Chance vs Causes in History: David Hume on the Tudor Constitution

In his 1742 Essay, ‘Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences’, David Hume set out a brief account of historical causation, distinguishing between ‘what is owing to chance, and what proceeds from causes’. This paper uses Hume’s understanding of historical causation to examine a pivotal period in his History of England (1754-61): the reigns of the early Tudor monarchs. In short, Hume presents a seemingly paradoxical account of early Tudor history in which the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII, two rulers with markedly contrasting dispositions, result in the same constitutional effect: to render the authority of the crown ‘almost absolute’.

Image credit: David Hume (1711–76), detail of frontispiece to his History of England, 1789 (Public Domain).