Politics

Abstract

THE legacy of Sir Geoffrey Elton to the study of Tudor politics can only be described as paradoxical. For all his reputation as a doyen of what has been termed the Cambridge school of high political history, studies of politics comprise but a small section of hisœuvre. He never wrote a substantial account of an episode in high politics in the manner of Maurice Cowling or J. C. D. Clark. If one excludes his textbooks, political subjects are treated primarily in his essays. Even these, though, are not numerous. The section ‘Tudor Politics’ inStudiesI contains eleven essays and papers. Four are reviews, two are introductions to reprinted biographies, two are essays on Thomas More and two are the famous studies of Henry VII and Henry VIII (‘Rapacity and Remorse’ and ‘King or Minister?’), which are essentially analyses of personality. Only one article, the early ‘Decline and Fall’, deals with a specific political episode. For a man whose doubts about biography as an exercise are well known, there is a striking amount of biographical material here. Elton's real contribution is to be found in his later essays.Studies3 contains the ‘Points of Contact’ trilogy, ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’ and ‘Arthur Hall’. ‘Hall’, ‘Piscatorial Politics’ inStudies4 and the final section ofParliament of Englandform a distinct corpus of Elizabethan political studies.