HistoryASlevel-'between 1530 and 1541 henry8th made himself dependent on parliament?

DollyDog101

please help ??? do you agree/dissagree?

Reply 1

wray89

I answered this on Yahoo Answers, but just in case you didn't get it.

This is a difficult question. While it can be argued that Parliament became stronger in this period, it would be difficult to argue that Henry VIIIth was not an absolutist (attempting total control). Naturally you have a series of laws being passed through parliament during this period, however you must address the reason why the time period of this question begins in 1530. This is because Cardinal Wolsey died, after being accused of treason. Wolsey was, as Simon Schama has stated, a 'Mr Fix it'. Therefore you should acknowledge a complete change in how the government operated, a transition from Wolsey organising Henry's affairs, to Henry relying on Cromwell and parliament.

Elton (1962) argues there was a major Tudor revolution in government. While crediting Henry with intelligence and shrewdness, Elton finds that much of the positive action, especially the break with Rome, was the work of Thomas Cromwell and not the king. Elton sees Henry as competent, but too lazy to take direct control of affairs for any extended period; that is, the king was an opportunist who relied on others for most of his ideas and to do most of the work. Henry's marital adventures are part of Elton's chain of evidence; a man who marries six wives, Elton notes, is not someone who fully controls his own fate. Elton shows that Thomas Cromwell had conceived of a commonwealth of England that included popular participation through Parliament and that this was generally expressed in the preambles to legislation. Parliamentary consent did not mean that the king had yielded any of his authority; Henry VIII was a paternalistic ruler who did not hesitate to use his power. Popular "consent" was a means to augment rather than limit royal power.

In the final analysis, you must understand that a man who initiated a reformation in England (as far as it can be argued that this was a reformation) so that he became head of the Church (a higher body than himself) would hardly transfer a lot of sovereignty to another body (parliament). I feel that parliament shared a symbiotic relationship with the monarch. He was, as Elton points out, too idle to organise his government so he relied on parliament to do so, however Parliament needed his approval and if they were to step out of line, he had the ability to impede on their powers.