hamber; (4) the Courts of Augmentation, First
Fruits and Annates, and Wards; and (5) the Elizabethan Court of High
Commission.[20]

[Footnote 20: A. T. Carter, Outlines of English
Legal History (London, 1899), Chap. 12; A. Todd,
Parliamentary Government in England, ed. by S.
Walpole, 2 vols. (London, 1892), I., Chap. 2;
Dicey, The Privy Council, 94-115.]

VII. PARLIAMENT UNDER THE TUDORS (p. 021)

*21. Control by the Crown.*--By the Tudors generally, and especially
Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, Parliament was regarded as a tool to be
used by the crown, rather than as in any sense an independent,
co-ordinate power in the state. When innovations were to be
introduced, such as those carried through by Henry VIII., it was Tudor
policy to clothe them with the vestments of parliamentarism, to the
end that they might be given the appearance and the sanction of
popular measures; and when subsidies were to be obtained, it was
recognized to be expedient to impart to them, in similar manner, the
semblance of voluntary gifts on the part of the nation. It was no part
of Tudor intent, however, that Parliament should be permitted to
initiate measures, or even to exercise any actual discretion in the
adoption, amendment, or rejection of proposals submitted by the
Government. There were several means by which the crown contrived to
impede the rise of Parliament above the subordinate position which
that body occupied at the accession of Henry VII. One was the practice
of convening Parliament irregularly and infrequently and of bringing
its sessions to an early close. Another, employed especially during
Thomas Cromwell's ministry under Henry VIII. and during the reign of
Elizabeth, was that of tampering with the freedom of borough and
county elections. A third was the habit, also notorious under Henry
VIII. and Elizabeth, of dictating and directing in all that was
essential in the proceedings of the chambers. Henry VIII. bullied his
parliaments systematically; Elizabeth, by cajolery, flattery, deceit,
and other arts of which she was mistress, attained through less
boisterous methods the same general end. Measures were thrust upon the
chambers accompanied by peremptory demand for their enactment;
objectionable projects originated by private members were stifled; and
the fundamental parliamentary privileges of f