Abstract
In 1460, when it had been suggested that the Duke of York’s claim to the English throne should be referred to the High Court of Parliament, the House of Lords had disclaimed any competence in so high a mystery of state.1 Two generations later, in 1525, when Henry VIII was struggling with the problem of the succession, and weighing the various possible options, such an adjudication did not even occur to him. But in 1534 there was passed ‘An Act for the establishment of the king’s succession’, to be followed by further similar Acts in 1537 and 1544, and in 1571 the second Treason Act of Elizabeth ‘virtually established parliamentary statute as the constitutional way to settle questions of succession’.2 Between 1525 and 1571 the English Crown had undergone a profound change, not only in its constitutional relationship with parliament, but also in the scope of its jurisdiction, both theoretical and practical.
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Notes
R. A. Griffiths, The Reign of King Henry VI (London, 1981), pp. 867–8.
Mortimer Levine, Tudor Dynastic Problems, 1467–1571 (London, 1973), p. 120.
Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, ed. Mary Dewar (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 78–9.
W. K. Jordan, Edward VI; the threshold of power (London, 1970), p. 527; Vita Mariae Reginae of Robert Wingfield of Brantham, ed. D. MacCulloch (Camden Miscellany, Vol. XXVIII), p. 255.
Christophe d’Assonleville to Philip, 7 November 1558; Calendar of State Papers Spanish, Vol. XIII, pp. 437–8.
J. A. Muller, The Letters of Stephen Gardiner (Cambridge, 1933), p. 299.
J. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials (London, 1721), Vol. III, p. 55.
D. M. Loades, ‘Philip II and the government of England’, in Law and Government under the Tudors, eds C. Cross, D. Loades and J. Scarisbrick (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 177–94.
Derek Wilson, Sweet Robin; A biography of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1533–1588 (London, 1981), pp. 134–43.
J. A. Guy, The Cardinal’s Court; the impact of Thomas Wolsey on Star Chamber (Hassocks, 1977).
J. A. Guy, Tudor England (Oxford, 1988), pp. 198–9;
H. Miller, ‘Henry VIII’s unwritten will; grants of land and honours in 1547’ in Wealth and Power in Tudor England, eds E. W. Ives, J. J. Knecht and J. J. Scarisbrick (London, 1978), pp. 87–105.
The Groom of the Stool was in origin the king’s most intimate body servant, with constant access to the person. By this time he was head of the Privy Chamber. D. E. Hoak, ‘The King’s Privy Chamber, 1547–1553’ in Tudor Rule and Revolution, eds D. J. Guth and J. W. McKenna (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 87–108.
D. E. Hoak, The King’s Council in the Reign of Edward VI (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 55–71.
D. M. Loades, The Reign of Mary Tudor (London, 1991), pp. 57–95.
Ibid., pp. 200–201.
Acts of the Privy Council, eds J. Dasent et al. (London, 1890–1907), Vol. IV, p. 398.
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© 1992 David Loades
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Loades, D. (1992). Crown and Council. In: The Mid-Tudor Crisis, 1545–1565. British History in Perspective. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22305-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22305-3_2
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