Government Flashcards
(49 cards)
Which method of government was adopted at the start of Henry VIII’s reign ?
- Councillor government
- Inherited a council chosen by his father- Thomas Lovell, Earl of Surrey, John Fisher
How many times did Henry VIII call parliament in his reign ?
-9 times
What brought the Councillor government to an end in 1514 ?
- Henry became disenchanted with the reluctance of some of his father’s councillors to support a war with France
- Increasingly wanted to control decision making
- Surrounded himself with like-minded courtiers- reinforced his suspicions of the old guard
- Becomes impressed with the organisational skills of Thomas Wolsey
What did Wolsey attempt to do to the Privy Chamber ?
- Before 1519, one area that lay outside Wolsey’s control
- Tried to remove Henry’s minions and replace them with his own supporters
- Was unsuccessful- they came back
What was the Court of Chancery ?
- Where Wolsey made decisions that created legal precedents
- Cases were dealt in enclosures, land and wills
- Used the court to uphold fair justice
What was established within the Court of the Star Chamber?
- A committee of judges
- For the poor to push their cases on the nobility
What was the main issue with the Court of Chancery ?
- Became popular
- Clogged up with too many cases
- Justice was slow as a result
- Wolsey got distracted by foreign policy
What was the Court of the Star Chamber ?
- Wanted to increase cheap and fair justice
- Plans to improve the legal system enforced here
- Heard cases of alleged misconduct of nobles and gentry
- Wolsey encouraged it for the use of private lawsuits
What were the issues with the Court of the Star Chamber ?
- Became overworked after 1519
- Nobility didn’t like his reforms
What did the number of cases in the Court of the Star Chamber increase too ?
12 to 120 in a year
What was Sir Robert Sheffield charged with in the Court of the Star Chamber ?
- Negligence as a justice of the peace
- Alleged case of misconduct
What was the Act of Resumption 1515 under Wolsey?
- Increased revenue from Crown Lands
- Regained some lands that had been granted away
What was the Tudor Subsidy ?
- Wolsey set up a national committee (was the head) to assess taxpayers wealth
- This replaced local commissioners who were over generous to the local nobility
- Provided more accurate valuations of the taxpayers wealth (more realistic tax)
- Replaced the fifteenths and tenths tax
How much money did the Tudor Subsidy raise ?
- Raised Extraordinary Revenue for Henry’s war in France- over £300,000 !!
- Amount was insufficient and led to the Amicable Grant
What was the name of the tax that the Tudor Subsidy replaced ?
-Fifteenths and Tenths
What was the Amicable Grant ?
- Additional tax to fund Henry’s war with France.
- Caused rebellions in London and East Anglia
What was a failure of Wolsey with the Amicable Grant ?
- Taxpayers showed strong resistance- Wolsey had to backtrack and settled for voluntary contributions
- Nobility alarmed by the widespread anger and informed King
- The King left Wolsey to apologise, rebels were pardoned, Wolsey pays off their prison expenses
What did Wolsey do with enclosures ?
- Campaigned against enclosures- people lost their common rights to land
- Laws of 1589 and 1514-15 were against enclosing
- 1517- launched a national enquiry to discover extent of enclosure
- Cases launched against 260 landlords
What was criticisms of Wolsey and his battle against enclosures ?
- Abandoned enclosure policy for 18 months in 1523.
- Enclosures still continue
- Stirred up further hatred from nobility
What were the Eltham Ordinances ?
- Introduced to reform the finances of the Privy Council
- Reduced the number of Gentleman in the Privy Chamber ( the one area he didn’t’t have control of)
- Reduction of royal household expenditure
- Removal of Henry’s Groom of the Stool- William Compton and replaced him with Henry Norris
How did Wolsey try to get the divorce through Scriptural Arguments ?
- Tried to justify the divorce in the eyes of the catholic church
- Argued the marriage relied on Catherines word that her marriage to Arthur hadn’t been consummated
- If this wasn’t the case, Henry was misled and their marriage isn’t valid
- Based off Leviticas
- Henry became convinced that the lack of a male heir was god’s punishment
How did Wolsey try to get the divorce through Diplomatic manoeuvres ?
- Charles V in control of Italy
- Wolsey tried to free the pope from Charles V by using an alliance with France and the renewal of warfare in Italy to distract the emperor
- Policy FAILED-Charles was too strongly entrenched in Italy to be evicted by France
How does Wolsey try to get the divorce through Legal Efforts ?
- Held divorce hearings in England, where he would make the judgement as papal legate
- Cardinal Campeggio sent as the pope’s representative but delays the hearing
- Wolsey and Henry became impatient
- Court finally met
- Catherine refused and appealed to move the hearing to Rome
- Pope agrees to move hearing
- Wolsey’s effort fails
What were the 4 main factors that led to Wolsey’s downfall ?
- Failure to secure Henry’s divorce to Catherine of Aragon
- Failure to achieve Henry’s foreign policy aims
- Boleyn family was hinting that Wolsey was delaying the divorce
- Reputation and personal ambitions got in the way