Place and Public Finance

Abstract

READING over Elton's work afresh now, sadly, there will be no more, prompts a series of reflections. It is a great body of writing both in quality and quantity: but it is extremely narrow. Elton wrote about a remarkably short time range to which he repeatedly returned. He had little patience with Wolsey, no great interest in the history of the 1540s or 1550s and his excursion into the history of Elizabeth's earlier parliaments was not one which evidently brought him much pleasure. His first book established the reputation of Thomas Cromwell: one of his last pieces of writing considered how much or how little his view of Cromwell had changed, and the very last piece to be published was a defence of Cromwel from modern claims of corruption. It is hard to think of another major historian who has made so good a living from so short a temporal span. It is also striking how little of Elton's output is actually about politics: he was essentially a student of institutions and even ideas rather than of the interaction of men. His later interest in the law seems almost a rejection of politics.