ABSTRACT
England’s central government – until 1707 Scotland maintained its own, while the Irish government remained subject to London throughout the early modern period – was a complex, even arcane, set of institutions. Having evolved over centuries in response to particular needs, reducing it to tidy charts illustrating lines of authority is a near impossibility, for even at the end of the period, the personal continued to play a crucial role in the organization and function of central government. The ability and industry of a single individual could permanently alter the status of the king’s government, as Thomas Cromwell did when he consolidated power in the hands of Henry VIII’s secretariat in the 1530s.
