Letters, Networks of Power, and the Fall of Thomas Cromwell: 1524-1547

我的项目使我们的托马斯克伦威尔的崛起和权力下降的理解作出了原创性的贡献，作为一个案例研究，通过它的作用，信件作为一种社会和政治工具，并围绕亨利八世的影响力的问题可以探讨。大多数以亨利八世首席大臣为重点的传记都依赖于他下台时留下的大量信件，这些信件现在作为国家文件日历的一部分存在，从这些页面中提取有关克伦威尔生活和性格的细节。这个博士学位提供的信件不是作为其作者的“灵魂之窗”，而是作为权力网络中的基本联系，使用这些文件以及网络科学和社会网络分析领域开发的关键理论和定量措施，以重建克伦威尔保持的本地和国际联系网络，以推动他的职业生涯并保持他的行政优势。在我的硕士论文的基础上，展示了克伦威尔使用信件和联系人来巩固他在法庭上的地位，这个博士学位将建立信件作为都铎王朝法庭的工具性政治媒介，可以证明权力结构的微妙和重大变化。在这样做的过程中，我的研究着眼于周围的影响和控制亨利八世的问题，以及都铎王朝历史上重大事件的变化网络的影响。关于对亨利的影响的争论仍然是都铎王朝史学的一个焦点，并且跨越了他整个统治时期的问题。以克伦威尔倒台期间亨利周围的权力网络为中心，使这个项目改变了我们思考这些问题的框架。此外，尽管克伦威尔的职业生涯最近的重点，他的生命结束是压倒性的在历史编纂中的代表不足。在通过定量测量和网络分析重新评估证据的过程中，该项目旨在提供1540年夏天事件的新概念，并考虑为什么它们到现在为止受到的关注较少。我的研究建立在我的主要主管和AHRC资助的项目都铎电力网络的PI Ruth Ahnert教授的工作基础上，该项目创建了一个包含132，000封信件的数据库，摘自国家文件在线），清理和编码的网络分析。Ahnert教授的项目开发了几种关键方法来分析这些信件网络，并对进一步档案研究的机会进行了探索性调查，我的论文是第一个将这些数据和方法应用于重点历史案例研究的论文。鉴于数字化档案不断增加，发展这些技能变得越来越必要，这不仅使重要材料更容易获得，而且还允许进行更细致和更先进的分析过程。这些策略有望成为未来人文项目的关键，磨练这些技能使我处于数字人文学科的最前沿，并使我能够领导新鲜和创新的项目，如我的博士论文，不仅有助于研究领域，而且有助于研究过程本身。我的论文将促进在历史研究中使用网络分析的优势，以及它可以为未来的项目提供什么;它还试图为不断增长的理论领域做出贡献，为人文和社会科学提供方法和方法，以鼓励和加强跨学科合作。通过将这些方法应用于对单个历史人物网络的扩展的论文长度研究，该项目旨在重振都铎史学的基本辩论，为围绕亨利八世的影响问题提供新的角度，都铎宫廷信件的社会政治作用，以及权力网络对亨利最忠实的仆人的影响。'

My project makes an original contribution to our understanding of Thomas Cromwell's rise and fall from power, acting as a case study through which the role of letters as a social and political tool and questions about influence surrounding Henry VIII can be explored. Most of the biographies focusing on Henry VIII's chief minister rely on the wealth of letters left behind at his fall from power, that now exist as part of the Calendar of State Papers, extracting the details about Cromwell's life and character from these pages. This PhD instead offers letters not as a 'window into the soul' of their author, but as the fundamental connections in networks of power, using those documents alongside key theories and quantitative measures developed in the field of network science and social network analysis in order to reconstruct the local and international web of contacts that Cromwell maintained to propel his career and maintain his administrative supremacy. Building on my MA dissertation demonstrating Cromwell's use of letters and contacts to bolster his position at court, this PhD will establish letters as an instrumental political medium at the Tudor court which can evidence both subtle and significant changes in power structures. In doing so, my research looks at questions of influence and control surrounding Henry VIII, and the impact of changing networks on significant events in Tudor history. The debate concerning influence around and on Henry remains a focus of Tudor historiography, and spans across issues during his entire reign. Centring specifically on networks of power around Henry during Cromwell's fall in such a way allows this project to change the framework through which we can consider these questions. Furthermore, despite the recent emphasis on Cromwell's career, the end of his life is overwhelmingly under-represented in historiography. In re-assessing the evidence through quantitative measurements and network analysis, this project aims to offer fresh conceptions of the events of the summer of 1540 and consider why they have received less attention until now.My research builds on the work Prof. Ruth Ahnert, my primary supervisor and PI on the AHRC-funded project Tudor Networks of Power, which created a database of 132,000 letters, extracted from State Papers Online), cleaned and coded for network analysis. Where Prof. Ahnert's project developed several key methods for the analysis of these letter networks, and an exploratory survey of the opportunities for further archival research, my thesis is the first to take these data and methods and apply them to a focused historical case study. Developing these skills is becoming increasingly necessary in the light of an ever-growing available digitised archive, which has not only made vital material more accessible, but has also allowed for more nuanced and developed analytical processes. These strategies are poised to become pivotal in future humanities projects, and honing these skills places me at the forefront of digital humanities and allows me to lead fresh and innovative projects such as my PhD thesis, contributing not only to the research field but to the research process itself. My thesis will promote the advantages of using network analysis in historical research, and what it can present for future projects; it also seeks to contribute to the growing field of theory, offering approaches and methods both to the humanities and the social sciences in order to encourage and fortify interdisciplinary collaboration. By applying these methods to an extended, thesis-length study of a single historical figures' network, this project aims to reinvigorate fundamental debates in Tudor historiography, offering new angles on questions of influence surrounding Henry VIII, the socio-political role of letters at the Tudor court, and the impact networks of power had on the fall of Henry's 'most faithful servant.'