Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII

by Loades, David

  The rebels’ support was beginning to crumble, and Thomas took refuge among the Irish tribes with whom he had maintained a friendly contact. In May and June he sent envoys to Rome and to the Emperor in Spain, asking for aid and representing himself as a defender of the Catholic Church.44 Both Paul and Charles were, however, sufficiently well informed about Irish affairs as to recognise these pleas for what they were, the appeals of a failing rebel, and responded only with encouraging words. Lord Leonard Grey, who was undoubtedly Cromwell’s choice, arrived with reinforcements as marshall of the army at the end of July, and Silken Thomas surrendered in August 1535. Lord Deputy Skeffington died at the end of the year, and was replaced by Lord Grey, who fully shared the secretary’s conviction that only military conquest would solve the Irish problem.45 Unfortunately the resources were never available to make such a solution a realistic proposition, and Lord Grey had to be satisfied with the temporary ascendancy which the collapse of Thomas’s rebellion had given him. This enabled him to go ahead with the commission to suppress the nunnery of Graney in County Kildare, and arrest Thomas’s five uncles in February. The 9th Earl had died in the Tower in September 1534, and although Thomas was never recognised as the 10th Earl he had in a sense held the title since then. George Browne was consecrated Archbishop of Dublin at Lambeth on 19 March 1536, and the Irish Parliament met in Dublin on 1 May.46 This was in a co-operative frame of mind, as the members were keen to display their loyalty. It passed Acts attainting Kildare and his supporters, another endorsing the reforming legislation already enacted at Westminster, and a third against absentee incumbents, always a problem in Ireland given the poverty of many benefices. Meanwhile Kildare and his uncles had been attainted by the English Parliament in July, and they were all executed at Tyburn on 3 February 1537.47

  It would be an exaggeration to say that Ireland was pacified, but the warfare had returned to its familiar pattern of small-scale skirmishes with the native Irish, and border raids by the latter into the ‘settled lands’. Cromwell’s policy of repression, in which he was opposed by the Duke of Norfolk, would appear to have been vindicated, and the Royal Commission which visited Ireland in September 1537 found the same. The shock of Silken Thomas’s rising, and its aftermath, had also served to curb the internecine strife between the nobles, which had been one of his principal objectives. That this was the Lord Privy Seal’s policy rather than the king’s was apparently confirmed in 1540, when immediately after his fall, and while the Duke of Norfolk was dominant in the council, Lord Grey was recalled from the deputyship and replaced by Sir Anthony St Leger, with an altogether different agenda.48 The only snag with his preference for ‘new English’ administrators, and greater accountability to London, was the cost. In spite of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in English Ireland, and the revenues that it brought to the Crown, Cromwell never succeeded in balancing the books. Ireland was in many ways his least successful theatre of operations, because he set a precedent there for that forward policy which was to produce the Elizabethan plantations, and the long legacy of bitterness which they created. Norfolk and St Leger’s approach, which involved conciliating the Irish chieftains and bringing them within the establishment by means of surrender and regrant, can be seen to have been the better long-term prospect.49 In the case of Ireland, Cromwell’s preference for the simple and logical solution seems to have betrayed him, but that only sets his success in other areas in context.

  One of the more obvious of these is the measures that he took to ensure that the king’s writ ran uniformly throughout his dominions. The origins of this problem lay far back in the early Middle Ages, when, in order to defend the boundaries of the realm, kings had created a number of franchises, and delegated the administration of justice, no less than the question of defence, to the noblemen who held them. Although granted originally by the Crown, these franchises had come to be seen as held by prescriptive right, and there was no obvious way of discontinuing them. Even when they escheated to the Crown through failure of heirs, or for other reasons, the jurisdictional structure of the liberties remained intact. Thus when the earldom of March was absorbed by the Crown on the accession of Edward IV in 1461, the Marcher liberties remained intact, and the king’s writ ran as the holder of the franchise, not as monarch.50 This meant that lawlessness might become a serious problem as the stewards and others who acted in his name might be rather less than zealous, and as Marcher custom protected offenders, as was the case with Welsh law. Cromwell had already partly addressed this issue in respect of the Marches of Wales by taking certain types of case into the jurisdiction of neighbouring English counties, but this proved less than satisfactory.51 By 1536 the time had come for more drastic action, and the recently enhanced authority of Parliament offered a way forward. Consequently in the spring of that year a Bill was introduced to ensure that

  no person or persons, of what estate or degree soever, from the first day of July which shall be in the year of our Lord God 1536, shall have any power or authority to pardon or remit any treasons, murders, manslaughters or any kind of felonies,52

  but that the king shall have the ‘whole and sole’ power and authority thereof ‘united and knit to the Imperial crown of this realm’. In other words the rights of franchise holders were abrogated, and all writs were henceforth to run in the king’s name only. Partial exceptions were then made for the Bishopric of Durham, where the bishop was to be an ex officio Justice of the Peace, and for the Duchy of Lancaster, which was to continue to use its existing seals and processes. However, the effect of the whole Act (as it soon became) was to remove a major jurisdictional anomaly, and to centralise the administration of the law in the manner beloved of Cromwell’s tidy mind. Wales was at the same time ‘reduced to shire ground’, several new counties being created out of the erstwhile Marcher lordships, and endowed with sheriffs, commissions of the peace and parliamentary representation. Wales was effectively merged into England, and the language of the courts was to be English. Welsh law was thus relegated to the manorial and honour courts where it could not touch felonies, and this caused some discontent.53 However, the Welsh gentry were on the whole in favour of the move, which gave them a new measure of local self-government as Justices of the Peace, and a doorway into national politics through Parliament. The perception of the Welsh as being second-class citizens, which had followed the Glyndŵr revolt in the early fifteenth century, was thus finally laid to rest, and Cromwell had, through Parliament, carried out a reform which had baffled generations of royal lawyers.54

  Reginald Pole was a kinsman of the king, being the son of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, and grandson of George, Duke of Clarence, the uncle of Henry VIII’s mother, Elizabeth of York. He had been educated largely at the king’s expense, and had served him in collecting the opinions of the universities in the early days of his search for an annulment of his first marriage. At the time he had been spoken of as a possible future Archbishop of York.55 However his conscience turned him against the king’s proceedings, and he begged leave to return to the Continent to continue his studies, which was granted him in 1533. In Italy his opinions soon became known to the Pope, and a prince of the English royal blood was great catch. Henry, meanwhile, had encouraged him to write, thinking perhaps that the exercise of putting his thoughts in order would convert him to the official point of view. Cromwell also appears to have corresponded with him with the same objective, but the result was an open letter to the king entitled ‘Pro Ecclesiasticae Unitate Defensione’, which arrived in May 1536, and was not at all what was required. Instead it was a reasoned denunciation, not only of Henry’s second marriage, but of the whole drift of royal policy over the previous five years.56 Henry was furious, declaring that he was an ungrateful subject and a self-proclaimed traitor. Shortly afterwards Pole justified this description of himself by accepting a cardinalate from Paul III, and a mission from the Pope to stimulate Charles V and Francis I into supporting the Pilgrimage of Grace. His mission failed, and Cromwell’s agen
ts dogged him every step of the way, reporting on his ill success to a gratified Lord Privy Seal. His failure, however, owed nothing to Cromwell’s efforts and everything to the continuing war between Francis and Charles, which made each of them reluctant to acquire another enemy. He did, however, succeed in eluding the assassins that Henry sent out to kill him, and returned safely to Italy in the spring of 1537.57 These agents also reported to Cromwell, but he seems to have had nothing to do with the decision to send them, murder not usually being in his line as a political weapon. If a man or a woman had to die, it must be by due process of law, however strained that process might be. Reginald’s treason, however, brought his whole family under suspicion. His mother was a known supporter of the old ways in religion, and his brothers, Geoffrey and Henry, Lord Montague, were in touch with the exile, and sympathised with his point of view. They were also known friends of the Lady Mary, who had not gone away in spite of her reticence since her surrender in July 1536. There was even talk of marrying her to Reginald, who in spite of his status was only in deacon’s orders and could therefore have obtained a dispensation. However this was mere gossip as neither of the principals expressed any interest in the proposal.58 All this was known to Cromwell’s agents, and in the summer of 1538 he sent a certain Gervase Tindall down to Hampshire with a spying brief. This was about the same time that the Truce of Nice between Charles and Francis had brought a temporary end to their warfare, and raised again the spectre of papally inspired intervention in the affairs of England. It was very important to know what the conservative opposition was up to, especially those of its members, like the Countess of Salisbury and the Marquis of Exeter, who had extensive coastal estates in Cornwall and Devon that could be used as a landing place for any planned invasion.59 The marquis was not known to have corresponded with Reginald, but he was a famous supporter of Mary, and had been kept out of the council for that reason when her fate had been under discussion in June 1536.

  Gervase Tindall, who had been in Cromwell’s service for several years, parked himself in a ‘surgeon’s house’ near Warblington in Hampshire on the pretext of needing medical assistance, and became very friendly with Richard Ayer, who ran the house.60 It was patronised by the Countess of Salisbury, and Ayer was close to the family. He was also inclined to gossip, and Tindall picked up a good deal of information as to what went on in those establishments, which he duly passed on to the Lord Privy Seal. As a result in August Sir Geoffrey Pole was arrested, and the whole neighbourhood began to buzz with rumours about the family. Ayer was alleged to have said that if Geoffrey had not been apprehended he would have sent a band of men over to Reginald in the spring of 1539, and Hugh Holland was a regular bearer of messages to and fro.61 Under questioning John Collins, another Pole servant, corroborated this saying that he

  heard at Bockmar of Hugh Holland being beyond the seas, and that the rumour was that he should go over with letters to Cardinal Pole … and that the disclosing of his often going beyond the seas was made by one Ayer to Tindall…62

  Tindall was not Cromwell’s only source of information in Hampshire, where he had been a considerable figure for several years, rivalling even the influence of the Bishop of Winchester. Indeed the Earl of Southampton looked on him as something of a patron at the centre of affairs, and he had taken a number of Hampshire men into his service. So the chances are that stories about the Pole family and particularly about Hugh Holland, had been circulating for some time and had reached Cromwell’s ears, which would explain why he sent Gervase Tindall down to investigate. Richard Ayer seems to have been sympathetic to the New Learning, which was no doubt why he was prepared to disclose so much to Tindall, and to have been genuinely disturbed by what went on in Margaret’s household. Particularly worrying was the breach of the confessional by so many local priests which caused her to know of the misdemeanours of her neighbours and servants. Even Ayer’s own confession had been betrayed by the curate at Warblington, which he held fully justified his talk about the countess.63 When Tindall set up an interview for him with Cromwell himself, he became even more revealing and Holland was arrested. By the time that this happened, Tindall had also been interviewed by Geoffrey Pole, acting as a Justice of the Peace. Geoffrey was so concerned by what he learned that he sought an interview with Cromwell himself, and came away with the impression that the Lord Privy Seal was his ‘good lord’. However it appears that Tindall had only told him half a story about what he knew, and that Cromwell, who had other sources of information, was not impressed. It was not long after this that he ordered Geoffrey’s arrest. He languished in the Tower for almost two months, while Cromwell’s agents gathered stories about him and his associates, and on 26 October he was formally interrogated. According to the record, fifty-nine questions were asked, mostly about his relations with Reginald, but his response indicates that he was only asked about those with whom he had discussed ‘a change of the world’, that is of the regiment of England.64 He named a few names, Lord La Warr and his own brother Lord Montague for instance, but stressed the innocence of the conversations. No harm was intended to the king; they were mostly concerned, he averred, with the ‘plucking down of abbeys’. He was interrogated twice more on 2 and 3 November, and his brother and the Marquis of Exeter were arrested on the 4th. There was no direct connection between these events, as Cromwell already had enough on both of them from Hugh Holland’s examination to justify taking action. He also had the examination of one Jerome Ragland, taken on 28 October. Ragland, described as Lord Montague’s right-hand man, alone provided more than enough to incriminate his master, irrespective of anything which Geoffrey may have said.65 The latter was by this time thoroughly intimidated, and anxious only to prove his loyalty to the king:

  Now especially in my extreme necessity, I perceive … your goodness shall not be lost on me, but surely as I found your grace always faithful unto me, so I refuse all creatures living to be faithful to you.

  He ended, ‘Your humble slave, Geoffrey Pole.’66 He was examined four more times between 5 and 12 November, and each time he delivered more material against his brother, and against Sir Edward Neville, who had also been arrested. Lord Montague’s own examination, by contrast, revealed little of relevance, which may explain why he was only interrogated once. Various other servants and chaplains were arrested and examined during November, and each made his contribution to the pile of evidence which Cromwell was assembling against the Poles and the Courtenays; evidence of support for Mary, of general disaffection with the king’s government and of regular correspondence with the exiled Reginald. Finally, beginning on 12 November, Lady Salisbury was interrogated, being placed under house arrest at Cowdray on the 15th. She admitted nothing beyond the general conservatism of her own and her sons’ religion, apparently not having been made privy to the words which passed between her sons and their servants, although she did concede that she had burned some papers before being placed under restraint.67

  Cromwell now had more than enough to go on, and could arrange for the trials to take place. Lord Montague and the Marquis of Exeter were tried by their peers on 2 and 3 December, and were found guilty. Given the flexible nature of the treason laws, and the king’s evident interest in the proceedings, there could be no other verdict. Geoffrey Pole, Edward Neville, Hugh Holland and two others were tried by special commission of oyer and terminer at the Guildhall on 4 December and likewise condemned. Holland, Croftes and Collins were hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on 9 December, and Neville, Montague and Exeter were beheaded at the Tower on the same day.68 Geoffrey Pole was pardoned on 2 January 1539. The countess was not tried but was included in the Act of Attainder passed against all the defendants in the parliament that convened on 28 April, and was kept in prison until after Cromwell’s fall. Gertrude, the Marchioness of Exeter, her son Edward, and Montague’s son Henry all ended up in the Tower.