The power of Tudor monarchs, including Henry, was 'whole' and 'entire', ruling, as they claimed,
by the grace of God alone.
The Crown could also rely on the exclusive use of those functions that constituted the
royal prerogative. These included acts of diplomacy (including royal marriages), declarations of war, management of the coinage, the issue of royal pardons and the power to summon and dissolve Parliament as and when required. Nevertheless, as evident during Henry's break with Rome, the monarch stayed within established limits, whether legal or financial, that forced him to work closely with both the nobility and Parliament (representing the gentry). Among those who were in favour at any given point in Henry's reign, one could usually be identified as a chief minister, though one of the enduring debates in the
historiography of the period has been the extent to which those chief ministers controlled Henry rather than vice versa. in 1532 or 1533 Thomas Cromwell also came to define Henry's government. Returning to England from the continent in 1514 or 1515, Cromwell soon entered Wolsey's service. He turned to law, also picking up a good knowledge of the Bible, and was admitted to
Gray's Inn in 1524. He became Wolsey's "man of all work". Driven in part by his religious beliefs, Cromwell attempted to reform the body politic of the English government through discussion and consent, and through the vehicle of continuity, not outward change. Many saw him as the man they wanted to bring about their shared aims, including Thomas Audley. By 1531, Cromwell and his associates were already responsible for the drafting of much legislation. Cromwell did much work through his many offices to remove the tasks of government from the Royal Household (and ideologically from the personal body of the King) and into a public state. Henry took pride in showing off his collection of weapons, which included exotic archery equipment, 2,250 pieces of land ordnance and 6,500
handguns. Tudor monarchs had to fund all government expenses out of their own income. This income came from the crown lands that Henry owned as well as from customs duties like
tonnage and poundage, granted by Parliament to the King for life. During Henry's reign the revenues of the Crown remained constant (around £100,000), but were eroded by inflation and rising prices brought about by war. Indeed, war and Henry's dynastic ambitions in Europe exhausted the surplus he had inherited from his father by the mid-1520s. Henry VII had not involved Parliament in his affairs very much, but Henry VIII had to turn to Parliament during his reign for money, in particular for grants of subsidies to fund his wars. The dissolution of the monasteries provided a means to replenish the treasury, and as a result, the Crown took possession of monastic lands worth £120,000 (£36 million) a year. The Crown had profited by a small amount in 1526 when Wolsey put England onto a gold, rather than silver, standard, and had debased the currency slightly. Cromwell debased the currency more significantly, starting in
Ireland in 1540. The English pound halved in value against the Flemish pound between 1540 and 1551 as a result. The nominal profit made was significant, helping to bring income and expenditure together, but it had a catastrophic effect on the country's economy. In part, it helped to bring about a period of very high inflation from 1544 onwards.
Reformation , 1641 Henry is generally credited with initiating the English Reformationthe process of transforming England from a Catholic country to a Protestant onethough his progress at the elite and mass levels is disputed, and the precise narrative not widely agreed upon. Certainly, in 1527, Henry, until then an observant and well-informed Catholic, appealed to the Pope for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine. The traditional narrative gives this refusal as the trigger for Henry's rejection of
papal supremacy, which he had previously defended. Yet as
E. L. Woodward put it, Henry's determination to annul his marriage with Catherine was the occasion rather than the cause of the
English Reformation so that "neither too much nor too little" should be made of the annulment. Historian
A. F. Pollard has argued that even if Henry had not needed an annulment, he might have come to reject papal control over the governance of England purely for political reasons. Indeed, Henry needed a son to secure the
Tudor Dynasty and avert the risk of civil war over disputed succession. In any case, between 1532 and 1537, Henry instituted a number of statutes that dealt with the relationship between king and pope and hence the structure of the nascent
Church of England. These included the
Statute in Restraint of Appeals (passed 1533), which extended the charge of
praemunire against all who introduced papal bulls into England, potentially exposing them to the death penalty if found guilty. Other acts included the
Supplication against the Ordinaries and the
Submission of the Clergy, which recognised Royal Supremacy over the church. The
Ecclesiastical Appointments Act 1534 required the clergy to elect bishops nominated by the Sovereign. The
Act of Supremacy in 1534 declared that the King was "the only Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England" and the
Treasons Act 1534 made it high treason, punishable by death, to refuse the
Oath of Supremacy acknowledging the King as such. Similarly, following the passage of the Act of Succession 1533, all adults in the kingdom were required to acknowledge the Act's provisions (declaring Henry's marriage to Anne legitimate and his marriage to Catherine illegitimate) by oath; those who refused were subject to imprisonment for life, and any publisher or printer of any literature alleging that the marriage to Anne was invalid subject to the death penalty. Finally, the
Peter's Pence Act was passed, and it reiterated that England had "no superior under God, but only your
Grace" and that Henry's "imperial crown" had been diminished by "the unreasonable and uncharitable usurpations and exactions" of the Pope. The King had much support from the Church under Cranmer. of King Henry VIII To Cromwell's annoyance, Henry insisted on parliamentary time to discuss questions of faith, which he achieved through the Duke of Norfolk. This led to the passing of the
Act of Six Articles, whereby six major questions were all answered by asserting the religious orthodoxy, thus restraining the reform movement in England. To guard against this, in 1538 he began to build a chain of expensive, state-of-the-art defences along Britain's southern and eastern coasts, from
Kent to
Cornwall, largely built of material gained from the
demolition of the monasteries. These were known as Henry VIII's
Device Forts. He also strengthened existing coastal defence fortresses such as
Dover Castle and, at Dover, Moat Bulwark and
Archcliffe Fort, which he visited for a few months to supervise. Technologically, Henry invested in large cannon for his warships, an idea that had taken hold in other countries, to replace the smaller serpentines in use. (the
Mary Rose among them), and Henry was responsible for the establishment of the "council for marine causes" to oversee the maintenance and operation of the Navy, becoming the basis for the later
Admiralty.
Ireland At the beginning of Henry's reign, Ireland was effectively divided into three zones:
the Pale, where English rule was unchallenged;
Leinster and
Munster, the so-called "obedient land" of Anglo-Irish peers; and the Gaelic
Connaught and
Ulster, with merely nominal English rule. Until 1513, Henry continued the policy of his father, to allow Irish lords to rule in the King's name and accept steep divisions between the communities. However, upon the death of the
Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare,
Lord Deputy of Ireland, fractious Irish politics combined with a more ambitious Henry to cause trouble. When
Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormond, died, Henry recognised one successor for Ormond's English, Welsh and Scottish lands, whilst in Ireland another took control. Kildare's successor, the
9th Earl, was replaced as Lord Deputy of Ireland by the
Earl of Surrey in 1520. Surrey's ambitious aims were costly but ineffective; English rule became trapped between winning the Irish lords over with diplomacy, as favoured by Henry and Wolsey, and a sweeping military occupation as proposed by Surrey. Surrey was recalled in 1521, with
Piers Butler – one of the claimants to the Earldom of Ormond – appointed in his place. Butler proved unable to control opposition, including that of Kildare. Kildare was appointed lord deputy in 1524, resuming his dispute with Butler, which had before been in a lull. Meanwhile,
James FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Desmond, an Anglo-Irish peer, had turned his support to
Richard de la Pole as pretender to the English throne; when in 1528 Kildare failed to take suitable actions against him, Kildare was once again removed from his post. The Desmond situation was resolved on his death in 1529, which was followed by a period of uncertainty. This was effectively ended with the appointment of
Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset and the King's son, as lord deputy. Richmond had never before visited Ireland, his appointment a break with past policy. For a time it looked as if peace might be restored with the return of Kildare to Ireland to manage the tribes, but the effect was limited and the
Irish Parliament soon rendered ineffective. Ireland began to receive the attention of Cromwell, who had supporters of Ormond and Desmond promoted. Kildare, on the other hand, was summoned to London; after some hesitation, he departed for London in 1534, where he would face charges of treason. His son,
Thomas, Lord Offaly, was more forthright, denouncing the King and leading a "Catholic crusade" against Henry, who was by this time mired in marital problems. Offaly had the Archbishop of Dublin,
John Alen, murdered and besieged Dublin. Offaly led a mixture of Pale gentry and Irish tribes, although he failed to secure the support of
Lord Darcy, a sympathiser, or Charles V. What was effectively a civil war was ended with the intervention of 2,000 English troops – a large army by Irish standards – and the execution of Offaly (his father was already dead) and his uncles. Although the Offaly revolt was followed by a determination to rule Ireland more closely, Henry was wary of drawn-out conflict with the tribes, and a royal commission recommended that the only relationship with the tribes was to be promises of peace, their land protected from English expansion. The man to lead this effort was
Antony St Leger, as Lord Deputy of Ireland, who would remain in post past Henry's death. Until the break with Rome, it was widely believed that Ireland was a Papal possession granted as a mere
fiefdom to the English king, so in 1542 Henry asserted England's claim to the
Kingdom of Ireland free from the Papal
overlordship. This change did, however, also allow a policy of peaceful reconciliation and expansion: the Lords of Ireland would grant their lands to the King, before being returned as fiefdoms. The incentive to comply with Henry's request was an accompanying barony, and thus a right to sit in the
Irish House of Lords, which was to run in parallel with England's. The Irish law of the tribes did not suit such an arrangement, because the chieftain did not have the required rights; this made progress tortuous, and the plan was abandoned in 1543, not to be replaced. == Historiography ==