Administration and Constitution	35
to advance knowledge, while the only recent attempt to make
sense of local government loses itself in a pointless mass of
personal detail, uninformative classifications, and the solemn
production of well-known generalizations as though they were
new.^193 More hopeful are the signs that scholars at last may be
recognizing the fundamental importance of law and lawyers
in the sixteenth century. Ives has given attention both to the
lawyers' place in society and to one of the lawyers' chief con-
cerns, the disposal of landed property;^194 while Elton has
clarified the political origins and the legal essence of the early-
Tudor treason law.^195 Elton's demonstration that the act of
proclamations embodied no autocratic ambitions has been
well confirmed in Heinze's case study of one set of proclama-
tions.^196 Five Tudor biographies offer very useful contributions
to an understanding of government. Slavin shows neatly what
at the time it meant to make a career;^197 Dewar follows the
fortunes of a scholar who wished to put his brains at the disposal
of the great world but never quite achieved the success he
deemed due to himself;^193 Emmison and Lehmberg, writing
about people, say relevant things about secretaries of state and
chancellors of the exchequer;^199 Cross shows what a nobleman
^193	Alan G. R. Smith, 'The secretariats of the Cecils', EHR 83 (1968),
481-504. - J. H. Gleason, The Justices of the Peace in England 1558 —
1640. O: Clarendon: 1969. Pp. xvi, 285. Rev: Hist 54, 42 2f.
194	£^ \v\ Ives, 'The common lawyers in pre-Reformation England',
TRHS (1968), 145-73; 'The genesis of the statute of uses', EHR
82 (1967), 673-97.
^195	G. R. Elton, 'The law of treason in the early Reformation', HJ 11
(1968), 211-36. - Also L. M. Hill, 'The two witness rule in English
treason trials', American Journal of Legal History _t 12 (1968), 95—111.
^19« G. R. Elton, 'Henry VIIFs act of proclamations', EHR 75 (1960),
208-22. - Rudolph W. Heinze, "The price of meat: a study in the
use of royal proclamations in the reign of Henry VIII', HJ 12
(1969), 583-95-
^197	Arthur J. Slavin, Power and Profit: a study of Sir Ralph Sadler 1507 -
1547. CUP: Pp. xvii, 238. Rev: EHR 83, 164^; HJ 12, 566ff.
^198	Mary Dewar, Sir Thomas Smith: a Tudor intellectual in office. L:
Athlone: 1964. Pp. ix, 222. Rev: EHR 81, i6of.
^199	F. E. Emmison, Tudor Secretary: Sir William Pefre. L: Longmans:
1961. Pp. xx, 364. Rev: EHR 78, i68f. -Stanford E. Lehmberg,