The Pelican History of England #5: The Tudor Period (1485–1603)

My copy of the fifth "Pelican History of England," Tudor England, is a 1982 printing of a 1950 publication; unlike the other books in this series (which ranged from two to eight editions by the 1990s), it doesn't ever seem to have gone into a later edition. Also oddly, it actually overlaps with the previous volume in the series, England in the Late Middle Ages. That book's final section covered up through 1536, whereas this one jumps back to 1485. Though actually, as the books were published out of order, it's England in the Late Middle Ages (1952) that's the anomaly; Tudor England came out first.

The Pelican History of England: 5. Tudor England
by S. T. Bindoff

Originally published: 1950
Acquired and read: March 2025

Tudor England opens with King Henry VII's victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field, and it's central approach to the era is to consider how the monarchs of England attempted to stabilize what had been a pretty unstable era politically. As Bindoff says in his introduction, "A Crown which had become a football was ceasing to be a referee, and a game which begins... without a referee runs a risk of finishing without a ball" (8). So while it might be odd that there's a fifty-year overlap between this and the previous volume, I appreciated it because I found Bindoff's approach to the era much more focused and clear than Myers's. Unsurprisingly, Bindoff is very interested in the Protestant Reformation and how it took place, and how it was kept in position.

Like Myers, though, one of the thing Bindoff considers is how quick and easy the breach with Rome was under Henry VIII. Bindoff's take is that "[t]he air of inevitability which hangs about the great events of these years is the inevitability, not of gradualness, but of breakneck speed; and the fact that they took place so quickly goes far to explain why they took place at all... Something must be ascribed to the forcefulness of the royal personality which inspired it. Henry VIII is not, to most people, an attractive figure... [b]ut he was beyond question a masterful one" (95-6). Even when people rebelled against the Reformation, Bindoff argues that it wasn't really about the religion but governmental power; discussing one set of demands, he says of the protestors, "[t]hey made no attempt to argue the theological issues, and it is doubtful whether even the priests among the rebels would have been much interested in or conversant with these. What had stirred them and their flocks to anger was the sudden and, to them, unwarranted suppression by a remote government of the rites and symbols which made up so large a part of their religion" (156).

Bindoff argues that once done, rolling back the Reformation was a tricky business. Sure, England once again received a Catholic queen when Mary came to the throne... but "[i]f the Mann was now legally restored, it was because parliament had restored it; and if Mary were no accounted legitimate, it was because parliament had declared her to be so. What a statute had taken away, only a statute could restore.... In grounding his Reformation upon parliamentary authority Henry VIII had invested parliament with a competence in matters spiritual which not even the most Catholic of his successors could take away" (169). When Queen Elizabeth came along, Bindoff argues she basically didn't care about all this religious stuff, and kept her theological opinions private. "But was not a ruler whose only real belief was belief in herself, and whose only real devotion was devotion to her people, the ideal restorative for a country which had just undergone the drastic purge of the Marian Persecution?" (189)

If the crown had been a football, as Bindoff claimed at the beginning, it was Elizabeth who finally stabilized things after a long period of instability, and her ability to move beyond religious sectarianism seems to have been a major factor in that. Near the very end of her reign (1601), Bindoff remarks on a speech she gave: "Not many present could remember the time when she had not been Queen, and those who could did not cherish the memory.... [E]ven those who were already looking forward to the exciting novelty of a King could not deny the majesty of this Queen's leave-taking" (306).

Overall, I found this one of the more effective volumes of this series, certainly aided by the fact it only has to cover just over a century in its 309 pages, but also by Bindoff's clear focus. Many of the earlier volumes tried to take in the whole social picture of England, but by emphasizing how the monarchy led up to, carried out, and dealt with the repercussions of the Reformation, Bindoff provides a direction to this volume that keeps everything in context, even if there's less emphasis on broader social trends than there were in some previous volumes.

One bit that caused me to raise my eyebrows a bit, though, was Bindoff's take on the end of Queen Mary's reign; he says she "sank into a melancholia bordering on insanity"... partially because she couldn't have any kids (181). Would Bindoff speak this way of a male sovereign? Would any historian write about a woman sovereign this way now? I'm guessing "no" in both cases, and it made me want to read a more modern, more sympathetic take on her.