No study of Parliament under Henry VIII would be complete without an analysis of parliamentary procedure as it had developed during the early Tudor period. Our knowledge of procedure is, however, limited by the sources available to us: only as reflected in these defective mirrors can we see how business was conducted or deal with such thorny questions as initiative. Furthermore, the business of record-keeping itself is an important aspect of procedure. We must begin, then, with a brief description of the surviving records of Parliament.

ELECTIONS: WRITS AND RETURNS

When the government decided to hold Parliament, writs were prepared in the Chancery and sent out to peers eligible to attend the Lords, to legal officers summoned on writs of assistance to be available for advice in the Upper House, and to sheriffs of the various counties and others responsible for holding elections in the constituencies represented in the Commons. A master list of these writs was prepared and retained in the Chancery; the earliest of these ‘Parliamentary Pawns’ to survive dates from 1529, and we have also those for the Parliaments of 1539 and 1545. The pawn for 1539 is particularly interesting because a number of its entries for abbots are crossed through, reflecting the dissolution of the smaller monasteries, and there are other alterations suggesting that the list was revised and used again for later sessions of that Parliament.