The Tudors: Henry VIII - Government Reform under Cromwell - Episode 22

This is I'm Stark and in this video we are looking at reform of government under Cromwell. So many historians believe that Thomas Cromwell revolutionised government at the time of the break with Rome and this is because Cromwell was able to dominate royal government courtesy of his role in securing the king's annulment. Now this was to the annoyance of conservatives such as the Duke of Norfolk who were hostile to his religious reforms. However even though he managed to dominate royal government throughout the 1530s he didn't have as much freedom as Wolsey did in the previous decade. So one of the things that Cromwell started to introduce was a more professional Privy Council and seeing as Henry VIII relied on a personal monarchy he had previously met with his royal council advisors which consisted of leading noblemen, clergy and members of the king's household staff. But through the influence of Cromwell a more professional Privy Council emerged and this contained less people and professional lawyers or bureaucrats. Now this was first suggested by Wolsey in the outing ordinances yet it started to appear when Cromwell became dominant. Now Cromwell also created many new financial institutions along with the Privy Chamber to deal with the new revenues which came from the break from Rome and in total he created four new posts. Now the first one was the Court of Augmentations which controlled the land and finances which were previously under the control of a Catholic Church. The next one was the Court of General Surveyors which handed some of the ex-monastic lands before it was amalgamated with the Court of Augmentations which is one we just talked about. The next one was the Court of First Fruit and Tenths which was collected the money that was previously sent to Rome and the final one was the Court of Wards and this collected money from the estate of a miner and that was anyone under 21 years old who had inherited their land. Now one of the biggest things that Cromwell did in his reign was to increase the importance of Parliament and the importance of Parliament had commonly depended on the state of finances in the country so throughout the Hundred Year War it had been used frequently whereas in both Edward III and Henry VII's reign the finances were fairly secure and Parliament was barely needed. Now throughout Wolsey's reign Parliament had been used infrequently and when he had used it to raise revenues for expensive campaigns abroad it had caused tensions. Now although statute law and statute law is laws made by Parliament with royal consent was the highest form of law in England, kings were still able to make law by proclamation on many issues and this was made without parliamentary authority. However Cromwell started to use Parliament frequently to achieve the break from Rome and to strengthen the royal authority. Now this meant that from 1529 Parliament passed a number of laws never seen in England before. Now by the end of the 1530s it was recognized that statute law which we just talked about made by the king in Parliament which is basically laws carried out in Parliament under the presence of a king would represent ultimate authority in England and Wales. Now Cromwell chose to use Parliament more frequently because he needed to strengthen the changes that he was making in the church and the government seeing as they were very risky and often completely revolutionary. So that is how Cromwell made all these new things in Parliament, he decided to increase the role of Parliament, improve finances and even reform the Privy Chamber. So thank you for watching and see you soon, bye!