CHAPTER XXVI
WE POOR WORLDLY MEN OF MIDDLE EARTH
N his return from Cambrai, in the third week of August, More found that all was changed. The legatine court had already been adjourned and it seemed likely that Henry’s case would be revoked to Rome. Wolsey had failed in his master’s ‘great matter’. More visited him on 23 August with news of his successful mission, but within a few weeks the cardinal had gone. On 9 October he was indicted on a charge of praemunire and arrested for treason. More would have known about the king’s growing disaffection with his Lord Chancellor, since there had been rumours to that effect circulating since the late spring of the year. Various forces had played their part, among them the influence of Anne Boleyn and her family, as well as the failures of Wolsey’s foreign policy. But the plainest fact seems to be that after the débâcle of the annulment proceedings Henry wished to teach the Church, both in Rome and England, a lesson in power. That is why he appointed a layman as Wolsey’s successor. That, paradoxically, is why he chose Sir Thomas More.
On 17 or 18 October 1529, Wolsey surrendered the Great Seal, ‘contented to obey the King’s high commendment’;1 the cardinal loudly lamented his fate, weeping amid his retainers and invoking the example of the early martyrs. ‘But if I had served God as diligently as I have done the King,’ he is reported to have said, ‘He would not have given me over in my grey hairs.’2 An inventory was made of his possessions, and all his golden bowls and plates, his satins and his cloths of silver, were laid out upon long tables. The seal itself, the authentic impress upon acts of state, was taken in a bag of crimson velvet to the monarch. There then began a week of discussion and negotiation over Wolsey’s successor, with the king’s council meeting the day after the surrender of the seal and reconvening with the king at Greenwich four days later.
Some report that William Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was suggested; others say that the Duke of Norfolk refused to countenance the appointment of Suffolk, and that Cuthbert Tunstall might have been chosen as a ‘compromise’ between the various factions. More was certainly present during these sittings of the council—his name is appended to one of its declarations—but we cannot say with what surprise, or misgiving, he received the news on Monday 25 October that he was to be appointed as the next Lord Chancellor of England. On that same day the king gave him the Great Seal, and on the following morning More was led in procession ‘thorowe Westminster hall up into the Chauncerie’3 accompanied by the great lords of the realm, both spiritual and temporal. He was escorted to the marble seat of judgment, and then the Duke of Norfolk delivered a speech in praise of his wisdom and virtue; in particular he mentioned More’s conduct of the negotiations at Cambrai, where he ‘so woorthily handled himselfe’ that ‘all Inglande was bounde to him’.4 More replied in words that are no longer extant, although one of his earliest biographers dilates upon a speech in which he is supposed to have discussed the ‘heavier burdens’ that he had to assume and to have reflected ruefully upon the ‘unhappy fall’ of his predecessor.5 This may be a dramatic invention, however, in the manner of Sallust or Tacitus. The words of More’s oath of office do survive, and the new chancellor swore not to ‘suffer the hurte nor disherytyng of the kyng or that the rightes of the Croun be decreysed by any mean’.6 He left Westminster Hall amidst the panoply of office; a gold sceptre with imperial crown was borne by an official on his right side and, on his left, another attendant carried a book.
Why had Henry chosen a man who had found it impossible to endorse the king’s ‘great matter’? Of course More’s reputation was considerable, both as diplomat and statesman; his skill as a lawyer and his success as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster were also of paramount importance. He was well known for his caution and discretion, while his fame among the humanist scholars and administrators of Christendom lent him additional authority. One of his great opponents paid tribute to the ‘wisedome and lerning that is in him, but also the great auctoritie and experience’,7 and there was even a grammar prepared for children that included a litany of More’s praises as an exercise in translation. ‘Moore is a man of an aungels wyt & syngler lernying’ is one phrase to be parsed, together with ‘a man of merveylous myrth and pastymes & somtyme of as sad gravyte as who say a man for all seasons’.8 As Speaker of the Commons he had proved that he could deal with the vicissitudes of parliament, and the clergy had already chosen him as their polemicist in the fight against heresy. Perhaps most importantly, he had worked closely with the king for more than ten years; Henry believed that he could rely upon his loyalty and good judgement as the proceedings against his marriage continued their serpentine course. But by appointing a layman as chancellor for the first time in almost a hundred years, Henry was also reasserting his own power over that of the Church. Wolsey’s fall and More’s appointment, therefore, were directly associated with the king’s desire to separate himself from Catherine of Aragon.
According to More, the king broached the subject with him soon after the ceremony in Westminster Hall—‘sone after which tyme his Grace moved me agayne … to loke and consydre his great mater’.9 It is significant that More should be approached at the time of his appointment; the king needed to learn no lessons from Machiavelli, as his subsequent words to his new chancellor might also imply. He asked More to ponder the question of the annulment and, if persuaded, ‘wold gladly vse me among other of his counsailors’.10 But he declared that More should follow his conscience and repeated the injunction that ‘I shold fyrst loke vnto God and after God vnto hym’. He was clearly anxious to enrol More into his cause, however, since he assigned the Archbishops of Canterbury and York as well as other dignitaries to persuade him of the merits of his case. But More proved obstinate, or merely impassive, and listened with great care to the various arguments without once changing his mind. He believed the original papal dispensation to have been valid and the marriage sound. Henry was disappointed but in More’s words, was ‘neuer the lesse graciouse lord’.
So why had he accepted the post of Lord Chancellor, when he was fully aware of the pressures which would be applied to him? He may have had little choice in the matter but, in any event, no choice was necessary. He was fulfilling his life’s work, or, rather, his work in the world; the chancellorship was the culmination of the process which had begun at the time of his birth. All the stages of his youthful study and adult career converged at this point, and we may imagine the spiritual presence of Archbishop Morton somewhere about him when he accepted the Great Seal. To be elevated to the most powerful official position in the country would also greatly please his wife and, most importantly, his already ailing father. By becoming Lord Chancellor of England ‘young More’ had amply fulfilled his filial responsibilities.
The Spanish ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, reported to his masters that everyone was ‘delighted’ at the promotion of More because ‘he is an upright and learned man, and a good servant of the Queen’.11 The knowledge that More supported Catherine of Aragon was not confined to the ambassador, and indeed may have played some part in Henry’s decision to appoint him as chancellor. The king was aware of Catherine’s popularity, particularly among the people of London, and to have More by his side was a way of protecting himself against accusations of malice or falsehood. Such an ‘upright and learned man’, known to favour the queen, was a visible warrant of the king’s holy intentions. More would have been sensible of this device, but he had equally powerful motives of his own. As Lord Chancellor he would be in a position to assist the queen, albeit in a discreet manner, but he might also be able to protect the Church against the possible wrath of the king. It could even be argued that More accepted the post precisely in order to defend and maintain his Church in an age of anxiety. It was his ‘bounden duty’ to do so. It was the greatest obligation in a life filled with obligations.
He wrote a short letter to Erasmus after his elevation, but it is not altogether of a cheerful or optimistic nature. He told his old friend that he had been pro
moted without any warning and required sympathy rather than congratulation. The reason he gives for his acceptance of his new role is that it was vitally concerned with ‘rei Christiane’ or the affairs of Christendom.12 He does not advert to his private feelings on this momentous change, but they can be gathered from a remark elsewhere in his writings. In times of apparent success or prosperity it is important that a person ‘by lesse lykyng the false flateryng world set a crosse vppon the shypp of his hart, & bere a low saile theron, that the boysteouse blast of pride blow hym not vnder the water’.13
Thus he set sail upon the ocean of affairs. He was working now as part of a triumvirate around the king; Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk was lord treasurer, and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk was soon to be appointed lord president of the council. The royal secretary, Stephen Gardiner, was also influential and in the foreground there was Sir Thomas Boleyn, newly ennobled as the Earl of Wiltshire. The most powerful figure was Norfolk, however, whose position was further secured when his daughter married the Duke of Richmond, the king’s illegitimate son; he was also the uncle of Anne Boleyn, and therefore has some claim to being the courtier closest to the king. He was a short, spare man, perpetually suspicious, conscientious but ever anxious. From the beginning he and More co-operated in the affairs of state and they were, in particular, united in their desire to defend the ‘old faith’.
The first test came in November with the summoning of parliament in order to consult the powers and interests of the nation at a moment of transition. The fall of Wolsey, who had administered the affairs of state for almost fifteen years, had naturally provoked a bout of anticlericalism—at least among those groups, such as the lawyers and London merchants, who were not disposed to think well of the clergy. The king wanted to use the session as the quickest way to waive his debts, while the new Lord Chancellor wished to affirm the principles by which his policy would be guided. There were, in addition, matters of domestic legislation to be resolved. On 3 November a great procession made its way to the church of Blackfriars; Archbishop Warham of Canterbury walked beside Sir Thomas More, who wore the vivid scarlet robe of his new office. Who could have believed, on that winter’s day by the river, that this particular parliament would not be dissolved for seven years; and that, in the course of its eight sessions, the ‘comen knowen catholick church’ would be wholly changed? Before the end of its deliberations, too, the new Lord Chancellor would be beheaded on Tower Hill.
In the parliament chamber of Blackfriars, and in the presence of the king, More opened the proceedings with a speech in which he declared that ‘divers new enormities were sprong amongest the people’ which required the passing of new laws ‘to reforme the same’. He then denounced his predecessor, Wolsey, for ‘fraudulent juggeling and attemptes’ and described him as ‘the great wether which is of late fallen’.14 It has sometimes been suggested that More was here guilty of ingratitude to his once great master, but his was essentially a rhetorical performance on behalf of the king. He could hardly have dismissed as inconsequential the matter of Wolsey’s fall, and there might have been an additional urgency in his condemnation, since at the time there were rumours that the cardinal might somehow, one day, be reinstalled into the king’s favour. This was not an outcome which either More or Norfolk desired. For there was urgency, too, in More’s demand that new laws be passed to deal with various of the problems that had emerged in recent years.
When parliament reconvened at Westminster three days later, it soon became clear that the forced departure of Wolsey had indeed aroused resentment against the worldliness and power of other priests. Various articles of complaint, for example, came from those members of the ‘Comen House’ associated with the London mercers; the clergy were accused by them of taking too much money for ‘mortuaries’ and ‘probat of testaments’. There were also priests who acted as stewards for bishops and deprived honest men of employment; there were priests who lived in the palaces of the rich and noble without attending to the needs of their parishioners; there were priests growing fat upon the vices of pluralism and non-residence. A special committee of MPs then announced a number of measures designed to remove these abuses. More heard John Fisher, in the Lords, denounce the proposals as an attempt to bring the clergy into the ‘contempt and hatred of the layetie’; he also condemned the members of parliament for lack of faith, which charge they indignantly denied. But Thomas More might not have been as vociferously opposed to reform as the bishop. At a later date he described his severe ‘correccyon’ of bad or wayward priests, for example, and boasted that ‘there was no man … into whose handes they were more lothe to come’.15 He knew the temper of the times and he understood the paramount need of keeping the Church free from scandal. The members of the Commons were not attacking the Church but, rather, abuses within the Church; this was at least a possible interpretation, even if subsequent events might suggest that it was the beginning of a much more fundamental process of change. In the event, the proposals were never fully implemented; they were filtered through committee, most likely under the guiding hands of More and Norfolk, and were finally passed by the Lords with various provisos and modifications that remedied certain abuses without greatly affecting the privileged position of the clergy.
Thomas More, as Lord Chancellor of England, calm and inscrutable even at the height of his power; beneath the rich gown he is wearing a hair shirt. (Illu. 26.1)
Below: Desiderius Erasmus, the great Dutch humanist whom More called ‘my derlynge’. He in turn addressed More as ‘sweetest Thomas’. (Illu. 26.2)
Opposite: Peter Gillis, the public servant of Antwerp in whose house and company More conceived Utopia. This double portrait was sent to More by Erasmus as a tribute to the friendship between the three men. (Illu. 26.3)
John Fisher, the devout Bishop of Rochester who was denounced as a traitor by Henry VIII. He was created a cardinal but ‘the head was off before the hat was on’. (Illu. 26.4)
Below: Thomas Cromwell, the king’s abetter in the destruction of the monasteries. He is recorded as saying, ‘I will either make or mar’. (Illu. 26.5)
Martin Luther, the greatest exponent of the Protestant conscience, who compared himself to ‘ripe shit’. (Illu. 26.6)
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, the able, amiable and ambitious proponent of the king’s ‘great matter’. (Illu. 26.7)
John Colet, Dean of St Paul’s and the founder of St Paul’s School; he had a reputation for contentiousness and, like many of More’s London friends, was somewhat theatrical in manner. (Illu. 26.8)
Thomas Wolsey, the brilliant and resourceful cardinal who became More’s greatest patron. ‘Neuer,’ More wrote after Wolsey’s death, ‘was he saciate of heryng his own prayse.’ (Illu. 26.9)
The sanctified image of King Henry VII; his legacy of authoritarian and overwhelming power helped to bring More to the scaffold. (Illu. 26.10)
The burning of William Tyndale, the pious and learned translator of the Bible whom More described as ‘a beste’ with a ‘brutyshe bestely mouth’. This was the fate to which More consigned several heretics. (Illu. 26.11)
King Henry VIII, painted the year after More’s execution. ‘If my head could win him a castle,’ More had said, ‘it should not fail to go.’ (Illu. 26.12)
The first session of this parliament was actually more notable, and more notorious, for its secular legislation. Its most urgent business was concerned with the cancellation of the king’s debts, raised in past years by various levies and exactions, but the measure was passed only after much argument and complaint in the Commons. There were also proposals which bear the direct impress of More’s legal acumen; a very complex piece of legislation on the inheritance of land known as ‘the statute of uses’, for example, was discussed but eventually deferred. Instead More reached an agreement with the peers which simplified the law while at the same time protecting the king’s financial interests. Yet he also looked further ahead and, in the opening speech to parliament, generally re
membered only for its ritual attack upon Wolsey, he denounced various ‘erroribus et abusibus’ existing within current secular and spiritual legislation.16 Of course he was particularly dismayed by the spread of heretical literature, but he was also likely to have entertained the possibility, at least, of legislation designed to reform certain aspects of the Church itself. There is a petition to the king, drawn up by Thomas Darcy, in which complaints about the power of the clergy are said to be upheld by ‘your Chancellor’.17 In subsequent articles promulgated against Wolsey, of which More was the chief signatory, it is claimed that the cardinal suffered the ‘great pox’ but had nevertheless blown upon the king ‘his perilous and ineffective breath’. After the forced departure of Wolsey, More was intent upon reform which would improve both the spiritual health and economic fortunes of the nation. The younger man who wrote Utopia, with its preliminary discussion of good and bad government, survived still. More’s ambitions were large, as his speech to the parliament suggests, and the years of his chancellorship might indeed have been marked by the emergence of a reformed Catholic nation. But if that was his aim, the time was against him; his distance from the king on the ‘great matter’, in particular, would lead to a diminution of his power.
The Life of Thomas More Page 36
