2 replies to this topic

[wyatta]

Hey,
Does anyone have any ideas about how to awnser the following question
"Assess the role of the privy council in the government of Elizabethan England"
Thanks for any help!
Alex

[MrJohnDClare]

I think you need to address the issue in three parts:

1. What was the formal allotted role of the Privy Council in the government - in descriptive terms only, WHAT did it do.

but then go on to ask

2. How much influence did the Privy Council have in the government - assess how much say it had.


There are number of webpages which will help, though none of them go as deep as I think you will want to go - you will need to do some extra reading.

• http://www.nmm.ac.uk...-live-the-queen
  
• http://www.elizabeth...ivycouncil.html
  
• http://www.britannia.../eliz_govt.html

However, you need to be aware that recently there appears to have been a revision of attitudes to the power of the Privy Council, and so I would devote a final section to:

3. Was the Privy Council really so powerful - in which you address the possibility that it wasn;t as influential as was hitherto thought.

• Useful for this will be Natalie Mears who argues (with other recent historians) that the Privy Council was NOT the hub of policy-formation, but that the court and public debate were more important.

[Mr. D. Bryant]

I would add to the list of links Mr. Clare provided this one, John Guy's Tudors.org . This has a large number of articles designed for A-Level and undergraduate students. There are at least three potentially relevant articles to the question under discussion, including this one on 'Were Elizabethan politics factional?'