However, the issue of finance was one upon which there was often conflict. Despite the eventual granting of various subsidies, they were not all granted instantly and in 1566 there was an attempt in the House of Commons to have the subsidy grant rejected. Despite the failure of this attempt, the fact it occurred is important in showing that parliament and the crown did not always concur over finance. Other examples of when finance was an issue between Elizabeth and parliament was in 1589 when the House of Commons challenged Elizabeth over the right of the crown of purveyance. This was the right of the crown to buy provisions at a cost well below the market price. Despite the initial discussion of the bill, it was soon quashed by Elizabeth when she used the royal prerogative to suppress it.
Another way in which the crown’s methods of raising money caused conflict with parliament was the issuing of monopolies. This gave the owner the sole right of sale of the good of the monopoly (goods included items from coal to playing cards) at any price he should choose. This practice led to conflict for two reasons, firstly because it was a new practice and the nature of Elizabethan society was extremely conservative resenting change as it went against the ‘natural order’. The second was because it was felt by the businessmen of the common’s that it was the practice which led to the inflation which had marred the sixteenth century and increased the wealth of the nobles through luck rather than through hard work. In 1559 a bill to abolish monopolies was thrown out while in 1571 a private members bill requesting the restriction of monopolies was withdrawn. In 1601 there was a further attempt by an MP with the result Elizabeth annulled 12 of the monopolies she had issued.
Despite the continued resistance of parliament to Elizabeth over monopolies throughout her reign, the opposition did not come in the form of an organised opposition. In reality, it was often in response to particular events and many of the motions asking for restrictions to be placed upon the monarchy was private members bills. The question of the extent to which there was conflict can only be properly addressed when the word ‘conflict’ is defined. JE Neale uses it to mean the times when parliament opposed Elizabeth acting as stones in the works of personal government. this may be because it was Neale who put forward the view that the civil war of the 17th century had its roots in the relationship between the crown and parliament in the 16th century. In contrast to this, Graves and Elton believe that the conflict was not and example of a poor relationship between the crown and parliament, but a relationship which was functioning as it should whereby parliamentary conflict was actually an act of legitimate scrutiny.
However, the issue of finance and monopolies were not the only ones on which Elizabeth and her parliaments had disagreements. Mary Stuart’s arrival in England in the 1560s meant that the problems of English Catholics and the succession problem which had formally been sidelined in favour of more important issues became important once again. As a Catholic claimant to the throne whose right to be in the line of succession was undoubted, it is easy to see how Mary was a threat to Elizabeth on more than one count. Elizabeth’s imprisonment of Mary led to Mary's involvement in plot to depose Elizabeth; however, as Mary was a sovereign queen like Elizabeth, Elizabeth could not bring herself to execute Mary. The parliament of 1572, significant because it was not called by Elizabeth to request a subsidy, but with the intention of forcing Elizabeth to execute Norfolk and (at the minimum) bar Mary from the succession. Despite this pressure, Elizabeth still refused to have Mary executed with the warrant for execution being called twice. 1585 saw parliament meet after a plot was discovered where Mary was willing to sponsor the assassination of Elizabeth. Still, Elizabeth refused to ratify the death warrant. It wasn’t until 1587 when Walsingham revealed a plot ‘the Stafford Plot’ which scared Elizabeth sufficiently into signing the warrant for Mary’s execution. There are theories which suggest that the Stafford plot was faked by Walsingham to frighten Elizabeth into signing Mary’s death warrant, if they are true, if prove the conflict between Elizabeth and Parliament on this issue had reached an all time high.
Foreign policy was another area in which some historians consider there to have been disagreement between Elizabeth and her parliaments. Elizabeth’s natural instinct was to be indecisive, hoping that she wouldn’t have to make a decision. While this has been praised by some historians, others, such as Haigh, see it as a dangerous policy which, when applied to issues such as the succession, ran the risk of plunging the country into civil war. In general, Elizabeth's parliaments seem to have left the making of foreign policy up to the queen and the Privy Council and interfered rarely. This was because foreign policy was part of the royal prerogative and so decisions concerning it lay inn the hands of the Queen, parliaments only job in this area was to finance it. In securing finance for foreign policy Elizabeth seems to have been largely successful as subsidies were granted when they were asked for, including large ones when he country was under threat towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign. An example of this would be in 1589 when a double subsidy was granted to help in the war against Spain. However, there were occasions when there was disagreement between Elizabeth and Parliament. She was pressurised into many decisions that, left to her own devices, she would not have made. It was only when Cecil threatened to resign that Elizabeth finally sent financial and military aid to the Scots. It was only under pressure form Dudley and Throckmorton that she sent financial aid to the Huguenots in France during the Wars of Religion. While it is clear that the relationship between Elizabeth and her parliament was normally one of co-operation where foreign policy was concerned, there were occasions when large areas of disagreement occurred, normally when it involved interference in foreign religion.
Finance was undoubtedly and issue upon which there was disagreement between Elizabeth and her Parliaments, however, its role as an area of contention has been exaggerated and historians has missed other areas of policy making which also caused conflict. Given the continual granting of subsidies to Elizabeth, it is difficult to consider Parliament as being the main issue of contention. Other issues, such as the succession and Mary Stuart, seem to have promoted a much greater degree of conflict.
