Essay
A* Early Tudors Henry VIII Exemplar Essay 5
Assess the claim that Thomas Cromwell had carried out a ‘revolution’ in Tudor government by 1540.
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Henry VIII practice essay 5Assess the claim that Thomas Cromwell had carried out a ‘revolution’ in Tudor government by 1540
The view that the nature of Tudor government witnessed a ‘revolution’ under Henry VIII, put
forward by G.R. Elton, is based primarily on the growth of Parliament the chief administrative of the
state. It is argued by Elton that Thomas Cromwell made such profuse use of Parliament that the
kingdom became governed by the ‘King-in-Parliament’ as opposed to ‘King and Parliament’. This
view is supported by the huge number of Acts of Parliament effected in Henry’s reign; laws passed
by Henry VIII filled 1032 pages of the Statute of the Realm compared to 1094 between 1258 and
1509. This suggests that Parliament became the state’s main legislative body, which was certainly
not the case under Henry’s predecessors, who would have issued proclamations to bring about
reform and maintain law & order in the kingdom. In fact, this approach was far different even to that
employed a mere decade earlier, as Parliament had played no significant part during Wolsey’s
tenure as Lord Chancellor. As a result, it is an extremely credible claim that Cromwell was the
catalyst for changes to the nature of government. The revolutionary aspect of the claim could be
similarly true when we consider the role of Parliament in the Reformation and the break with Rome.
Cromwell’s decision to use Parliament to grant the king’s divorce had far-reaching consequences for
the kingdom’s nature of government which even Henry himself did not foresee; the Act of
Supremacy appeared to give the king unlimited control over all matters of state, with the Church
reduced to another subordinate lower order. Arguably, however, a by-product of the Act of
Supremacy was that the king was now answerable to Parliament and subsequently, the royal
prerogative was reduced to a considerable degree. The influence wielded by Cromwell over the king
is testament to his use of Parliament to give himself and other ministers more power to directly
make policy, which was unprecedented at this stage in English history. Parliament also became a
means of policing the kingdom for the first time, as the Treason Act gave Henry and Cromwell the
legal justification for dealing with those who opposed the Reformation. From this perspective, Tudor
government became more centralised since responsibility for policing the outlying districts no longer
rested with Justices of the Peace (JPs) acting with unrestricted power. Although JPs were still
prominent, their powers were limited by the provisions of laws such as the Treason Act, and in this
sense, a stronger rule of law was established in the state under Cromwell’s leadership.
A wider consequence of Cromwell’s approach to the break with Rome was the erosion of the
Church’s power, so that the kingdom was no longer governed by the ‘Church and State’ but by the
‘Church-in-State’. The assimilation of the Church and its subordinance to the king undoubtedly
modernised Tudor government as it became more bureaucratic and therefore more efficient in the
sense that it did not have to consult with the Church in order to make religious changes. The result
of this was that Cromwell was able to exercise influence perhaps greater than that of the Archbishop
of Canterbury in shaping religious policy; the Act of Ten Articles is often seen by historians as one of
Cromwell’s greatest successes owing to the fact that it marked a decisive shift towards
Protestantism. Although the Act of Six Articles was passed only a few years later to restore more
traditional elements of doctrine, it is important to recognise that it was Cromwell who had made it
possible for the government to have a direct say in changing religion in the first place, a power that
would have been separated prior to his term in office. Further legislation that gives credence to
Elton’s ‘revolution in government’ theory is evident in the passing of the Acts for the Dissolution of
the Monasteries (both Smaller and Larger). These laws, serving to implement the practical element
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