Matthew Paul Assess the claim that reform of the Privy Council was the most important achievement

of Thomas Cromwell in government and administration.

Whilst it was most certainly one of the key aspects of Cromwells reforms, the Privy Council was not the only, nor necessarily the most important factor. His reforms to Parliament, Local Government, and Finance are all championed by Elton in his thesis on Cromwells grand, reformatory master plan. Yet even in these factors, questions remain about the extent to which the changes were indeed reform as opposed to reaction, and to what extent it was in fact Cromwell himself who instigated them. In the area of Finance, a number of changes happened under Cromwells watch, in reaction to the vast influx of money, 480,000 from the 1534 Subsidy Act and the new court of first fruits and tenths, and 1.3 million from the dissolution of the monasteries. Cromwell instigated four new courts to deal with this newfound, though short term, wealth. First fruits and tenths, Court of Wards and Liveries, Court of Augmentations, and the Court of General Surveyors all came into being to, in Eltons argument, revolutionise, and bureaucratise the handling of money by the crown. What Elton argues Cromwell was doing, was moving the finance out of the household and into financial institutions better able to handle it. This would have indeed been a major achievement for Cromwell, yet to a large degree, this argument is refuted by historians. Though the instigation of four new courts seems many, in fact the General Surveyors, and the Wards and Liveries, were not strictly new, rather they were modernised, and finalised under Cromwell, and in this he was simply finalising the policies of Wolsey, hardly revolutionary. Nor does there seem to have been much forethought, one wonders how much of this reform would have been implemented or indeed needed had the crown not suddenly received this influx of money. So too, the subsidy act seems to have been little more than Cromwells way of appeasing Henry, by legitimising extraordinary revenue tax, during peace, and if not to appease Henry then at least to make up for the huge deficits left in the treasury following his wars. Indeed much of the money Cromwell raised through these means was simply in reaction Henrys demand for 376,000 for a network of national fortifications to combat a possible invasion by Charles V and Francis I in 1538. In this way then the changes, whilst important seem to be somewhat limited by their origins in Cromwells simple, whilst necessary, desire to remain in Henrys favour, and this is demonstrated in Henrys continuance of hoarding money within the household, and thus Cromwells effort to get his man Thomas Heneage, appointed Groom of the Stool. In the Privy Council, Elton again argues for a systematic agenda of long term reform by Cromwell, as we see, as in finance, the removal of the Privy Council from the Privy Chamber, and the ability to work outside of the household, and most importantly, to meet without the king. Cromwells position as Secretary of the Council lead to its inclusion in the Act of Precedence in 1539 and the use of minutes and smaller, more executive Council from 1536 all seem to demonstrate Eltons point, that this achievement of Cromwells was a great overhaul of the Privy Council to a more efficient, modern form of governance, government under the king rather than government by the king if you will. Yet this argument fails to take into account t the enormous events of the 1530s. Anne Boleyns fall, the Pilgrimage of Grace, and the Break from Rome, all lead to the Councils need for increased secrecy and efficiency. Just as the money influx from the reformation led to a change in financial

Matthew Paul government, so the influx in problems from the reformation led to a change in how the Privy Council was run. What is more, there was a precedent for the smaller Council, already tried in Ireland in 1529 and thus again Cromwells change, though whether it was his is debatable, was not necessarily that new. The changes, which Cromwell did instigate, namely those to the Secretary, were motivated by his need to stay in power within the Council, and we see the Secretary position die out after Cromwells fall, and it seems utterly contradictory that Cromwell would want to create this smaller, more powerful council with so many of his enemies on it. Thus, it seems his work in the Council was just as reactionary, and unremarkable as that of his work in Finance. His work in local Government, however, was far more remarkable, and here the idea of unified Kingship seems legitimately supportable. The 1536 Franchise Act and Union of Wales both signified an increased desire for a unified kingdom and for better governance by the King himself in the localities. The Council of the West too drove towards this in a reflection of the newly powerful Privy Council, in the West. Unimplemented, yet equally important in its nature, the 1539 Articles for the ordering of the Manred, also demonstrate a desire by Cromwell to centralise local government with the king, rather than with local rulers. Whilst to some extent this was successful, between 1536 and 1539 31% of JPs were new placements; to a large extent Cromwells reform to local government went unsuccessful. Ironically then, with the poorly implemented Franchise Act, the short lived Council of the West, and the Conceptual Articles for the ordering of the Manred, Cromwells most revolutionary and genuine ideas were his least successful by some way. In Parliament Cromwell is argued to have continued this centralisation with an increased power of Parliament. The 1533 Act in Restraint of Appeals and 1534 Act of Supremacy both passing through Parliament. So too the introduction of a journal and the introduction of 14 new boroughs would seem to be a sign of an augmentation of its power. Yet realistically these are just signs of the way an institution reforms itself over time, the sensible measures to increase efficiency hardly point to a great success by Cromwell and do not by any means warrant an achievement. Moreover, the 1539 Proclamations Act directly undermined the power of Parliament, by allowing the monarch to bypass Parliament and rule simply by virtue of their god given right, as Somerset did as Lord Protector. Nor does it seem particularly logical that Cromwell, as Henrys first minister and thus his first scapegoat, would seek to augment the power of an institution loathed by Henry, and only called when he was in need of Money for War, or when he wished exert his god given right to rule upon the entire country, and thus Parliament remained, an instrument of Henrys, still called at his command and unable to countermand him, hardly a great change from the Parliaments that existed before Cromwell. Therefore, I would argue that none of the above factors represents a single most important achievement for Cromwell. Rather, they were all means to an end, than ends themselves. This end being Cromwells continued position as first minister and his retention of power. Only in local government do we see a hint of his own agenda coming through, yet, ironically, this is the area of his greatest failure. We see an illustration of my point in Cromwells fall, when he allowed his religious radicalism to drive him to harbour sacramentarians, arrange the marriage with Anne of Cleves, and support the German Protestants in Foreign Policy, the result of which was his falling out of favour with Henry and his execution. Thus, it seems that rather than any one factor being his greatest achievement, they were all means by which he managed his greatest achievement, that of staying in power, and even that he eventually (though inevitably) failed at.