ABSTRACT
An apparently enhanced role for Parliament and for parliamentary statutes, a by-product of Henry’s employment of the Reformation Parliament to effect key changes in the Church and religion, could form another plank of the thesis. In the third quarter of the twentieth century the concept of a ‘Tudor Revolution in government’ gained currency and for a while it attracted much support. Henry’s government did become larger and more complex, especially though not exclusively during the 1530s and as a consequence of the Reformation process, even if some of them seem to have been ad hoc or contingent upon unexpected events, there were important governmental developments. Because the government of England was monarchical, the royal court was normally the centre of power. Thomas Cromwell’s strategy of placing the principal financial departments on a statutory basis may have been intended to give the system greater coherence, but if this had been his aim he fell from power before it was fully achieved.
