ABSTRACT
Tudor governments lacked an army with which to maintain obediencefor most of the century, and even when they gained rudimentary per-manent local defence forces from the 1570s, the trained bands, these could not always be relied on against local grievances (Boynton, 1967). They therefore needed to persuade or convince their subjects to remain passive through a generally accepted theory of obligation and submission. The need became more acute with the changes of the 1530s and the dangers attending on them. Thomas Cromwell saw the necessity of organising and directing a group of publicists to elaborate on the theory of non-resistance expressed by William Tyndale in his Obedience of a Christian Man (Zeeveld, 1948). He maintained close control of the printing presses, almost entirely suppressing counter-propaganda; in 1538 the import of English books printed abroad was banned (although Cromwell was ready to circumvent this ban when it suited his own policies, importing English Bibles printed in France in order to increase the supply of Bibles in England). The arguments deployed by Henrician publicists, men like Richard Morison, Thomas Starkey and Robert Barnes, were taken up by those who replied to the rebels of 1549: Sir John Cheke, Thomas Cranmer and Philip Nichols [Docs 10, 14, p. 149, p. 151]. The pamphlets and ballads of Elizabeth’s reign continued to echo the same themes, which were dependent on the assumption that any obligation to rulers such as the kings and queens of England was also an obligation to God.
