Early Tudor Parliaments 1485-1558

Michael A.R. Graves

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317900825
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

This excellent survey looks at the workings of parliament under the first four Tudor monarchs. After an introductory first section which looks at parliament's medieval origins, the author then considers all aspects of early parliamentary history - including the historiography of the early Tudor parliaments, membership and attendance, the legislative roles if the Lords anbd Commons and the specific parliaments themselves.

Part One: The Background

1 Medieval Origins to 1399

Co-operation and consent

Medieval English kings, like their counterparts on the Continent, were accustomed to consult the great men of the land on matters of common concern. It was political commonsense to do so in the interest of both political stability and royal authority. These Great Councils, in which the King conferred with the nobles and bishops, were meetings between a feudal overlord and his vassals. He summoned them individually to assist him; they owed him a personal obligation; and they had no sense of common purpose or of responsibility to a wider community. The parliaments which emerged from the Great Councils, however, were characterised by very different attitudes and membership. The great feudatories came to see themselves as spokesmen and sometimes even protectors of the kingdom against harsh, arbitrary or unjust royal government–or misgovernment. Furthermore they were joined by representatives of other important social orders and legal corporations, especially the cities and towns and (in England) the sub-noble rural class of gentry.

These were European developments but, even as parliaments appeared, their experiences diverged. Continental assemblies closely mirrored the way in which society was structured in orders or estates. So the French Estates-General and the Cortes of Spain had separate chambers for the clergy, nobility, and the third estate (which encompassed the rest of society, although in practice, its membership was usually restricted to representatives of the towns). In contrast, at no time did English parliaments conform to the Continental model (97, p. 38). Furthermore, whilst most European assemblies were the product of royal initiative and patronage, it might be argued that in England they were, in origin, an expedient weapon of resistance and a restraint on royal power. Thus in 1264–5 the baronial opposition to Henry III sought a wider basis of support, when it treated with representatives from towns and counties about urgent reforms. However, Henry’s son and successor, Edward I (1272–1307), was quick to see and utilise the benefits of such occasions. Thereafter parliaments were fostered and nurtured by a succession of kings. They provided an opportunity to govern with the co-operation and financial assistance of power groups which extended beyond the old feudal circle of noble and ecclesiastical vassals. This co-operative principle strengthened royal government, but, at the same time, it placed restraints on royal authority. For example, by 1377, when Edward III died, it had been firmly established that no new law could be made, and no tax levied, without parliamentary consent.

The monarchy did not relinquish ultimate control of Parliament as it developed. The King alone decided when it should meet, how often, and for how long. Moreover, he determined both its membership and the matters to be discussed. Nevertheless, unlike the earlier Great Councils, parliaments embodied the concept of the community’s consent: that what concerned everyone should be approved by everyone. Certainly the overwhelming majority of people did not participate in the choice of Parliament’s membership and so were not directly represented. But in the fourteenth century contemporaries referred to the ‘whole realm in Parliament’ and described the institution as the ‘community of the realm’. Politically astute kings might exploit co-operation and consent in Parliament to their own advantage, but ineffectual or inept rulers, such as Edward II (1307–27) and Richard II (1377–99), did not, and they suffered the penalties of political failure and deposition as a consequence. On the other hand, the medieval assemblies did not acquire the power to depose monarchs. That was a constitutional impossibility, because the King alone could call a legitimate Parliament into being. On both occasions the business of deposition was performed by a meeting of the estates of Parliament, together with London citizens and others representing the populus. Nevertheless such special assemblies and ordinary parliaments had one common characteristic: they were recognised as representative of the community of all the realm, a far cry from the narrow, unrepresentative nature of Parliament’s ancestor, the Great Council.

In contrast, there was no significant difference between the functions of those early medieval gatherings (known as Great Councils because they were meetings of the King’s Council, enlarged by the presence of summoned bishops and nobles) and the emerging parliaments. The former met to give counsel to the King – rather than to make decisions – on a wide range of matters such as taxation, administration, the political situation and, in particular, judgements to be delivered by his Court. The consultative process and the provision of justice were also essential features of the early parliaments. Whilst, for example, the resolution of ‘great affairs’ was foremost in Edward I’s mind when he summoned an assembly, there was also a popular expectation that it was an occasion on which justice might be sought and received from the King or his Council. This was reflected in the use of the term ‘High Court of Parliament’. It was also given practical expression in the hearing of pleas and the many petitions handed in for consideration each time Parliament met. This was especially true in the first century of its recognisable existence after the political conflict between Henry III and a baronial opposition (1258–65).

During the same period, however, the functions of Parliament underwent significant change and, in the process, became more clearly defined. Its consent to taxes and new laws became binding on the crown. Common petitions, which touched the community-at-large, were increasingly remedied by legislative instead of judicial process. Private bills embodying the grievances of private persons and interests (or the injustices supposedly done to them), were delivered to receivers and triers who forwarded them to a government department or law court for a solution. And although consultation on ‘great affairs’ remained a vital function of Parliament, its deliberations frequently resulted in the enactment of new laws.

The emergence of the House of Commons

Parliamentary developments during the fourteenth century, especially in Edward III’s reign (1327–77), radically altered the structure of the institution. At some point, and certainly by 1332, the knights and burgesses began to deliberate together and apart from their social betters, the archbishops, bishops, abbots and nobles. Despite this separation, Parliament remained the exception to the estate-structure of most European assemblies. The great ecclesiastics (the lords spiritual) and the nobles (the lords temporal) continued to sit together in the original Parliament house, instead of dividing into their own estates and occupying separate venues. Furthermore the King’s professional counsel – his judges, Attorney, Solicitor, and serjeants – which, along with the rest of his Council, had always formed the nucleus of Parliament, remained with them in what would become known in the sixteenth century as the House of Lords.

The new lower, ‘nether’, or Commons’ House of knights and burgesses had a significant impact on the development of fourteenth-century parliaments. Its right to initiate direct taxes was firmly established and it quickly learned to relate redress of grievances to financial grants. Although, unlike the Lords, its members were not summoned to advise and treat, but simply to consent, they displayed a capacity to initiate political debate, criticise royal administration, and join with members of the other House in opposition to the King, especially Richard II. Nor did they always follow unquestioningly the political lead of the nobility. And as Parliament acquired the sole and prescriptive right to make new laws, the Commons’ participation in the process grew in importance. This was primarily because of its representative nature. The burgesses in particular were frequently charged with the responsibility to protect, confirm, or enlarge the liberties of their cities and towns and to promote their petitions. As many of these latter sought the redress of local grievances, members acted individually as custodians of local interests. They also became, collectively, the guardians of the wider interests of the community, criticising administrative corruption, or the King’s failure to consult, and even attacking unpopular royal ministers and favourites. It was in the furtherance of this role that the Commons worked with the Lords to develop the impeachment procedure: the former laid charges against a particular individual and the latter sat in judgement on him. In this way prominent servants and friends of Edward III and Richard II were punished; and in the process Parliament asserted the principle of ministerial responsibility to the community as well as to the King.

The extent and nature of change in fourteenth-century parliaments should not be exaggerated or misunderstood. There was no growing assault on royal authority. Impeachment, for example, was simply a parliamentary response to particular crises or inept monarchs. Furthermore, the thirteenth-and fourteenth-century crises which resulted in impeachments, baronial uprisings and royal depositions were the exception, not the rule. Medieval kings and the community sought consensus and agreement, and cooperation tended to be the norm in monarch–Parliament relations. Within Parliament itself the Commons was unquestionably inferior. The Upper House had more developed procedures, and enjoyed the assistance of the King’s legal counsel. Its members, possessed of great social and political power and prestige, could influence the election of Commons’ members in some constituencies. In contrast the organisation of the Lower House was at an early stage: its first recorded Speaker was chosen as late as 1376. Above all, its lawmaking role remained subordinate to that of the King and Upper House. It was not yet one of the three assenting parties to new laws, but a petitioner which received vague and general responses to its loosely-worded supplications.

The membership of parliaments

The King continued to be far more important than either Lords or Commons. It was he who commanded all members to come with full authority to bind those whom they represented to whatever was decided. He also determined the life and composition of parliaments. That composition had changed considerably since the early days when the King and his Council had met with the clergy and baronage, briefly afforced by the presence of knights and burgesses. Before 1400 the King’s Council had ceased to sit as a body apart from the professional counsel in the Lords; and the lower clergy disappeared, attending instead the Convocations (provincial assemblies) of the Church. Such changes were dependent on the royal will. So was the calling of lords spiritual and temporal to the early parliaments and to the Upper House which emerged in Edward III’s reign. Normally the two archbishops and nineteen bishops were all expected to attend, and some twenty to thirty abbots. The number of nobles attending fluctuated: some were minors and thus ineligible and others were serving the crown in a military capacity elsewhere. In any case, the King alone decided who to summon, and whether to summon them regularly, sometimes, or not at all. Those who owed a personal obligation to him and whose counsel he desired could be commanded to render parliamentary service. Time, custom and usage were to reduce his initiative.

Likewise it was the King’s decision whether or not to afforce parliamentary meetings with representatives of the counties (knights of the shire) and boroughs (burgesses). Frequently they were not called to the early parliaments: however, when the institution divided into two Houses, with the Commons as petitioner and the King and Lords as judges, their presence became essential to the work of the ‘High Court of Parliament’. Nevertheless it was still the monarch who directed that knights and burgesses should be elected. Moreover, whilst he usually required the return of knights from each county, his government was freely discriminating about borough membership. In the thirteenth century, especially, the cities and towns which were represented fluctuated between about a score and more than a hundred. Gradually, however, the variations diminished. Some urban communities, especially London, regularly elected members to fourteenth-century parliaments. Others remained unrepresented or were dropped off the list of parliamentary boroughs. But the parliamentary enfranchisement of boroughs remained in the crown’s gift, as the Tudors’ many additions were to demonstrate.

The place of parliaments

By 1399 parliaments had become a political focal point of the kingdom whenever they met, whether in co-operative mood or in crisis. From the mid-thirteenth century they had met frequently, often annually and even more than once a year – a fact which must have contributed to the growth of parliamentary traditions and practices. Inevitably the Commons, as the newcomer, lagged behind the Lords. It did not acquire its own Clerk and Speaker until Edward III’s reign, whereas the Upper House inherited the services of the Chancery clerks and the King’s professional counsel from the earlier unicameral Parliament. Unlike the more ordered, organised Lords, its conduct of affairs was haphazard and the product of chance rather than of design. In any case, despite the deposition of two kings (in 1327 and 1399), in normal times the monarch remained the most potent force in these meetings with the community. The parliaments were, after all, only brought into brief existence when he needed counsel and assistance. Against this must be balanced the way in which baronial oppositions had learned to use parliaments to resist and to reform. And the Commons’ members, especially the knights of the shire, were capable of spirited criticism and action in cooperation with, or even despite, the Lords. The conduct of parliaments, whether collaborative or confrontational, had advanced their importance and diminished royal potency during their sessions. That process was to continue in the fifteenth century.

2 Lancaster and York, 1399–1485

The political context

The important political developments in the fifteenth century were, to a large extent, the consequences of the dual legacy of Edward III. One was the brood of sons which he sired. He endowed them with estates and the Dukedoms of Clarence, Lancaster and York. They in turn founded noble dynasties which, by marriages, extended their kinship connections through a large part of the English nobility. Therefore future kings had to heed the interests of a group of powerful, ambitious families, each one connected by blood to the royal line. Not that any of them schemed to displace Edward III’s grandson and heir, Richard II. If he provided ‘good governance’ and did not alienate them by patently unjust actions, there was little prospect of ambitions reaching so high. However, Richard failed on both counts. In 1399 he was deposed and the vacant throne was occupied by another of Edward’s grandsons, Henry of Lancaster.

Henry IV’s usurpation highlighted a constitutional weakness which plagued England for most of the fifteenth century. There were no precise rules governing the descent of the crown, apart from the general principle of heredity within the ruling family (34, pp. 76–8). This imprecision worked to Henry’s advantage in 1399, but thereafter it bedevilled the Lancastrian dynasty. After all, the new King was one of the magnates. And some of them (such as York) could present legitimate claims to sit in the place of a usurper, whose right by descent was open to question. The only way in which Henry IV (1399–1413) and his successors could justify occupancy of the throne was by the provision of good government.

In the reign of his son, Henry V (1413–22), however, the second of Edward III’s legacies returned to haunt the Lancastrians: the revival of his claim to the French crown and the resumption of military campaigns in France. Successful foreign war was politic, because it diverted abroad the energies and attention of the nobility. It was also popular because it was profitable and prestigious. Under Henry V’s leadership it was certainly successful, yielding profit, conquests and the promise of the French crown. However, Lancaster was now committed to an adventurous, expensive foreign policy. If success turned to failure, disillusionment and opposition to the dynasty were likely to follow. Henry VI (1422–61) was only an infant when he succeeded his father. There followed, in consequence, a long period of regency government in which great nobles dominated the King’s Council and Parliament. Their governance was characterised by division and conflict. Nor did the situation change significantly when Henry came of age in 1437. He was meek, gentle, saintly, subject to bouts of mental illness, and ill-equipped to govern. As public disorder and lawlessness spread, the conviction grew that he was unfit to rule, and the House of York moved from the wings on to the stage, as a contender for the crown. Another calamity for Henry VI was the loss of the French ‘empire’ – by 1453 only Calais remained in English hands. Lancaster had failed to secure France or provide good governance at home. The discredited Lancastrians drifted into intermittent civil war with the Yorkists, and in 1461 Henry was deposed.

The new Yorkist usurper Edward IV (1461–83) proved himself able to provide the effective government which the Lancastrians had not, despite threats to his security and the brief restoration of Henry VI in 1470–1. The events of 1483–5, when his brother Richard usurped the throne of his son, Edward V, marked the end of the Yorkist regime, because Richard III was defeated and killed by yet another claimant, Henry Tudor. However, this was just a brief interlude in the recovery of royal government started by the Yorkists and continued by the victorious Lancastrian Henry VII.

Institutional developments

Parliament underwent further change and development in the fifteenth century. It remained first and foremost, as it always had been, ‘the High Court of Parliament’ and both judges and theorists repeatedly emphasised its ‘curial’ quality. Yet, at the same time, it was generally recognised as the political venue in which the nation’s great affairs were treated and resolved. Moreover the practical importance of this political function gradually superseded that of its judicial activity. This was because Parliament increasingly provided legislative solutions – new laws – rather than judicial ones for the problems and issues which came before it. Furthermore, one of its greatest judicial weapons, the trial of prominent men by impeachment, was not used again after 1450 until the early seventeenth century.

The growing practice of responding to both public needs and private grievances with new laws was closely related to another fifteenth-century parliamentary development: the way in which the institution acquired internal unity. The House of Commons was central to both of these processes. In 1399 it was still a petitioner for redress of grievances, with the King and Lords sitting in judgement. In other words, Parliament still conducted itself very much like a law court. However, this rapidly changed during the first thirty years of Lancastrian rule. It became normal practice for petitions to be handed into the Commons, before they were passed to the King and Lords. It was not unusual even for royal proposals, couched in petitionary form, to be placed there first for consideration. Thus the Commons came to participate regularly in the process of enacting such petitions into law. In this way the Lower House was elevated during the fifteenth century from a mere petitioner to a full partner in the law-making process, and co-equal with the House of Lords.

At the same time the petition was transformed into the parliamentary bill. The former was often vaguely worded. Even if it received the assent of the King and Lords, they (or, in practice,...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction to the Series
• PART One The Background
• PART Two Analysis
• PART Three Assessment
• PART Four Documents
• Parliamentary Sessions, 1485-1558
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index