2 - The Civilised Monarchy under the Tudors

Summary

The cities encreased; the middle rank of men began to be rich and powerful; the prince, who, in effect, was the same with the law, was implicitly obeyed; and though the farther progress of the same causes begat a new plan of liberty, founded on the privileges of the commons, yet in the interval between the fall of the nobles and the rise of this order, the sovereign took advantage of the present situation, and assumed an authority almost absolute.

Hume, Tudor History, 1759

In 1752, whilst deliberating whether to begin his History with the Stuarts or the Tudors, Hume wrote to Adam Smith that ‘the Change, which then [sc. under the Tudors] happen'd in public Affairs, was very insensible, and did not display its Influence till many Years afterwards. Twas under James that the House of Commons began first to raise their Head, & then the Quarrel betwixt Privilege & Prerogative commenc'd.’ Five years later, as Hume delved into Tudor History, his attitude changed dramatically. He wrote to his London publisher Andrew Millar that ‘it is properly at that Period [sc. the reign of Henry VII] modern History commences. America was discovered: Commerce extended: the Arts cultivated: Printing invented: Religion reformed: And all the Governments of Europe almost chang'd. I wish therefore I had begun here at first.’ Hume lamented that had he explained the far-reaching changes of society and government under the Tudors, ‘many Objections’ (mostly charges of partiality) against his Stuart History could have been easily countered. More specifically, he would have been able to demonstrate that it was the inconsistency of the Tudor monarchy, rather than the Stuarts’ illegal seizure of power, that had caused the constitutional crisis in the seventeenth century.

Based on a thorough investigation of Hume's Tudor History, this chapter explains Hume's view that the seventeenth-century constitutional struggle between Crown and Parliament was rooted historically in the Tudor monarchy. This explanation constitutes an alternative to Pocock's influential reading of Hume. According to Pocock, Hume's Tudor History merely restated his earlier claim in the Stuart History that the constitutional struggle was an inevitable consequence of the decline of feudalism. This view implies that Hume's Tudor History added nothing but a narrative of ‘an interval between cause and effect’, in which the Tudors passively occupied the vacuum left by the great nobles before the gentry rose to prominence.