78 
STATE OF ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS. 
HOUSE OF TUDOR. 
SHOWING DESCENT OF JAMES I. 
HENRY VII. (1485-1509 = Altizabeth of York, 
Arthur, HENRY VII 
Prince of Wales (1500-1747) 
=Calharıne of 
ZN : a marrie 
1. Catharine of 2, Anna Boleyn 3. Fane Seymour 
dragon (belkeaded). tie 1537). 
Are 
MARY 
(1553-1558) 
Anne of 
CIEDES 
(dio rced). 
} ı 
ELIZABETH EDWARD VI, 
43558-1603) (1547-1553) 
5. Catharine 6. Catharine 
Moward Parr 
(beheeaded). Isuruived Ach 
, 
I 
Margaret Mary 
= James IV. == Dicke of 
Senn Sf 
Er V. Frances 
of Scotland = Karlof 
= Mary of Dorset, 
UMISC. 
) 
Mary Lady Jane 
Queen of Scots, Gre: 
married— (beheaded) 
Francis d.oßf = Lord 
France, Gauilford 
2. Lord Darnley. Dudley 
belten dead), 
1 
JAMES VI. 
f Scotland, and 
1. of England. 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL STATE OF ENGLAND UNDER 
THE TUDORS. 
1. The rule of the Tudors was a partial or modified despotism. This 
was due, in the first place, to the arbitrary natures of the sovereigns 
themselves. Henry VIT., Henry VIIL, and Elizabeth, 
Despotism whose reigns cover most of the Tudor period, were fond 
of the . . . 
Tudors. 9f power, and in the highest degree self-willed. In the 
second place, the decay of parliamentary power was 
caused by the sweeping away of the nobility of England by the War 
of the Roses, Under the Angevin Kings, the barons held a power- 
ful check on the personal will of the monarch. They compelled the 
King to govern according to the expressed desires of Parliament, The 
absence of this check, and the fact that the power of the commonalty, 
or great middle class, was then but partially developed, enabled the 
Tudor monarchs to impose their own will upon the nation. "They ob- 
served to some extent the forms of parliamentary government, but they 
set aside its real yrinciples, This was particularly seen in the levying 
of money by means which Parliament had never sanctioned. The 
Tudors exhibited the same arbitrary tendency in violating, by means 
of such bodies as the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commis- 
sion, the rights which Magna Carta guarantees to every Englishman, 
Instead of being tried by his ‘* peers,” many a.man was convicted and 
condemned by secret tribunals entirely unknown to law, But during 
all the Tudor period elements of popular power were growing, that