Cromwells Responsibility For Expansions And Effectiveness...

Cromwells Responsibility For Expansions And Effectiveness Of Government Between 1530 and 1539 The most influential and controversial thesis concerning Cromwell’s role in the revolution in government in the 1530s was Elton’s ‘The Tudor Revolution in Government’. In this work, Elton asses Cromwell â€Å"as the most remarkable revolutionary in English history.†. Elton argued that Cromwell seized the unique opportunity presented by Henry VIII’s martial problems to turn England into a unified, independent sovereign state, ruled by a constitutional monarch through national and bureaucratic institutions. This is certainly true to an extent however it could be argued that these changes were reactionary†¦show more content†¦The appointments of both the Earl of Norfolk and Charles Brandon, Earl of Suffolk, seem indicative of a politically and religiously conservative council. These facts obviously take responsibility for these changes away from Cromwell. The importance of the executive Privvy Council is that it gave drive and continuity to royal government owing to the stability of its membership - no longer did the impetus need to come from the monarch or chief minister. This would be particularly important after Cromwell’s downfall in the 1540s, when Henry did not allow another Cromwell to emerge and his powers were failing, and even more after 1547 when Edward VI was a boy, succeeded by two women. The Privvy Council took over responsibility for the executive. It had certainly taken over the management of the day-to-day business on behalf of the monarch by Elizabeth’s reign, but it is most doubtful that this occurred in the 1530s or that Cromwell planned it. Several other objections have been raised to Elton’s assessment of the development of the Privvy Council. Elton argued that Cromwell was able by â€Å"the reorganisation of the haphazard medieval Council into a more formally constituted board of government; and by the promotion of the principal secretary (himself)† to get himself appointed the chief executive and co-ordinating minister. Rather than judging it to be part of Cromwell’s plan to