Historians have until relatively recently been somewhat guilty of indifference to and misunderstanding of Henry VII’s reign. Happily, this situation is in the process of remedy, and Paul Cavill is one of the key scholars currently reappraising Henry VII. Many authors have pointed out that Henry’s reign falls between the historiographical and the methodological traditions of both medieval and early modern scholars. Consequently, this liminal identity has encouraged neglect. Only recently, perhaps with a view toward the 550th anniversary of his death, has work on Henry VII been able to create sufficient momentum to generate a sustained and specific focus on the reign and its particular characteristics. The period 1485–1509 is now becoming recognized as one of important transition that deserves to be incorporated fully into the scope of late medieval and sixteenth-century research—periods that might be better served without the conceptual barriers that 1485 or 1509 have become.

Paul Cavill’s book offers a clear example of the detail and intellectual rewards that await historians willing to engage fully with Henry VII and his polity. Although the monograph is principally a study of the constitutional role and practical function of parliament at the end of the fifteenth century, it also offers a great deal of important insight and analysis into the character of the king and the nature of the country he ruled. In presenting this comprehensive and complex analysis, this volume requires concentration and effort from the reader. Yet historians wishing to understand how Henry VII tried to impose himself upon the structures of state government after 1485 will find few more comprehensive and rewarding modern studies. The diligence of Cavill’s research is evident from the dazzling blend of previously unstudied manuscripts from both local and national collections and an exhaustive analysis of published sources and parliamentary texts. This not only allows as full a survey of known commentaries on Henry VII’s parliaments as we are likely to require but also supplies more general context for the role of parliament immediately before the Reformation

The introduction offers a concise and satisfying summary of parliament’s part in the important historiographical debates revolving around Henry VII’s kingship: from the characteristics of the Yorkist and early Tudor experiments in “new monarchy,” to the adversarial relationship of crown and parliament in the Whig interpretation of England’s constitutional development. The book is then divided into three main sections. The first, “The Crown and Parliament” discusses how the king used parliament to communicate with the representatives of the realm and to support his struggles to maintain the Tudor regime. Royal income from taxation and customs and the provision of justice through legislation and parliament’s higher legal role are also presented as key parts of this royal armory.

The second section tackles the more difficult topic, given the sources available, of the practical interaction of parliament with the normal business of the polity—how did the king’s subjects contribute to parliament and what were their expectations of parliament’s function? The role of parliament in regulating everyday life through law making is then explored. In the final part of the book, “Parliament under the ‘New Monarchy,’” the achievements and activities of Henry VII’s parliaments are linked back into the other branches of government. This section also presents, through an investigation of how procedures were refined, a rewarding overview of how parliament and parliamentary commentators viewed the institution’s own development. Here, Cavill demonstrates mastery of source material and a clear understanding of the intricacies of parliamentary procedure and history.

Cavill has shown that to do justice to the subject it is necessary to base his discussion upon a blend of parliament’s theoretical and constitutional role with the practical function and procedure of the institution. This approach allows the author to discuss how Henry VII’s reign prompted developments in the way that parliament worked.

In dissecting the constitutional function and practical operation of early Tudor parliament, the author understandably has little space left in which to offer specific reflections on Henry VII’s kingship. Nevertheless, Cavill does provide the reader with much valuable evidence to inform such a study. Indeed, the book’s final part tackles head-on some of the myths concerning Henry VII and parliament, and it also addresses issues of great importance to broader assessments of early Tudor kingship. Thus, there is a detailed examination of the truth behind Henry VII’s much quoted intention not to summon another parliament after 1504 and why there is no real basis for an assumption that the king’s exploitation of the crown’s prerogative rights as an income-generating policy was explicitly at the expense of the process of parliamentary taxation. Cavill provides clear evidence to reject the Eltonian view that Henry perhaps abandoned parliament to focus on less consensual means of government through the activities of small groups of directly appointed councillors, closely aligned to the king’s private wishes.

Cavill’s book stands out as one of the very few modern studies to venture successfully far beneath the surface of the narratives of Henry VII’s reign. Whereas, for example, Ian Arthurson’s study of Perkin Warbeck or Steven Gunn’s analysis of the rise of Henry VII’s “new men” give us a clearer view of the king’s personality and the dynastic pressures he endured, Cavill’s book provides a meticulous analysis of the intersection point of institutional and personal rule at the end of the medieval period. He creates a thorough portrait of parliament as the most important constitutional agency through which Henry ruled.

This study creates a blueprint for future study of the interaction of the late medieval crown with established institutions of governance. Following Cavill’s example, it is possible to envisage major examinations of, among other subjects, the law and the crown under Henry VII or the changes he brought to the mechanics of late medieval state finance.

Although Cavill does succeed in his intention to connect every aspect of parliament’s role, the development of some discussions is disappointingly brief. A case in point is chapter 6, “The Wider Realm.” The survival of sources undoubtedly contributes to rather short sections, that is, the reporting and dissemination of parliamentary business (175–80). The beginnings of very interesting discussion of the language, form, and use of statute books, for example, is truncated—perhaps because it begins to stray toward other areas of scholarship that would otherwise impede the specific focus on parliament. Yet it is the evidence of the social and political impact of parliamentary activity that is some of the most striking in this book—largely because Cavill has located so much relevant and unseen documentation. At such points, the reader must follow the footnoted sources very carefully. Nevertheless, disappointment arising from too little of a very good thing should only encourage the reader to further investigation.

One major key to the success of Cavill’s book is the fact that it is so elegantly written. The employment of less skill in the presentation of, for example, the book’s sophisticated discussion of constitutional ideas and political theory, or the minutiae of parliamentary and electoral procedure, might have rendered this book somewhat indigestible. As it is, this book is a very fine study of parliamentary practice and parliament’s place within the early sixteenth-century polity. The author’s evidence makes it clear that parliament was neither wholly subservient to nor obstructive of the king’s wishes. Henry VII, too, learned to balance his demands upon the nation through parliament. He emerges from this study as a king very much involved in the functions of parliament, who recognized and valued its constitutional place as a provider of a stable platform for his ruling ambitions.