Sir Geoffrey Rudolph Elton (born Gottfried Rudolf Otto Ehrenberg; 17 August 1921 – 4 December 1994) was a German-born British political and constitutional historian, specialising in the Tudor period. He taught at Clare College, Cambridge, and was the Regius Professor of Modern History there from 1983 to 1988. Early life Ehrenberg (Elton) was born in Tübingen, Germany. His parents were the Jewish scholars Victor Ehrenberg and Eva Dorothea Sommer. In 1929, the Ehrenbergs moved to Prague, Czechoslovakia. In February 1939, the Ehrenbergs fled to Britain. Ehrenberg continued his education at Rydal School, a Methodist school in Wales, starting in 1939. After only two years, Ehrenberg was working as a teacher at Rydal and achieved the position of assistant master in mathematics, history and German. There, he took courses via correspondence at the University of London and graduated with a degree in Ancient History in 1943. Ehrenberg enlisted in the British Army in 1943. He spent his time in the Army in the Intelligence Corps and the East Surrey Regiment, serving with the Eighth Army in Italy from 1944 to 1946 and reaching the rank of sergeant. During this period, Ehrenberg anglicised his name to Geoffrey Rudolph Elton. After his discharge from the army, Elton studied early modern history at University College London, graduating with a PhD in 1949. Under the supervision of J. E. Neale, Elton was awarded a PhD for his thesis "Thomas Cromwell, Aspects of his Administrative Work", in which Elton first developed the ideas that he was to pursue for the rest of his life. Elton naturalised as a British subject in September 1947. Career Elton taught at the University of Glasgow and from 1949 onwards at Clare College, Cambridge and was the Regius Professor of Modern History there from 1983 to 1988. Pupils included John Guy, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Susan Brigden and David Starkey. He worked as publication secretary of the British Academy from 1981 to 1990 and served as the president of the Royal Historical Society from 1972 to 1976. Elton was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 1986 New Year Honours. The Tudor Revolution in Government Elton focused primarily on the life of Henry VIII but also made significant contributions to the study of Elizabeth I. Elton was most famous for arguing in his 1953 book The Tudor Revolution in Government that Thomas Cromwell was the author of modern, bureaucratic government, which replaced medieval, household-based