Tudor monarchy and Parliament
Tudor Government and the Use of Parliament
The Tudor monarchs — Henry VII (1485–1509), Henry VIII (1509–1547), Edward VI (1547–1553), Mary I (1553–1558) and Elizabeth I (1558–1603) — inherited a kingdom whose barons had been weakened by the Wars of the Roses. This gave them an opportunity to centralise royal power. Yet the Tudor story is not simply one of growing royal authority. Parliament’s role in the Reformation meant that it became more powerful, not less, as the sixteenth century progressed.
Henry VIII used Parliament to give his break with Rome a legal foundation that no subsequent monarch could easily reverse. This was both brilliant and double-edged: by routing the Reformation through statute, Henry made Parliament the instrument of royal policy — but he also confirmed that fundamental constitutional changes required parliamentary approval.
The Reformation Parliament sat from 1529 to 1536 and passed a series of Acts that severed England from Rome: culminating in the Act of Supremacy (1534), which made Henry VIII the “Supreme Head of the Church of England.” No pope, no foreign religious authority, had any power in England.
The Reformation Parliament and the Act of Supremacy
Henry VIII’s desire for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon — and the Pope’s refusal to grant it — created the context for the English Reformation. His chief minister Thomas Cromwell designed a legislative programme that used Parliament to achieve what the Pope would not grant. Between 1529 and 1536 a series of Acts progressively cut the ties between England and Rome.
The Act of Supremacy (1534) was the centrepiece. By passing it through Parliament, Henry gave the Reformation the force of statute law, making it treasonous to deny his religious supremacy. This was parliamentary power deployed in the service of royal policy — but it also meant Parliament had legislated on the most fundamental questions of religion and authority.
Thomas Cromwell turned Parliament into an effective legislative machine. He managed elections, drafted bills, and coordinated the passage of legislation — skills that helped Parliament become a more sophisticated institution. Historians sometimes describe this as the “Tudor revolution in government”: a shift from a personal, household-based monarchy towards a bureaucratic, statute-based state.
Cromwell was executed in 1540 after arranging Henry’s disastrous fourth marriage to Anne of Cleves. But the parliamentary machinery he created outlasted him. The dissolution of the monasteries (1536–40), carried out under his direction, redistributed enormous amounts of Church land to the gentry — creating a class of landowners with a direct financial stake in the Protestant settlement and, therefore, in Parliament protecting it.
Elizabeth I and Parliament
Elizabeth I (reigned 1558–1603) was a skilled manager of Parliament rather than a dominator of it. She called only ten parliaments in 45 years, and they sat in 13 sessions — always when she needed money or legislation — and she generally got what she asked for. But she faced persistent pressure from MPs on issues she considered her royal prerogative: religion, her marriage and the succession.
The Elizabethan Settlement of 1559 reset England’s religious position after Mary I had returned it to Catholicism. Elizabeth’s settlement was deliberately broad — she wanted a church that most English people could accept. Parliament passed both the Act of Supremacy (making her Supreme Governor) and the Act of Uniformity (imposing the Book of Common Prayer), giving the settlement statutory force.
Elizabeth I took the title “Supreme Governor” of the Church of England rather than “Supreme Head” (Henry VIII’s title). This was a deliberate softening designed to be more acceptable to Catholics and to the Church hierarchy who objected to a woman being called “head” of the Church.
Despite her parliamentary skill, Elizabeth faced MPs who pushed for more Protestant reform than she wanted. The “Puritan choir” of MPs regularly introduced bills on Church discipline that Elizabeth regarded as intruding on royal prerogative. She used her veto to block them, but could not stop MPs raising them.
The succession question was the most persistent tension. MPs repeatedly urged Elizabeth to marry and name an heir, fearing a Catholic succession if she died childless. Elizabeth resisted these pressures throughout her reign. In her famous “Golden Speech” of 1601 she acknowledged parliamentary concerns over monopolies — licences she had granted to courtiers that MPs considered a tax on trade — conceding that she had not been well informed by her advisers. Her willingness to make this concession showed both her political skill and the increasing confidence of the Commons.