Thomas Cromwell

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

  103. SP 1/22 ff. 106–60, LP 3 ii no. 1289. Knyvett’s protection as a member of the Calais retinue is SP 1/22 f. 160r, LP 3 ii no. 1289[7]. He was a debtor to Cromwell in a bond payable on 1 August 1527: SP 1/53 ff. 43r and 45v, LP 4 iii no. 5330.

  104. Aubrey, Natural history and antiquities of Surrey, 5, 236.

  105. SP 1/162 ff. 83–92 at f. 88v, LP 15 no. 1029/6, 512. The Marquess’s arms do not appear in two copies of a second inventory of the same hall made soon afterwards in the late 1520s, the original of them dated to 1527 (SP 1/42 ff. 101–16, LP 4 ii no. 3197; SP 1/243 ff. 70–88, LP Addenda 1 ii no. 1467, the latter there wrongly thought to be another part of that in SP 1/162). The former inventory in SP 1/162 is damaged and incomplete, so the absence of Wolsey’s arms in it is not significant; in any case it also certainly postdates Cromwell’s entry into Wolsey’s service in 1525, since at f. 86r it refers to ‘a cloth stained with a table of the taking of the French King [at the battle of Pavia, February 1525]’.

  106. The items are first Cromwell, holograph, to Margaret Marchioness of Dorset, April 1523, SP 1/41 f. 160v, LP 4 ii no. 3053[ii]. Cromwell has confused historians in this letter by mentioning an incorrect date, Wednesday 17 April, which has pointed readers to 1527, the only such date in the 1520s. However, the letter refers to the Marquess’s Scottish expedition, which took place in April 1523 (the Marquess was elsewhere in April 1527). What seems to have happened is that Cromwell wrote on Thursday 16 April 1523, and in correcting his initial reference to ‘yesterday’ to a specific day, Wednesday, inadvertently projected tomorrow’s Friday 17 April on to yesterday, Wednesday 15 April. The second item is Cecily Dowager Marchioness of Dorset to Cromwell, Thursday before the Assumption [13 August 1523], BL MS Cotton Vespasian FXIII, f. 173, LP 3 ii no. 2437. This letter can be no later than 1523, as Cromwell had entered Wolsey’s service by August 1524, but it can be no earlier than 1523, since Cecily Bonvile’s second husband the Earl of Wiltshire died on 6 April 1523, and only after his death would she have reverted (as she did) to styling herself Cecily Dorset, ignoring Wiltshire’s title. See Complete Peerage 4, 419 and n.

  107. For ‘Mr Morgan . . . with the Marquess of Dorset’, William Brabazon to Cromwell, 14 August ?1528, SP 1/55 f. 45, LP 4 iii no. 5849. For Richard and Dorset, SP 1/54 f. 238v, LP 4 iii no. 5772; when Cromwell’s will was revised in 1530–32, an alteration shows that Richard had left the service of the Greys.

  108. Lord George Grey to Cromwell, Friday before Whitsunday 1527 or 1528, SP 1/53 f. 258, LP 4 iii no. 5542. The letter refers to Sir John Allen as Alderman, whereas he was knighted in his year as Lord Mayor 1525–6, and Friday before Whitsunday 1526 would have been in his mayoralty. The threeway involvement of Lord George with Cromwell and Alderman Allen mentioned in the letter must relate to two bonds also involving the three of them catalogued among debts owing to Cromwell’s in SP 1/53 f. 49v, LP 4 iii no. 5330, none of which is later than February 1529.

  109. John Grey to ‘my good frende’ Cromwell, 12 January [1526], SP 1/37 f. 6, LP 4 i no. 1881, dateable to 1526 by its reference to the dissolution of Tickford and Ravenstone priories. On his later part in Cromwell’s story, see below, this page.

  110. Lord Leonard Grey to Cromwell, 24 May [1532], SP 1/70 f. 56, LP 5 no. 1049; see below, especially this page.

  111. Lady Cecily Dudley to Cromwell, 24 February 1538, SP 1/141 ff. 211–12, LP 13 ii Appendix no. 6.

  112. Edward Dudley to Cromwell: 3 June 1536, SP 1/104 ff. 106–7, LP 10 no. 1045 (3 June [1536]); 20 December 1537, SP 1/241 ff. 250–51, LP Addenda 1 i no. 1276. This last should be read alongside Edward Dudley to Thomas Wriothesley, 20 December 1537, SP 1/141 ff. 213–14, LP 13 ii Appendix no. 6[2].

  113. Lord Leonard Grey to Cromwell, 31 October [1536]: SP 60/3 f. 169, LP 11 no. 933.

  114. Lord Leonard Grey to Cromwell, 1 April 1538, SP 60/6 f. 82, LP 13 i no. 653, and several other references put Budgegood in Cromwell’s and Richard Cromwell’s service by 1536: cf. e.g. Budgegood to Cromwell, 26 March 1536, SP 1/103 f. 33, LP 10 no. 567. He was being called the Dowager Marchioness’s servant in 1533: Charles Duke of Suffolk to Margaret Marchioness of Dorset, 28 July [1533], SP 1/82 f. 138, LP 7 no. 153[2]. On his previous service to the Marquess, see the Marquess’s will of 1530, TNA, PROB 11/24 ff. 72v–76r, and Budgegood’s own reminiscence of his service in France with the Marquess in 1512, LP 14 i no. 186[iii].

  115. On his flight to Italy: e.g. Budgegood to Cromwell, 26 September [1538], SP 1/137 f. 30, LP 13 ii no. 433; Alban Hyll to Cromwell, 25 October 1538, SP 1/138 f. 9, LP 13 ii no. 694; the reports of the many eyes following his adventures are circumstantially confirmed in his own report to papal officials from prison, 29 December 1538, LP 14 i no. 1.

  116. There is a summary of Cromwell’s involvement, not always correctly dated, in ‘Houses of Cistercian monks: abbey of Tilty’, in VCH: Essex 2, 134–6.

  117. Cf. e.g. Henry Sadler (from Tilty) to Ralph Sadler ‘dwellynge with Master Crumwell’, 16 December [1529], BL MS Cotton Titus B/I f. 163, LP 5 no. 584; on dating, see this page, n. 78 above. The year 1529 represented a low ebb in the Marquess of Dorset’s fortunes, before his final acquisition of great wealth sadly only just before his death in 1530.

  118. Margaret Marchioness of Dorset to Cromwell, 4 February [1534], SP 1/82 ff. 136–7, LP 7 no. 153[1]. Later, in 1537 or 1538, the Dowager Marchioness also entrusted her younger son Lord Thomas to the now ennobled Cromwell’s service and protection: Marchioness of Dorset to Cromwell, 24 January [1538], SP 1/128 f. 117, LP 13 i no. 136, and 8 February 1538, SP 1/129 ff. 12–13, LP 13 i no. 231 (see in that letter her special appeal to Cromwell ‘who hath always borne so good heart towards my Lord my late husband’).

  119. John Guy, ‘Wolsey and the Parliament of 1523’, in Cross, Loades and Scarisbrick (eds.), Law and Government under the Tudors, 1–18, at 15–16, argues that Cromwell’s speech might be seen as a plant for Wolsey’s covert strategy of avoiding a French campaign and invading Scotland. It is a fine balance, but I suspect that this is over-subtle.

  120. On the Marquess’s financial, political and legal troubles, see ODNB, s.v. Grey, Thomas, second Marquess of Dorset.

  121. SP 1/41 f. 157r, LP 4 ii no. 3053[iv]. SP 1/235 ff. 203–5, LP Addenda 1 i no. 532, are adroit redraftings by Cromwell of the Parliamentary bill turning it into a petition to the King’s Council.

  122. SP 1/233 ff. 315–16, LP Addenda 1 i no. 396: draft lease of lands in the Barony of Egremont, 22 December 1523, in the hand of Cromwell’s clerk, with some corrections by him.

  123. Other aristocratic patrons would have been involved there, respectively the great rivals the Barons Dacre and Clifford Earls of Westmorland. Another straw in the wind is that Sir Christopher Dacre, one of the knights of the shire for Cumberland in 1523, was a cousin of and friendly with the Lees or Leghs, a northern clan who included Cromwell’s long-standing friends and colleagues Dr Roland Lee and Dr Thomas Lee: see Sir Christopher Dacre to Cromwell, 28 September 1533, SP 1/79 f. 78, LP 6 no. 1167.

  124. All currently known information on the membership of the 1523 Parliament is summed up in HC 1509–1558 1, 29–164. Bristol was the first urban community spontaneously to appoint Cromwell to office, as Recorder in succession to his friend Lord Chief Justice Sir John Fitzjames: William Appowell to Cromwell, 8 August ?1533, SP 1/78 f. 97, LP 6 no. 956. Cromwell and his clerk were responsible for formulating two bills concerning London livery companies, the Glaziers and the Skinners (the latter against the Skinners’ leadership), neither of which succeeded in the form proposed: see Guy, ‘Wolsey and the Parliament of 1523’, 11–12. The draft bills are SP 1/233 ff. 291–5, LP Addenda 1 i nos 384–5.

  125. Cromwell to Creke, 17 August 1523, SP 1/28 f. 154, LP 3 ii no. 3249.

  126. G. R. Elton, ‘The political creed of Thomas Cromwell’, in Elton, Studies 2, 224.

  127. The letter, properly dated only in the last thirty years, is Sir Richard Cornwal
l to Cromwell, 28 September [1523], SP 1/55 f. 129, LP 4 iii no. 5962. For the redating and an explanation of the ‘business’, see HC 1509–1558 1, 705–6.

  128. For excellent comment on the background, see A. Hawkyard, The House of Commons 1509–1558: personnel, procedure, precedent and change (Parliamentary History: Texts and Studies 12, 2016), especially 3–5, and on More’s rueful exchange with Cardinal Wolsey, ibid., 209.

  Chapter 3: In the Cardinal’s Service: 1524–1528

  1. P. J. Ward, ‘The origins of Thomas Cromwell’s public career: service under Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII, 1524–30’ (London School of Economics PhD, 1999), efficiently disposes of attempts to land Cromwell in Wolsey’s service in earlier years (in chs. 1 and 2). Within the bounds it sets itself, Ward’s excellent thesis is a reliable guide to these years, particularly valuable in its meticulous listing and analysis of documents relating to Wolsey involving Cromwell, 1524–30, ibid., 246–316.

  2. S. Thurley, ‘The domestic building works of Cardinal Wolsey’, in S. Gunn and P. G. Lindley (eds.), Cardinal Wolsey: Church, state and art (Cambridge, 1991), 76–102, at 80. The Robert Cromwell in Wolsey’s household (alongside a John Cromwell) after the Rector of Battersea’s death in 1517 has to be a younger and less significant member of the family: see J. G. Taylor, Our Lady of Batersey: the story of Battersea church and parish . . . (London, 1925), 401, and LP 4 ii no. 2972 and LP 4 iii no. 6185.

  3. G. Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, ed. S. W. Singer (2nd edn, London, 1827), 67. On the benefice, see ODNB, s.v. Wolsey, Thomas.

  4. On Allen, see ODNB, s.v. Alen, John. One of the most remarkable clusters of connections is that between Dorset, Thomas Cromwell, Richard Cromwell, Dr John Allen and Roger Beverley, a former abbot of Tilty. In 1529/30 Beverley was induced by the second Marquess of Dorset to resign his abbacy, and as a secular priest may have become schoolmaster to the third Marquess, before he accompanied Allen to Dublin as Archbishop’s chaplain, and found himself destitute after Allen’s murder. All this can be reconstructed from John Palmer Abbot of Tilty to Cromwell, late 1533 or early 1534, SP 1/88 f. 91, LP 7 no. 1658; Margaret Marchioness of Dorset to Cromwell, 10 April [1534], SP 1/69 f. 216, LP 5 no. 926; Roger Beverley to Thomas Cromwell, 17 May 1535, SP 60/2 f. 113, LP 8 no. 728; Roger Beverley to Richard Cromwell, 18 May 1535, SP 60/2 f. 115, LP 8 no. 729.

  5. SP 1/31 f. 72, LP 4 i no. 388 7/2–4, which are records of these conveyances on 1–3 March, following on from SP 1/31 f. 72, LP 4 i no. 388 7/1, Allen’s purchase of the manor of Kexby (Yorks.) from Sir Robert Ughtred, 19 February 1524. Cromwell seems to have been arranging all this, judging from the costs of the recovery in Common Pleas recorded at SP 1/31 ff. 58–9, LP 4 i no. 388[1]. For further discussion of this material, see Ward, ‘Origins of Thomas Cromwell’s public career’, 25–9. It is interesting to note that thirteen years later Cromwell’s son Gregory married the widow of Sir Anthony Ughtred, Sir Robert’s son.

  6. [T. Wolsey], Rudimenta grammatices et docendi methodus, non tam scholae Gypsuichianae per reuerendissimum D. Thoma[m] cardinale[m] Ebor. feliciter institutae q[uam] o[mn]ibus aliis totius Anglie scholis prescripta (Southwark, 1529 etc., RSTC 5542.3).

  7. Wolsey to Cromwell, February 1530, Bodl. MS Jesus College 74 f. 193v, completing the loss of this part of the text in BL MS Cotton Appendix XLVIII f. 18, LP 4 iii no. 6204, printed as far as it goes in State Papers 1, 354. Wolsey repeated the phrase in instructions to Ralph Sadler for Cromwell: Bodl. MS Jesus College 74 f. 192r.

  8. Cromwell witnessed Wallingford Priory’s surrender (for the time being abortive) on 19 April 1524, so in itself that indicates that he must have been taken on no later than March: LP 4 i no. 1137. On Wallingford’s faltering end, see Smith, 154; Ward, ‘Origins of Thomas Cromwell’s public career’, 64n, puts its surrender in 1525, and while some evidence might seem to suggest that, the dates of the various promotions of heads of house with evidence provided by Smith, 499, 502, puts it fairly securely in 1524.

  9. Everett, Rise of Thomas Cromwell, 36 and nn.

  10. S. Gunn, Henry VII’s New Men and the Making of Tudor England (Oxford, 2016), 221–3, provides a good summary of the Monteagle affair; for Cromwell’s pension from Hussey (an irony in view of his later role in Hussey’s downfall in 1537), see ibid., 303. See the roll call of combatants in the articles of agreement, Cromwell among them, 2 June apparently 1528, SP 1/59 ff. 106–7v, LP 4 iii Appendix no. 109.

  11. There is a securely dated letter of congratulation on ‘your good promotion that I hear of through the favour of My Lord’s Grace’ from Henry Lacy of Calais to Cromwell, going out of its way to address him as ‘my Lord Cardinal’s servant and of his Council’, 30 April 1527, SP 1/41 f. 179, LP 4 ii no. 3079.

  12. The tomb is admirably discussed in P. Lindley, ‘Playing check-mate with royal majesty? Wolsey’s patronage of Italian Renaissance sculpture’, in Gunn and Lindley (eds.), Cardinal Wolsey, 261–85.

  13. Bodl. MS Jesus College 74 ff. 189r–191r, LP 4 iii no. 5743[I and II]; discussed with transcript as Appendices III and IV in A. Higgins, ‘On the work of Florentine sculptors in England in the early part of the sixteenth century: with special reference to the tombs of Cardinal Wolsey and King Henry VIII’, Archaeological Journal 51 (1894), 129–220, 367–70. Since then, this correspondence has been curiously neglected by historians, surely not because the key letter is in Latin and left without translation in LP. Lindley, ‘playing check-mate with royal majesty?’, 264, follows LP’s mistake in the date of Rovezzano’s letter; it is 31 January 1530.

  14. See the letter from Cavallari’s widow Helen to Cromwell, probably early 1530, SP 1/52 f. 64, LP 4 ii no. 5120.

  15. ‘virum magni ingenii maximæque dexteritatis’: Bodl. MS Jesus College 74 f. 189r.

  16. Helen Cavallari to Cromwell, probably early 1530, SP 1/52 f. 64, LP 4 ii no. 5120; same (now Helen Wryne) to Cromwell, ?late 1536, SP 1/113 f. 203, LP 11 no. 1497.

  17. Cavendish, Life of Wolsey, ed. Singer, 258.

  18. John Bigges, ‘To the right worshipful Master Cromwell, with my lord Cardinal’s grace abiding’ (so Bigges had no idea where Cromwell actually lived), 13 April [1525], SP 1/235 f. 53, LP Addenda 1 i no. 485. Bigges wrote to Cromwell ‘as yet unacquainted’. LP puts this letter in 1526, but there is no evidence of the monastic dissolution programme being active in April 1526, whereas it was at its height around April 1525, and Bigges was actively interested in the process of suppression.

  19. Thomas Bennet to Wolsey, 4 March 1525, SP 1/34 f. 34, LP 4 i no. 1150.

  20. Bigges to Cromwell, 13 April [1525], SP 1/235 f. 53, LP Addenda 1 i no. 485. For the relationship of Bishop and corporation, see also Nicholas Shaxton Bishop of Salisbury to Cromwell, 3 July 1537, SP 1/241 f. 106, LP Addenda 1 i no. 1235.

  21. For an example of Cromwell’s negotiations with Campeggio’s officials in Salisbury diocese, one of them being his brother Marc’Antonio Campeggio, see Thomas Byrd to Cromwell, 1 September 1528, SP 1/50 f. 64, LP 4 ii no. 4690. Another obvious Wolsey appointee via Campeggio was Sir Thomas Heneage as episcopal Steward, an office held during the Bishop’s pleasure: see Bishop Shaxton to [Sir Robert] Tyrwhitt, 29 May 1536, SP 1/104 f. 67, LP 10 no. 986.

  22. See an exasperated letter from the Corporation of Salisbury to Cromwell, 6 April ?1534, SP 1/65 f. 189, LP 5 no. 182. On Bennet’s continuing role and Cromwell’s lack of involvement in appointing his own deputy, see Bennet to Cromwell, 2 January 1530, SP 1/236 f. 292, LP Addenda 1 i no. 683, and Thomas Chaffyn to Cromwell, 2 January 1530, SP 1/56 f. 190, LP 4 iii no. 6136. On Winter’s appointment, see Le Neve, Fasti 1300–1541: Salisbury, 18.

  23. On Littleprow, see HC 1509–1558 2, 557–8, s.v. Lytilprowe, Reginald.

  24. For all this, D. MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors: politics and religion in an English county 1500–1600 (Oxford, 1986), 227–30.

  25. On Sherburne, see ODNB, s.v. Sherborne, Robert, and S. Lander, ‘Church cou
rts and the Reformation in the diocese of Chichester, 1500–58’, in R. O’Day and F. Heal (eds.), Continuity and Change: personnel and administration of the Church in England 1500–1642 (Leicester, 1976), 215–37, particularly 223–8. Events at Shulbrede can be reconstructed from three sources: first, two letters of 1525, Prior and Brethren of Shulbrede to Richard Bedon, s.a., SP 1/65 f. 137, LP 5 no. 107, and Richard Bedon to Cromwell, ‘Thursday after St Valentine’ (16 February if 1525), SP 1/65 f. 136, LP 5 no. 106. LP dates these to 1531, but the reference to ‘Lord Percy’ dates them to before the death of Henry, fifth Earl of Northumberland, who died on 19 May 1527, and Cromwell was active in dissolutions in Kent and Sussex in early 1525. The story is completed by a damaged letter from Richard Leighton to Cromwell, 4 October 1535, SP 1/97 f. 92, LP 9 no. 533, though LP misunderstood the fragmentary text, asserting that the demolitions had been carried out by the current Abbot. Leighton clearly had no idea of Cromwell’s earlier involvement.

  26. TNA, SP 2/O f. 133, LP 6 no. 1625[7], is a draft grant of annuity by William Burrey, Prior of Shulbrede, of 26s 8d, a half-mark more than promised in Bedon’s letter; this has to date before Burrey ceased to be Prior, so before 1529. A catalogue of Cromwell’s financial papers in 1532, LP 5 no. 1285, makes a reference to this under vi, ‘My master’s patents’. For Cromwell saving a second small Augustinian house in Sussex, Hardham, almost certainly during his later round of dissolutions in 1532, see below, this page.

  27. Sir Henry Guildford to Cromwell, 30 March [1525], SP 1/47 f. 141, LP 4 ii no. 4117, misdated in LP; it can only be 1525, because of its reference to the dissolution of Tonbridge.

  28. On Bilsington, see Smith, 379, and on Leeds, VCH: Kent 2, 162–5. Anthony St Leger to Thomas Cromwell, 17 October [1536], SP 1/108 f. 114, LP 11 no. 746, and see above, this page.

  29. Stephen Vaughan to Cromwell, probably spring 1525, SP 1/52 f. 38, LP 4 ii no. 5115; misdated by LP to 1529.