Chapter 6 - ‘Your Poor Orator’: Petitioning the King

Summary

Chapter 6 reconstructs the process of petitioning to the king, once a dispute had set in and the decision to litigate before the highest authorities had been taken. Firstly, the chapter establishes the extent of knowledge and understanding about royal justice among Tudor subjects. Returning to some of the themes set out in Chapter 1, it explores the wider culture of complaint with which all prospective supplicants were familiar, provides evidence for growing awareness of the format required for petitions to the king, and surveys the range of professional legal advice available to produce these documents. The contents of the petitions that litigants and their counsel put together is further explored, with some consideration of the potential for the plaintiff’s ‘voice’ to break through the formula. Finally, the chapter sets out the practical steps required to reach the royal household and to seek out the king himself. Throughout this analysis, bills of costs submitted by Requests’ litigants facilitate further scrutiny of its accessibility, and particularly whether its shift from itinerancy to settlement at Westminster negatively affected its poorest suitors.