THE PRIVY COUNCIL AND PRIVATE LAW IN THE TUDOR AND STUART PERIODS: I

It has been often said that the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in England were pre-eminently the age of conciliar government. The activities of the Tudor Privy Council extended into every phase of national life and were responsible, more than any other single factor, for the effective organization of an English national state. These activities continued under the first two Stuarts, with no break in institutional development, though they widened the gulf between Crown and people and hastened a revolution.