Thomas Cromwell

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

  4. Sir Anthony Ughtred to Cromwell, 16 June [1533], SP 1/77 f. 46, LP 6 no. 659.

  5. Lady Elizabeth Ughtred to Cromwell, 18 March [1537], SP 1/117 f. 36, LP 12 i no. 678. For Robert Southwell’s noting ‘a child of my Lady your daughter’s’ at Wilberfoss nunnery, see Southwell to Cromwell, 20 August 1537, SP 1/124 f. 73, LP 12 ii no. 549.

  6. Sir Arthur Darcy and Sir Anthony Ughtred had been joint Stewards of the Forest of Galtres near York, and in October 1537 the office was regranted to Darcy along with that militant opponent of the Pilgrims William Maunsell: LP 12 ii no. 1008[27]. For Bigod mentioning ‘my cousin Ughtred’ (whom he expected Cromwell to be able to identify), see Bigod to Cromwell, late February 1537, SP 1/116 f. 163r, LP 12 i no. 533.

  7. Roland Lee to Cromwell, 2 April [1537], SP 1/117 f. 232, LP 12 i no. 807; notably a holograph letter, unlike the accompanying letter to the King on the same subject: Lee to Henry VIII, same date, SP 1/117 f. 229, LP 12 i no. 806.

  8. John Packington to Cromwell, 3 April [1537], SP 1/117 ff. 243–4, LP 12 i no. 821; Cromwell’s ‘remembrance’ in late April 1537, LP 12 i no. 973; Roland Lee to Cromwell (with a notably more formal address than usual!), 5 May [1537], SP 1/119 ff. 175–6, LP 12 i no. 1139.

  9. Arthur Darcy to Lady Ughtred, 15 June [1537], SP 1/121 f. 128, LP 12 ii no. 97. Oxford, whose ancient family seat was Hedingham Castle, was described in Anthony Budgegood’s account of the peerage a year and a half later as sixty-six years old and ‘a man of great power and little experience’: LP 13 ii no. 732. His son and heir Lord Bulbeck was already married by this date.

  10. Cromwell’s accounts, 24 and 25 June 1537, LP 14 ii no. 782, at 330; John Husee to Lord Lisle, 17 July [1537], SP 3/5 f. 117, Lisle Letters 4 no. 981.

  11. Lady Ughtred to Cromwell, n.d., SP 1/125 ff. 145–6, LP 12 ii no. 881. For the juncture, see below, this page.

  12. On Elizabeth’s letter to the King in 1540, see below, this page. Cromwell’s accounts have payments on 1 March 1538 ‘for Master Richard’s nurse and midwife, by Master Gregory, at the christening’, then on 11 and 12 April things Lady Ughtred ‘needed at her lying down’, and for stuff being taken from Stepney to Lewes for her at the same time: LP 14 ii no. 782, at 334–5.

  13. John Husee to Lord Lisle, 3 August [1537], SP 3/5 f. 109, Lisle Letters 4 no. 992; Husee to Lady Lisle, same day, SP 3/11 f. 132, Lisle Letters 4 no. 891.

  14. For Cromwell at Sunninghill on 1 August, see Cromwell’s letter of that day to the Irish commissioners, SP 60/5 f. 1, LP 12 ii no. 414, and for his plan to lodge at Guildford after that, Sir William Fitzwilliam to Cromwell, 1 August [1537], SP 1/123 f. 175, LP 12 ii no. 415; for his staying at Sir Richard Weston’s house near Guildford on 2 August, referenced in Sir Roger Cholmley’s letter to him, 26 August [1537], SP 1/124 f. 107, LP 12 ii no. 583, to be compared with a reference in Cromwell’s accounts to a payment to a servant of Lady Weston’s on 2 August, LP 14 ii no. 782, at 330 (where the payments at Mortlake on Gregory’s wedding day may also be seen).

  15. Nicholas Wilson to Thomas Wriothesley, 3 August [1537], TNA, SP 7/1 f. 87, LP 12 ii no. 425. Cromwell’s staff were making payments at Windsor on 5 August: LP 14 ii no. 782, at 330.

  16. Anstis (ed.), Register of the most noble Order of the Garter, 2, 407–9.

  17. For various family payments around Mortlake in early September, see LP 14 ii no. 782, at 331.

  18. Edward Lord Beauchamp to Cromwell, 2 September [1537], SP 1/124 f. 159, LP 12 ii no. 629.

  19. Foxe 1563, 667, and for an overview of him, HC 1509–1558 2, 80–81. For examples of his relaxation with Cromwell apart from Beauchamp’s letter, see Thomas Edgar to Cromwell, 18 August [1536], SP 1/106 ff. 20–21, LP 11 no. 324, and Thomas Thacker to Cromwell, 18 August [1538], SP 1/135 f. 113, LP 13 ii no. 125; Edgar is associated with Edward Seymour’s uncle Robert in New Year’s gifts to the King in 1540: LP 16 no. 380, at 179.

  20. Christopher Barker, Garter, to Cromwell, 19 July [1537], SP 1/123 f. 21, LP 12 ii no. 286.

  21. Its full heraldic description is Per fesse azure and or, a pale counterchanged, charged alternately with fleurs de lys of the second, and pelicans with wings elevated vulning themselves gules.

  22. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, 13–15.

  23. I am very grateful to Jeremy Goldsmith for sending me in the right direction to make these deductions.

  24. Thomas Earl of Wiltshire to Cromwell, 25 August 1537, BL MS Cotton Vespasian F/XIII f. 182, LP 12 ii no. 580; Anstis (ed.), Register of the most noble Order of the Garter, 2, 407–9. For Cromwell’s expenses at Windsor around the ceremony on 26 August, see LP 14 ii no. 782, at 331.

  25. John Husee to [Lord Lisle], 21 August 1537, SP 3/5 f. 62v, Lisle Letters 4 no. 1001, 382. Norfolk wrote to Cromwell on 27 August from Sheriff Hutton, having returned there the day before the Garter installation: SP 1/124 f. 113, LP 12 ii no. 588.

  26. ‘The saying of Robert Aske to me, Richard Corwen, out of confession to-for his death’, 20 July [1537], State Papers 1, 558, LP 12 ii no. 292 [iii].

  27. For Norfolk’s presence at Grafton on 15 August (the feast of the Assumption), Duke of Norfolk to James V of Scotland, 27 August [1537], SP 1/124 f. 117, LP 12 ii no. 589; for Cromwell at Grafton that day, see his accounts, LP 14 ii no. 782, at 331.

  28. Duke of Norfolk to Cromwell, 3 August [1537], SP 1/123 ff. 190–91, LP 12 ii no. 430; same to same, 8 August [1537], SP 1/124 f. 1v, LP 12 ii no. 479.

  29. On the previous friction, see above, this page. For an overview of Brandon’s part in dealing with the Lincolnshire Rising, see Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, 142–52.

  30. Duke of Suffolk to Cromwell, 26 May [1537], SP 1/120 f. 198, LP 12 i no. 1284. On these early moves in the transfer, see also Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, 152–6, 167, and MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors, 66–7.

  31. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, 168–74, and MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors, 67–71.

  32. Parts of the story which I tell here and in the following chapters on Gregory Cromwell, Sussex and Kent were spotted by Mary Robertson: ‘Profit and purpose in the development of Thomas Cromwell’s landed estates’, Journal of British Studies 29 (1990), 317–46.

  33. On the demesne prohibition, Robert Peterson Prior of Lewes to Cromwell, 2 August [1536], SP 1/105 f. 235, LP 11 no. 214, and same to same, 7 October [1536], SP 1/107 f. 59, LP 11 no. 583; for Leighton’s transactions with Lewes, Richard Leighton to Cromwell, [16 August and early October 1535], SP 1/95 f. 38, LP 9 no. 42, and SP 1/98 f. 22, LP 9 no. 632. For general discussion of Lewes Priory and Castle and Castle Acre Priory, see VCH: Sussex 2, 64–71 and 7, 19–31; VCH: Norfolk 2, 356–8.

  34. Duke of Norfolk to Cromwell, 4 November [1537], SP 1/126 f. 58, LP 12 ii no. 1030.

  35. Duke of Norfolk to Cromwell, 25 March [1538], SP 1/130 f. 126, LP 13 i no. 593; confirmation of estate to Cromwell and alienation licence, 4 July 1538, LP 13 i no. 1519[5], and Blomefield and Parkin, Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, 9, 489. For the previous and future transactions around this property, see above, this page, and below, this page.

  36. The grant went through on 1 October 1537: LP 12 ii no. 1008[3]. J. Youings, The Dissolution of the Monasteries (London, 1971), 65, began to glimpse the significance of all these relationships.

  37. The earliest paperwork for this transaction just predates what remains for Lewes and Michelham, beginning with bonds from Wriothesley on 20 September 1537: see a note of various bonds, SP 1/127 f. 121, LP 12 ii no. 1275.

  38. On the 1539 election, see below, this page. John White to Wriothesley, 26 December [1537] (‘at night’), TNA, SP 7/1 no. 85, LP 12 ii no. 1270. LP wrongly reads ‘my Lord’ for ‘Our Lord’ in this passage. For obvious reasons this John White needs to be distinguished from the Surrey man who was Bishop Gardiner’s client, headmaster of Winchester College and himself future Bishop of Winchester.

  39. On Sal
isbury at Oxford, see Foxe 1563, 666. For his appointment by Cromwell to Horsham in 1534, see Thomas Lee to Cromwell, 19 November [1535], SP 1/99 f. 60, LP 9 no. 849, and John Salisbury Prior of St Faith to Cromwell, 21 November [1535], SP 1/99 f. 69, LP 9 no. 865.

  40. Sir John Gage to Cromwell, 20 April [1537], SP 1/241 f. 59, LP Addenda 1 i no. 1217.

  41. Emden, Oxford 1501 to 1540, 672.

  42. For excellent comment on the conveyancing problem and its consequences, see Youings, Dissolution of the Monasteries, 82–3; for Audley’s doubts, see Audley to Cromwell, 1 and ?2 January 1538, BL MS Cotton Cleopatra E/IV f. 228, LP 12 ii no. 1153, and BL MS Cotton Cleopatra E/IV ff. 225–6, LP 12 ii no. 1159.

  43. Norfolk to Cromwell, probably 11 November 1537, SP 1/127 f. 203, LP 12 ii Appendix no. 45.

  44. For negotiations and meetings with the Duke, Henry Polstead to Cromwell, 12 November [1537], BL MS Cotton Cleopatra E/IV f. 279, LP 12 ii no. 1062; for the surrender of Lewes with Castle Acre on 16 November 1537, LP 12 ii no. 1101; for the pensions to monks and staff, SP 1/126 ff. 135–8, LP 12 ii no. 1101[2].

  45. I am most grateful to Steven Gunn for pointing this latter case out: see Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, 156, 160.

  46. For the process of pensioning or providing alternatives in preferment at work at Titchfield, see John Crayford and others to Wriothesley, 2 January [1538], TNA, SP 7/1 f. 13, LP 13 i no. 20. For discussion of the mechanics of the surrenders at Lewes and Titchfield, see Youings, Dissolution of the Monasteries, 62, 65–6, 73, 81–3, though she did not appreciate the wider political significance of these transactions.

  47. LP 14 i no. 1355[I], 593, from TNA, E 315/252 II f. 32 (25 May 1538).

  48. On Bridlington, see above, this page. On Thetford and Castle Acre, D. Dymond (ed.), The Register of Thetford Priory II: 1518–1540 (Norfolk Record Society, 60, 1996), 745–6, and MacCulloch, ‘A Reformation in the balance’, 105–6.

  49. Queen Jane’s letter to Cromwell as her High Steward, 12 October [1537], is BL MS Cotton Nero C/X f. 1, LP 12 ii no. 889, which lists similar letters to other recipients. Receipt of the letter and consequent payments are recorded in Cromwell’s accounts, LP 14 ii no. 782, at 332. Sadler had also let him know about the King’s permission to him to use St James and the Neat interchangeably for lodging because of plague round The Rolls: Ralph Sadler to Cromwell, early October 1537, SP 1/127 f. 202, LP 12 ii Appendix no. 44.

  50. John Husee to Lord Lisle, 16 October [1537], SP 3/5 f. 91, Lisle Letters 4 no. 1024; Sir Thomas Palmer to Lord Lisle, same date, SP 3/6 f. 112, Lisle Letters 4 no. 1025. See also a detailed account of the christening, LP 12 ii no. 911, from BL Additional MS 6113 f. 81.

  51. The depositions are SP 1/125 ff. 200–206, LP 12 ii no. 952, and SP 1/113 f. 60v, LP 11 no. 1406. For illuminating discussion, see Marshall, ‘George Throckmorton and Henry Tudor’, 49–52.

  52. An account of the creation on 18 October is LP 12 ii no. 939, from BL MS Additional 6113 f. 87.

  53. Oxfordshire commission, LP 12 ii no. 157; Derbyshire: LP 12 ii no. 1008[43]; royal alienation licence for his Oxfordshire purchases of Standlake and Broughton Castle from the Earl of Huntingdon, 20 October 1537, LP 12 ii no. 1008[26].

  54. For the first commissions placing him in every county, in November 1537, see LP 12 ii no. 1150, and for examples of exempt ecclesiastical jurisdictions, see LP 13 i no. 384[22] (4 February 1538: Archbishop of York’s Liberty of Ripon, Yorkshire), LP 14 i no. 1354[1] (1 July 1539: Bishop of Durham’s Liberty of Durham and Sedbergh), LP 14 i no. 1354[21] (4 July 1539: Liberty of the Abbot of St Albans).

  55. Duke of Norfolk to Cromwell, [24 October 1537], SP 1/126 f. 4, LP 12 ii no. 971.

  56. See the account at LP 12 ii no. 1060, from London, College of Heralds MS I 11 f. 37.

  57. Duke of Norfolk to Cromwell, 4 November [1537], SP 1/126 f. 58, LP 12 ii no. 1030.

  58. Earl of Hertford to Cromwell, [1 November 1537], SP 1/126 f. 48, LP 12 ii no. 1013.

  59. Cuthbert Tunstall Bishop of Durham to [Cromwell], 13 November [1537], SP 1/126 f. 118v, LP 12 ii no. 1077.

  60. John Husee to Lord Lisle, 14 December [1537], SP 1/127 f. 49, Lisle Letters 4 no. 1038.

  61. John Milsent to Henry Polstead, 12 December [1537], SP 1/241 f. 245, LP Addenda 1 i no. 1274.

  62. John Crayford and Roland Lathum to Thomas Wriothesley, 2 January [1538], SP 1/128 ff. 18–21, LP 13 i no. 19 (partly printed in Youings, Dissolution of the Monasteries, 246–8, with a plan of what Wriothesley did to the buildings), and John Husee to Lord Lisle, 3 January [1538], SP 1/128 f. 23, Lisle Letters 5 no. 1086.

  63. Examination of Geo. Croftes, c. 14 November 1538, SP 1/139 f. 17r, LP 13 ii no. 828. Their visit would probably have been while Cromwell was with the King on progress in summer 1538: see LP 14 ii no. 782, at 337.

  64. Giovanni Portinari to Cromwell, 20 and 24 March 1538, SP 1/130 f. 93, LP 13 i no. 554, and SP 1/130 f. 124, LP 13 i no. 590.

  65. Cromwell wrote from Hampton Court to Thomas Wyatt on 1 March [1538], BL MS Harley 282 f. 175, LP 13 i no. 387. On the same day there are payments in Cromwell’s accounts to ‘Master Richard’s nurse and midwife, by Master Gregory, at the christening’; on 4 March to Robin Drum and his fellows ‘for their waiting two nights the same time my Lord made the King a masque’, and ‘John Portynare, for the charges of the mask’: LP 14 ii no. 782, at 334.

  66. Madden (ed.), Privy purse expenses of the Princess Mary, 66–7, 69; it is also interesting that the baby was referred to as ‘Lady Ughtred’s child’, reinforcing the mother’s formal social superiority over her husband. I am very grateful to Teri Fitzgerald for drawing my attention to this material.

  67. Gregory Cromwell and Sir John Gage to Cromwell, 19 March [1538], SP 1/130 f. 89, LP 13 i no. 549. This letter can only be of 1538, since Gregory had quit Sussex by March 1539.

  68. Gregory Cromwell to Cromwell, 11 April [1538], SP 1/131 f. 62, LP 13 i no. 734.

  69. Henry Polstead proposed to ‘wait’ on Cromwell while he was at Sheffield, 16 August 1538, SP 1/135 f. 95, LP 13 ii no. 106, and John Williamson’s expenditure on works at Sheffield during Cromwell’s stay in late August, LP 14 ii no. 782, at 337.

  70. Gregory Cromwell to Cromwell, 16 April 1538, SP 1/131 ff. 110–11, LP 13 i no. 786[1, 2]. Compare Bishop Longland’s complaint in May 1536 about an outbreak of such attempts ‘to dig for money’: John Longland Bishop of Lincoln to Cromwell, SP 1/103 f. 331, LP 10 no. 804.

  Chapter 19: Cutting Down Trees: 1538

  1. W. Bulleine, A dialogue both pleasant and piety-full, against the fever pestilence (London, 1564, RSTC 4036), f. 61r (I am indebted to Spencer Weinreich for drawing this to my attention).

  2. ‘il a chanté une chanson à mon milord Privé Séel, disant qu’il estoit bon pour le mesnaige, mais non pour entremettre des affaires des roys’: Castillon to Constable de Montmorency, 14 May [1538], Kaulek (ed.), Correspondance, 50, LP 13 i no. 995.

  3. ‘super deliberatione, hospitem an popularem duceret’: J. G. Nichols, ‘Some additions to the biographies of Sir John Cheke and Sir Thomas Smith . . .’, Archaeologia 38 (1860), 98–127, at 117, from BL MS Additional 325 f. 2.

  4. Bodl. MS Jesus College 74 f. 299rv. This story forms part of a reminiscence involving Katherine Howard in friendly conversation with the Archbishop at the time of the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Anne of Cleves in 1540, but actually the conversation between Cromwell and Cranmer which it recalls does not necessarily relate directly to Katherine. It is certainly of 1539 rather than 1538, as will be demonstrated below (this page).

  5. For what follows where not otherwise referenced, Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 355–62, is an entertainingly sardonic guide.

  6. Chapuys and Diego de Mendoza to Charles V, 31 August 1538, Spanish Calendar 6 i no. 7, at 26–7.

  7. Castillon to de Montmorency, 30 December 1538, G. Ribier (ed.), Lettres et mémoires d’estat . . . sous
les règnes de François premier, Henry II. et François II. (2 vols., Paris, 1666), 1, 341–4, LP 13 ii no. 1162.

  8. Castillon to François I, 14 February 1538, Kaulek (ed.), Correspondance, 24, LP 13 i no. 273; Cromwell to Thomas Wyatt (English ambassador to the Emperor), 11 February [1538], Merriman 2 no. 238, LP 13 i no. 255.

  9. Castillon to Constable de Montmorency, 14 May [1538], Kaulek (ed.), Correspondance, 50 (my translation), LP 13 i no. 995.

  10. Richard Cromwell to Cromwell, [17 May 1538], SP 1/132 f. 100, LP 13 i no. 1015.

  11. Butterworth and Chester, George Joye, 233; Rupp, Studies in the Making of the English Protestant Tradition, 103.

  12. John Husee to Lord Lisle, 8 May [1538], SP 1/132 f. 50, Lisle Letters 5 no. 1158 and commentary; on the supervisorship, John Frere to [Cromwell], ?November 1538, SP 1/141 f. 142, LP 13 ii no. 1239.

  13. John Husee to Lord Lisle, 18 May [1538], SP 3/4 f. 35, Lisle Letters 5 no. 1164. Havering-atte-Bower was a royal manor in south Essex.

  14. William Earl of Southampton to Lord Lisle, 20 May [1538], SP 3/7 f. 176, Lisle Letters 5 no. 1167. See Cromwell’s accounts for May and June, LP 14 ii no. 782, at 335. On Cromwell seeking wrestlers from Godolphin as early as a proposed royal visit to Calais in 1534, see Sir William Godolphin to Cromwell, 14 June and 12 July [1534], SP 1/70 f. 113, LP 5 no. 1093, and SP 1/70 f. 157, LP 5 no. 1168, both misdated to 1532 by LP.

  15. Castillon to François I, 31 May 1538, Kaulek (ed.), Correspondance, 52, LP 13 i no. 1101: ‘j’entendz aussi que son maistre luy avoit chanté quelque chanson.’

  16. For what follows unless otherwise referenced, McEntegart, Henry VIII, the League of Schmalkalden and the English Reformation, 77–130.

  17. Ibid., 85: ‘mit demselben konig in disen sachen nit zuschertzen ist’ (I have slightly modified the translation).

  18. Ibid., 89–94.

  19. Ibid., 98–9.

  20. Ibid., 101–3; Cornelius Scepperus to Charles V, August 1538, and Chapuys and Diego de Mendoza to Charles V, 31 August 1538, Spanish Calendar 6 i nos. 4 and 7, at 13 and 31.