During a great part of the Tudor period the power of the Crown was
well-nigh absolute. Four causes contributed to this: (1) The
destruction of a very large part of the feudal nobility by the Wars of
the Roses.[1] (2) The removal of many of the higher clergy from the
House of Lords.[2] (3) The creation of a new nobility dependant on the
king. (4) The desire of the great body of the people for "peace at any
price."
[1] In the last Parliament before the Wars of the Roses (1454) there
were fifty-three temporal peers; at the beginning of the reign of
Henry VII (1485) there were only twenty-nine.
[2] Out of a total of barely ninety peers, Henry VIII, by the
suppression of the monasteries, removed upwards of thirty-six abbots
and priors. He, however, added five new bishops, which made the House
of Lords number about fifty-nine.
Under Henry VII and Elizabeth the courts of Star Chamber and High
Commission exercised arbitrary power, and often inflicted cruel
punishments for offenses against the government, and for heresy or the
denial of the religious supremacy of the sovereign.
Henry VII established a treaty of free trade, called the "Great
Intercourse," between England and the Netherlands. Under Elizabeth
the first postmaster-general entered upon his duties, though the post
office was nott fully established until the reign of her successor.