Chapter 19 Elizabethan government PDF

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The royal court Chapter 19: Elizabethan government 1563-1603 The royal court was important as it allowed Elizabeth to seek advice on an individual basis. The court had two main areas: the Presence The weakening of the Privy Council Chamber and the Privy Chamber. The Presence Chamber was a Several problems weakened Elizabeth’s Privy Council from the later relatively open area to which anyone with the right to status or -A connections might expect to access. The Privy Chamber was both more 1580s: private and more important, though considerably less important than at number of ministers died in quick succession. The death of the Earl of the time of the Tudor Kings as the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber no Leicester in September 1588 was a blow Elizabeth took very personally. By 1597 the Council only had 11 members. –The queen longer had access to the monarch which they had formally enjoyed. made matters worse by failing to make immediate replacements and The operation of the court came under the jurisdiction of a Lord when she did, she tended to rely on the middle-age sons of former Chamberlain. Elizabeth always appointed a member of the nobility to councillors who often lacked their father’s skills. the post and three of her Lord Chamberlain’s were close relatives, for –Elizabeth refused to allow Burghley to retire, although his example her cousin Lord Hunsdon, appointed in 1585. effectiveness diminished during the 1590s. He appointed his son Robert Cecil to the Privy Council and the latter had to undertake an immense administrative burden on the account of his father’s ill health. The role of ministers The main formal body in which the queen’s principal ministers came together was Privy Council, which was responsible for policy advice and Parliament administration. Parliament was less important under Elizabeth than in Henry VIII’s Key Functions: -To enforce a range of laws and regulations regarding issues such as law and order, vagrancy and prices and wages. – To manage Crown finances with the Lord Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. –To administer the realm by instructing a range of officials: Justices of the Peace, sheriffs, subsidy commissioners, borough councils. Councillors had a considerable influence on the appointments of these positions. William Cecil was established as Elizabeth’s key minister at the beginning of the reign. He was joined in the council by a number of close associates including Sir Nicholas Bacon, Francis Russell and Sir Francis Knollys. Elizabeth’s favourite Robert Dudley joined the Council in 1562. Some reshaping of the Privy Council took place in the 1570s with the fall of the Norfolk and the death of Lord Treasurer Winchester and a nucleus of firmly Protestant councillors were appointed such as Sir Francis Walsingham and Sir Walter Mindmay. Despite these changes the Council offered cohesive decision making. There were some disputes particularly over Mary Queen of Scots in 1587 but Elizabethan ministers on the whole served their Queen well.

reign. Elizabeth considered Parliament as something she had to put up with for its tasks of law making, granting taxation and giving advice. It was though a largely secondary feature of the Elizabethan political system. Altogether 438 Acts were passed by Elizabeth’s parliaments. Probably the most important related to religion (the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity in 1559) and social policy (especially the Acts of 1598 and 1601 which addressed poor relief). The most important function of Parliament was to grant extraordinary revenue to the Crown. Of the 13 parliamentary sessions in Elizabeth’s reign, all but 2 were asked to grant revenue. Elizabeth was frequently forced to resort to levying ‘extraordinary revenue’ to pay for the Crown’s ‘normal’ expenditure as the level of her ordinary revenue had fallen in real terms. Meetings of Parliament gave useful opportunities to members of the Privy Council and other senior figures to gauge opinion amongst members of the ‘political nation’. As such, parliament served as a useful means of communication and a clear point of contract between councillors and those who administered the localities on their behalf.

Factional rivalry The various influential families at court and within the Council balanced one another. Thus relatives of the Boleyn’s featured in the senior ranks of Crown service in substantial numbers, while Elizabeth’s late stepmother’s family, the Parrs, also featured strongly at least early in the reign. The coherence of government began to decline during the 1590s when fierce clashes between Robert Cecil and the Earl of Essex made government difficult. These problems came to a head in the Essex rebellion of 1601. Essex’s response to his decline influence was to plan an armed coup which would bring down Cecil and his other enemies. But Cecil was well prepared and Essex was finally forced to surrender. He was quickly tried and executed in 1601. Managing Parliament There were times when Elizabeth’s parliaments irritated the queen, particularly if they challenged what she considered to be her prerogatives. She gave vent to outbursts of irritation in 1563 and 1566 when the House of Commons, at the urging of members of the Privy Council, sought to debate the issues of marriage and succession. By 1593, many of the traditional methods of parliamentary management began to have less success. Elizabeth tried to use charm and flattery but there were differences about how to deal with religion. Another feature of the 1593 Parliament was the imprisonment of Peter Wentworth for arguing for a named successor to Elizabeth. Infuriated once again by such an attack on her royal prerogative, the queen had Wentworth and three colleagues imprisoned in the Tower. Her action were not unconstitutional but showed how the queen’s temper had worsened with age. The relationship between Elizabeth and Parliament broke down entirely at the end of her reign over the issues of monopolies in 1601. A compromise was reached when the queen presented her Golden Speech to a crowded gathering of around 140 MPs in the Council chamber at Whitehall....