John Kenyon on Geoffrey Elton

“Geoffrey Rudolph Elton is now, of course, the prime moving force in Tudor history, and is likely to remain so. By dint of his enormous output, his scholarly rigour, his forceful personality and his unflagging vigour in debate he has imposed his own reconstruction on much of the period and certainly the earlier half of it.”

“The Tudor Revolution was based on an intensive re-examination of all the documentary material for the 1530s, of which Elton is still the master... Elton's approach has been described as teutonic; it has been said that of all English historians his attitude is most akin to that of the great German nineteenth-century masters... On the basis of his intense documentary research Elton argued that modern methods of government had their beginning not under Edward IV or Henry VII but Henry VIII, and even then they were not the creation of the king but of his secretary, Thomas Cromwell... Since then the machine has ground relentless on, and those who have thrown themselves in the path of the juggernaut have been crushed or swept aside. Elton admits that his original contention that Cromwell's Revolution was as significant as the Revolution of 1688 was overstated, but a slight retreat on that front has only enabled him to advance on others. He has emerged substantially unscathed from a full-side confrontation with two of his leading critics, Penry Williams and G. L. Harriss...while engaging in subsidiary contests with two of the most formidable controversialists, J. P. Cooper and Lawrence Stone.”

“Elton's power and authority rest on his unflinching self-confidence and his terrifying industry. He writes whole articles while others are labouring over paragraphs, books while they are completing articles... Personally a very kind man, of some charm, in public he is impatient with naivety or error, which unfortunately surround him everywhere.”

“Elton is very much a historian's historian, writing within the profession, and though his influence on the teaching of early modern history at schools and universities has been more profound than that of any other man of his generation, he is not well known to the general public as some of his colleagues, like Hugh Trevor-Roper and J. H. Plumb.”