During the Tudor period, Parliament was transformed from a medieval into an essentially modern institution. Parliament was used to legitimise Tudor rule, to reject the authority of the Pope and establish the Anglicasn church and to effect a massive transfer of property from Church to Crown. In the process, Parliament - King, Lords and Commons - became sovereign. The lower house achieved parity with teh upper, and Acts of Parliament became the supreme for of law. But as the subject of historiographical debate, Tudor parliaments have another importance for us. A generation of scholars traced the origins of the English Civil War back into the sixteenth century: they saw the parliaments of the time as growing progressively more powerful, opposing royal policies and attemtping to restrict royal authority. This interpretation was challenged by the 'revisionists' of the 1970s, who saw the parliaments neither as an arena for political conflict nor as seeking to limit royal power, but as a body which continued to support and equip the Crown and the govenring class. Graves here evaluates the two interpretations while attempting to avoid their more extreme positions. Examining the historiography and the institutional aspects of Parliament, he then gives a chronological account of the membership, attendance, legislation and politics of successive parliaments. Particular attention is paid to the collective parliamentary influence of peers, to great men in Parliament, and to organisational problems. Graves concludes with a clear and judicious evaluation of the Tudor years in the history of Parliament. -- Book cover.