Concepts of Political Obedience in Late Tudor England

Conflicting Perspectives

Bibliographic Data

ID10064370
AuthorsRichard L Greaves (corresponding author)
Year1982
Volume22
Issue1
Pages23-34
Publication date1982-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of British Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-9371 • E-ISSN: 1545-6986
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1086/385795
OpenAlexW2020470690
LanguageEN
Citations received7

Primarily because of the Reformation, political obedience became an increasingly significant issue in Tudor England. The success of Henry VIII's break with Rome resulted partly because the state could use the established church to inculcate in the populace the notion of loyalty to the civil government as a Christian duty. Despite the vacillations of Henrician ecclesiastical policy and the more radical reforming spirit of the Edwardian years, Protestant views on political obedience remained fundamentally stable. The accession of Mary, however, created a critical dilemma for men who had been stressing the duty of obedience to one's ruler. Exile was only a partial solution, though among the exiles a handful of leaders worked out a theory of tyrannicide. Of those who took this course, John Knox in particular confused the issue by simultaneously raising the thorny problem of gynecocracy. Written while Mary Tudor was queen, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women appeared after Elizabeth's accession, when it was an embarrassment to Protestants. It was left, then, to the Elizabethans to rethink the entire question of political obedience

Duty · Obedience · Political science · Politics · Protestantism · Ruler · State (computer science · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity

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