Modern Statehood and the Tudor Dynasty in Britain in the Modern Era

• Transformation under Henry VIII: Henry VIII appointed skilled administrators to key positions, prioritizing talent over noble birth, which marked a significant shift from previous practices.

• Elizabeth I's Legacy: Elizabeth I further advanced the administrative state, creating a prototype for modern democratic governance and contributing to Britain's imperial ambitions.

A modern state had emerged by the end of the Tudor dynasty in 17th century Britain.   By the time of Elizabeth I’s death in 1603, the early modern period in European history had begun and the state of England was more administrative, less personal, and larger than it had been prior to the 15th century.  Under Henry VIII a new paradigm emerged, and important administrative functions of the state were apportioned to talented friends of the monarch, bucking the practice of enriching nobles or family with these highly influential posts.  Under Elizabeth I, this expanded administrative state blossomed into the prototype modern state that future democratic polities would use as a model for their own inceptions.  As an empire, Britain would export this model to its colonies, extending the practice of administrative governance across several continents.

In 1513 Henry VII appointed Sir Edward Poynings to lead Tournai, in France.  A decorated and skilled militarist and administrator, one colleague remarked of Poynings that “he did more to achieve the king’s aims than ‘a far greater personage than he is… could have done.’” Likewise, Henry installed several ministers in his government that were known for their skills in managing and procuring resources.  These included Sir Henry Wyatt, as treasurer of the chamber, Sir Thomas Lovell, a diplomat and courtier, and Edmond Dudley, a renowned legalist – “new men” in Gunn’s terms, stressing “the need for the king to secure ‘good governance and rule’ through ‘true justice’, imposing his power through the law on even the greatest of his subjects.” This was a marked departure from rule prior to the Tudors. In the lecture series Tudors and the State, we read that “Henry VIII [used] parliament to establish his Church of England, [with] ministers loyal to him.”

What Dr. Collins refers to in his Opening Lecture as “the transformation of the monarchy into an ‘executive’" was truly conceived in the person of Queen Elizabeth I, brilliantly portrayed by Cate Blanchett in the eponymous film Elizabeth.  The queen died an impersonal monarch, wielding at arm’s length the machinery of state, for the good and glory of her subjects, as supreme head of state. This administrative state in Britain was a “Monarchical State – a monarch claiming divine right powers that oversaw an impersonal, bureaucratic government filled with career servants that monopolized violence through courts, armies and navies, and local officials.” In these ways, the British Empire transformed itself from one steeped in the personal to an advanced state capable of administering and strengthening its worldwide imperial ambitions.