1485: Noble Watershed or Business as Usual?
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Parker, John Cody
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Parker, John Cody. 2022. 1485: Noble Watershed or Business as Usual?. Master's thesis, Harvard University Division of Continuing Education.Abstract
Henry VII ruled England for nearly a quarter-century, from 1485 to 1509. While he was on the throne, the civil wars that tore the country apart through much of the previous century burned themselves out, and a new period of comparative calm and stability took hold. Historians long have understood Henry’s reign as a period of transition, particularly in his approach to government participation. The medieval period largely saw political power divided between the Crown and the nobility, who frequently vied with one another for supremacy. However, the transformation of that relationship, which began during the previous Yorkist dynasty, markedly increased once Henry ascended the throne. Power ostensibly coalesced around the Tudor Crown and its new middle-class managers as the nobility’s role became more advisory and administrative. In its place came educated and able men from the upper gentry, men who owed their elevated positions to the king’s favor rather than birth. Their increasing presence represented a shift in the makeup of English government, and it undermined the collective influence of the nobility, who institutionally retreated from the king’s presence to a more sedentary, peripheral position.What typically happened to the displaced nobility? What did it mean to be noble? Contemporary scholarship has focused on Henry’s new professional administrators and largely sidestepped the remnants of the nobility. This prioritization risks dismissing the nobility as a purely medieval institution and prematurely concluding its story simultaneously with the Wars of the Roses. While the makeup of Henry’s government shifted towards a new professional-class of men from the ranks of the upper gentry, the nobility did not disappear. It was still very much present even if it no longer enjoyed the same institutional influence it once had. This work explores the period through the prism of three of Henry’s most prominent noblemen—John de Vere, thirteenth earl of Oxford, Thomas Howard, first earl of Surrey, and Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham—and shows that the nobility was not a monolithic institution during Henry’s reign but rather a multifaceted body in various states of flux. In short, there was not a singular way to be noble; how each nobleman carried himself and engaged in his affairs was entirely dependent on his individual relationship with the king.
Each of the three noblemen named above illustrates a different aspect of the shift. It was not a sudden, singular event, nor did it impact all nobles uniformly. Rather, it was thematic in character and gradually transformed the institutional nobility from an arbiter of unbridled royal power to a more advisory and supportive role. Understanding the shift is important because of how it transformed the period’s polity. Centuries of established tradition and government administration were largely abandoned, and in their place came the foundation of what would later become the British constitutional monarchy. In this work, I explore the shift and its impacts to gain a better sense of the transition from the medieval to the early modern period and better understand the transformative impacts of England’s first Tudor king.
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