Notes:BC1:Tudor and Stuart England - overview

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American government is a direct descendent of English institutions and, therefore, of English history and heritage. We can see its origins in English Common Law, first created by the English king Henry II in 1189. Coming forward a few hundred years to the time of the Tudors (1485 to 1603) and then the Stuart era (1603 to 1689) we can see more direct relevancy of English events to the birth of the United States.

During the Tudor era, oceanic sea power developed and sea lanes were opened across the Atlantic beating a path for emigrants to follow. Also in Tudor times, reformation of the Church swept across England and continental Europe. In England, the Church ceased to be a ruling Estate answering to the Pope and became subservient to the state represented by the English monarch - a fundamental change with causes and consequences far beyond a king's desire to change his woman.

The first English colony in America began with the Virginia charter of 1606 - three years into the reign of the first Stuart, King James I. Eighty six years later (and 100 years before the ratification of the Constitution of the United States), at the end of the Stuart era, thriving American colonies had been established from Carolina to Rhode Island. The Stuarts were done in 1689 when the Glorious Revolution (the Revolution of 1688) produced fundamental change to the English constitution, curbing the political and religious tyranny of the monarch. The Established Church was no longer coextensive with the state. Parliament was victorious over the crown as were the Common Lawyers over the royal Prerogative Courts. Feudalism was history in England - remaining remnants the dying product of inertia. Rights of the commoners were now protected by Parliament and Common Law.

These events have done more to forward personal freedom than any before or since.


The Tudor era

(This section based on G.M. Trevelyan's History of England, Book III, The Tudors)[1]

In the middle ages, all of Europe, including England, was divided into layers of Estates, corporations, social classes, and guilds - more so than into nations. Society was a feudal system governed locally by local domestic laws and customs, in castles, manors, walled cities, cathedrals, and monasteries. The individual had some small rights defined by the relation between feudal lord and villein, and fewer rights in the monasteries. Guilds were erected to protect members from outsider competition - and to stifle initiative. The Tudor 100 plus years took a toll on these interests to the benefit of nation and individual, though it provided restraints of its own. The intellectual products of the Renaissance and Reformation was to encourage the individual mind and conscience.

Many developments in the 14th and 15th century had been leading up to the end of the feudal system in England. The rise of industry, notably cloth manufacture, put a premium on labor which pried the villein from the feudal fields. The rise of London, the Common Law, the effect of the yeoman archer at the expense of the mounted noble, the printing-press at the expense of the monastery's monopoly on learning, all helped to undermine feudalism. In England, however, something else happened that gave it an advantage over its continental European neighbors that lasted centuries. It set England solidly (if slowly, for all such change must be slow to fully succeed) on the path to rule of law and freedom for the individual.

Inside the rising nations on the continent power was increasingly concentrated in the monarchy, as it was in England. Unlike in England, the kings of France, Spain, and Portugal were allied with the Church while what parliaments they had were becoming obsolete. Roman Imperial law was used as the basis for absolute royal power. The English monarch, however, was allied with Parliament. England preserved its Common Law and the constitutional character of monarch and Parliament. In England, it was mediaeval religion that changed. England and France had much in common to that point and looked much alike. After the Tudors, they were quite different and "mutually repellent"[1]

Under the Tudors, the Crown, through Parliament, effected a number of changes in the Church and its affairs. It was radical. Even though it preserved many of the old institutions, it expelled those that did not fit its purposes - such as orders of monks and friars with their privileges and immunities that did not answer to the King. It asserted its authority expelling foreign authority (in the form of the old Church), and claimed the right to freedom of action within its national borders. Such would not have been possible in earlier mediaeval times. And, of course, it no longer paid homage to the "Bishop of Rome". It is what cost Sir Thomas More his head. But Parliament was not yet a full partner. It was a tool of the Crown - an acceptable method to have the nation pass the legislation needed. The power lay with the Crown and Privy Council who gradually taught Parliament the work of government.


The Stuarts

(This section based on G.M. Trevelyan's History of England, Book IV, The Stuart Era)[1]


  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Trevelyan, G.M. History of England, Illustrated Edition. London. Longmans. 1960

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