed by Cromwell in relation to the break with Rome? (1533-4)
Act of Restraint in Appeals (1533), declared that the monarch possessed imperial jurisdiction which was not subject to foreign power. This declared that appeals could not be made to Rome regarding Church court decisions ‘in cases matrimonial’ and others.
-Act of Succession (Apr 1534), declared that: Henry’s marriage to Catherine was void; succession would be with Anne’s children, not Catherine’s; denying the validity of his marriage was treasonable; an oath should be taken to affirm acceptance of the marriage.
-Act of Supremacy (Nov 1534), gave legislative force to the royal supremacy, solidfying the break from Rome.
-Treason Act (Nov 1534), stated that treason could be spoken as well as written.
-Act Annexing First Fruits and Tenths to the Crown (Nov 1534) by Cromwell, increased the financial burden placed on the clergy. The annates that had been taken away from the Pope were now being given to the King
