EBOOK English Parliaments of Henry VII 1485-1504

P.R. Cavill offers a major reinterpretation of early Tudor constitutional history.          In the grand 'Whig' tradition, the parliaments of Henry VII were a disappointing        retreat from the onward march towards parliamentary democracy. The king was at best        indifferent and at worst hostile to parliament; its meetings were cowed and        quiescent, subservient to the royal will. Yet little research has tested these        assumptions.Drawing on extensive archival research, Cavill challenges existing        accounts and revises our understanding of the period. Neither to the king nor to his        subjects did parliament appear to be a waning institution, fading before the waxing        power of the crown. For a ruler in Henry's vulnerable position, parliament helped to        restore royal authority by securing the good governance that legitimated his regime.          For his subjects, parliament served as a medium through which to communicate with        thegovernment and to shape - and, on occasion, criticize - its policies. Because of        the demands parliament made, its impact was felt throughout the kingdom, among        ordinary people as well as among the elite. Cooperation between subjects and the        crown, rather than conflict, characterized these parliaments.While for many scholars        parliament did not truly come of age until the 1530s, when - freed from its medieval        shackles - the modern institution came to embody the sovereign nation state, in this        study Henry's reign emerges as a constitutionally innovative period. Ideas of        parliamentary sovereignty were already beginning to be articulated. It was here that        the foundations of the 'Tudor revolution in government' were being laid.