The Select Council of Philip I: A Spanish Institution in Tudor England, 1555–1558

Traditional interpretations of the reign of Philip and Mary in England and Ireland (1554–58) have tended to investigate this short-lived episode from a strongly Anglocentric perspective. Such an approach has often hindered interpretations of crucial aspects of the reign that have wider implications for the study of Britain, Spain and Europe in an increasingly globalised world. Philip’s creation of a new consultative body in 1555, the select council (consejo escogido), is a case in point. Conventionally viewed as a superfluous body that only worsened the alleged ungovernability of Mary’s privy council—from which, it was claimed, it was never truly separate—it has been assumed that the select council was allowed to function nominally for a while to sustain Philip’s ego. In fact, the creation of the select council responded to the deeply rooted conciliar traditions of Spain and England (based on Aristotelian notions of ‘political friendship’) and its actual level of activity disproves previous assumptions about its role and viability. The diplomatic negotiations undertaken by the English select councillors and their Spanish and Flemish counterparts place England firmly within the conciliar framework of the Spanish Monarchy and provide an invaluable window from which to explore the role of England as a fully integrated member of a composite monarchy extending from Naples and Oran to Lima and Mexico City.