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Exemplaria Praetiosa

ARCHIVIO SEGRETO VATICANO

PRESENTATION

HIS EMINENCE MONSIGNOR SERGIO PAGANO, B.PREFECT OF THE VATICAN SECRET ARCHIVES

HISTORICAL NOTES AND TRANSCRIPTION

MARCO MAIORINO

SIGILLOGRAPHIC STUDY WITH REFLECTIONS ON HISTORY

AND ON THE TECHNOLOGY OF SPHRAGISTICS

LUCA BECCHETTI

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by

MARCO MAIORINO

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December, 16

September, 19

June, 28

November, 14

April, 2

June, 23

November, 24

June, 27

April, 21April, 22

1485 ❖ Catherine of Aragon is born.

1486 ❖ Arthur, the Prince of Wales, is born to the Tudor King, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.

1491 ❖ Birth of Henry, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York’s second son.

1501 ❖ Prince Arthur, the Prince of Wales, marries Catherine of Aragon.

1502 ❖ Prince Arthur dies.

1503 ❖ Treaty between England and Spain for the marriage between Prince Henry and Catherine of Aragon.

1504 ❖ Pope Julius II grants a dispensation, back dated to December 26, 1503 allowing Henry to marry Catherine.

1505 ❖ Prince Henry repudiates his betrothal to Catherine.

1509 ❖ King Henry VII dies. ❖ Prince Henry is proclaimed King of England.

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❖ Henry VIII marries Catherine of Aragon. ❖ Coronation of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon at Westminster Abbey.

1510 ❖ Catherine delivers a stillborn daughter.

1511 ❖ Catherine delivers a premature son, Henry, Prince of Wales. He dies seven weeks later on February 22.

1512 ❖ Julius II bestows the title King of France and Christianissimus on Henry VIII. ❖ England declares war on France. ❖ Military campaign against France alongside the Spanish troupes of Ferdinand of Aragon.

1513 ❖ Julius II dies. ❖ Leo X elected. ❖ Catherine is appointed regent and commander in chief of the army during Henry’s absence on a military campaign to France. ❖ Henry VIII and his army embark for the French invasion.

June, 11

June, 24

January, 31

January, 1

March, 20

end AprilMay-August

February, 21March, 11

June, 11

June, 30

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❖ Thérouanne is besieged and taken. ❖ *The Battle of the Spurs. ❖ Catherine delivers another son who was either stillborn or died immediately after birth. ❖ *The Battle of Flodden Field. ❖ Tournay is besieged and taken.

1514 ❖ Louis XII of France marries Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s sister. ❖ Catherine delivers another son who dies shortly after birth.

1515 ❖ Death of Louis XII. He is succeeded by Francis I of France. At the beginning of February Mary Tudor marries Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, in secret.

1516 ❖ Mary, Henry and Catherine’s daughter, is born.

1518 ❖ Treaty of London to build lasting peace between European nations. ❖ Catherine delivers her last stillborn son.

August, 1-22August, 16September

September, 9 September, 15-23

October, 9

December

January, 1

February, 18

October, 2

November, 10

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1519 ❖ Henry FitzRoy, Henry’s illegitimate son by Elizabeth (Bessie) Blount is born. ❖ Charles V of Hapsburg is elected the King of the Romans and succeeds dead Maximilian as Emperor.

1520 ❖ Henry VIII and Charles V meet at Canterbury. ❖ Henry VIII and Francis I meet at *The Field of the Cloth of Gold. ❖ Henry VIII and Charles V meet at Gravelines and then at Calais.

1521 ❖ Henry VIII publishes *Assertio Septem Sacramentorum contra Martinum Lutherum. ❖ Calais peace conference. ❖ Leo X bestows the title of Fidei Defensor on Henry VIII. ❖ Leo X dies.

1522 ❖ Hadrian VI is elected. ❖ Anne Boleyn’s debut at court in a play

mid June

June, 29

May, 27-29

June, 7-23

July, 5-14

July, 12

August, 2-November, 28October, 11

December, 1

January, 9March, 1

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offered by Cardinal Wolsey at York Place in honour of the emperor’s ambassadors in the presence of the king.

1523 ❖ Hadrian VI dies. ❖ Clement VII is elected.

1525 ❖ Henry FitzRoy is created Duke of Richmond and Somerset.

1526 ❖ In all likelihood, Henry VIII’s passion for Anne Boleyn is kindled during the Mardi Gras festivities.

1527 ❖ Richard Wolman consults the elderly Bishop of Winchester, Richard Foxe on the validity of the marriage between Henry and Catherine. ❖ The imperial troupes sack Rome. The pope flees to Castel Sant’Angelo where he stays for seven months. ❖ Session of the legatine court at Westminster presided over by Cardinal Wolsey. The marriage trial is wound up hastily without judgement being pronounced. ❖ John Clerk writes to Wolsey informing him of the Sack of Rome.

September, 14November, 19

June, 18

February

April, 5-6

May, 6

May, 17-31

May, 28

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❖ Wolsey goes on a diplomatic mission to France on the occasion of the peace treaty between Henry VIII, Charles V, Francis I and Venice. The cardinal designs a possible marriage between the king and Renée of Orléans, daughter of Louis XII and sister in law of Francis I. ❖ William Knight, Henry VIII’s first secretary, is sent on a secret mission to Rome to obtain a dispensation to commit bigamy and another dispensation from the impediment of first degree *affinity in order to be able to marry Anne Boleyn, in the event his marriage is declared null and void: such request is required because of the king’s previous extramarital affair with Anne’s sister, Mary Boleyn. ❖ The king orders Knight not to present the dispensation for bigamy and sends him a new draft of the impediment of *affinity, instructing him not to divulge it to Wolsey. ❖ Wolsey instructs Gregory Casale, who is sent to Rome to assist Knight in the diplomatic mission to the pope, to obtain from Clement VII a decretal *commission

July, 3-September, 17

September

November

December, 5

27

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to set up a court in England headed by judges having a decretal *commission.

1528 ❖ Knight sends a copy of the marriage dispensation for Henry and Anne Boleyn to England, but it could only be used in the event of the annulment of the previous union with Catherine. ❖ Wolsey decides to send his secretary, Stephen Gardiner, and the King’s Almoner, Edward Foxe, to Rome to obtain the decretal *commission. ❖ Gardiner, Foxe and Gregory Casale go on a mission to Orvieto. ❖ Clement VII issues three *bulls: a new marriage dispensation for Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn; a general *commission for Wolsey and Warham or any other English bishop in the quality of assessor; a general *commission for Cardinals Wolsey and Lorenzo Campeggio, with the authorisation to investigate the validity of the marriage between Henry and Catherine and to issue a final decision: the last document being sent two months later on June, 8. ❖ Gardiner and Casale are sent on a new mission to the pope to obtain a top secret decretal *commission only for the eyes of the king and Wolsey. The document is entrusted to Cardinal Campeggio, whom the pope appointed *papal legate a latere in England for the king’s marriage case. ❖ Campeggio sets off from Tarquinia bound for London. ❖ Campeggio arrives in London. Severe gout keeps him housebound for two days at the home of the Duke of Suffolk. Then he goes to Bath House, the abode of Bishop Clerk, where he stays for a couple of weeks, receiving repeated visits from Cardinal Wolsey who tries to sway him in favour of the cause of the *divorce. ❖ First audience of Campeggio and Wolsey with Henry VIII. ❖ After lunch the king goes alone to Campeggio’s quarters at Bath House

January, 1

February

March, 21-April, 13

April, 13

May, 10-June, 11

July, 22

October, 7-9

October, 22

October, 23

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and speaks with him for about four hours. ❖ Campeggio reads Clement VII’s general *commission for the two *papal legates issued on April 13 (and sent on June 8) to the king and Wolsey. And at Henry’s request he shows the decretal *commission, reading it without letting go of it. Immediately afterwards, the two cardinals go to Catherine and try to convince her to retire to convent life. But the two hour long discussion is unsuccessful. ❖ Campeggio receives a visit from Catherine, who confides to him sub sigillo confessionis that her marriage with Prince Arthur was not consummated and that she is resolute in her decision not to retire to a convent. The following day the *papal legates make a final attempt to convince the queen, but kneeling at Wolsey’s feet, she firmly rejects his pleas. ❖ Catherine shows Campeggio a copy of the *brief marriage dispensation issued by Julius II for herself and Henry carrying the same date as the *bull. ❖ Francis Bryan, Pietro Vanni, William Knight and William Bennet are sent on a diplomatic mission to Rome to verify whether the *brief is authentic and to obtain from Clement VII a new decretal *commission granting Wolsey and Campeggio power to issue judgement on the forgery of such document. ❖ Catherine is obliged to retire

October, 24

October, 26

November

November, 28

December

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to Hampton Court, while Anne Boleyn takes possession of her apartments at Greenwich.

1529 ❖ A secret letter to the pope sent by Catherine requesting him to call up the marriage case arrives in Rome. ❖ Cardinals Wolsey and Campeggio receive the king’s authorisation to proceed with the marriage case in accordance with the *bull dated June 8, 1528. ❖ Marriage trial before the legatine court at Blackfriars. ❖ The pope receives and approves the request to call up the marriage case to Rome presented in Catherine’s name by Charles V’s envoys. ❖ Cardinal Campeggio adjourns the workings of the court until October 1, after the summer recess. ❖ Clement VII defers the marriage case until Christmas. ❖ The pope removes the cause from the *papal legates’ jurisdiction. ❖ Cardinal Wolsey is accused on grounds of *Praemunire. ❖ Wolsey hands over the Great Seal to the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk. ❖ Thomas More is appointed Lord Chancellor. ❖ Campeggio leaves England. ❖ *The Reformation Parliament is convened. First session. The House of Lords lists

March, 6

May, 30

June, 1-July, 23

July, 16

July, 23

August, 29

September, 1

October, 9

October, 18

October, 25

October, 26 November, 3-December, 17

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44 charges against Cardinal Wolsey. The Commons make a petition against the abuses of the clergy. ❖ The king sends his agents to European universities to obtain well remunerated opinions supporting his *divorce.

1530 ❖ Diplomatic mission to Bologna led by Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire and Anne Boleyn’s father, to meet the pope and the emperor and address the matter of the *divorce. ❖ Opinions supporting the *divorce reach court from the universities of Cambridge, Orléans, Oxford, Angers, Bologna, Bourges, Padua and Paris. ❖ Clement VII accepts Catherine’s request and entrusts the cause to Paolo Capizucchi, the Dean of the Roman Rota. Furthermore, the pope prohibits the king from remarrying on pain of excommunication and interdiction for his kingdom. ❖ Clement VII offers to postpone the audience of the cause at the Rota until September, as long as Henry takes no action on such count until that date. ❖ Clement VII interdicts judges, lawyers, notaries and witnesses, under pain of excommunication, from intervening verbally or in writing in the marriage case of the English sovereigns. ❖ Henry summons some members of Parliament and his court, exhorting them to sign a letter to the pope. ❖ Letter from the Lords of England to Clement VII. ❖ Clement VII officially suspends the marriage trail of Henry VIII and Catherine. ❖ The opinions from the Universities of Salamanca, Alcalá, Ferrara and Toulouse arrive in England. ❖ Henry VIII proclaims that it is forbidden to purchase from Rome, or publish, any document containing material that is damaging to the kingdom or the King’s plans. ❖ Clement VII replies to the Lords of England in a *brief. ❖ Thomas Cromwell, who had been

December

February-March

March-July

March, 7

March, 26

May, 21

June, 12

July, 13

August, 29

September-October

September, 12

September, 27

end December

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Cardinal Wolsey’s steward, becomes a member of the King’s Council.

1531 ❖ Clement VII prohibits Henry from remarrying before the Rota trial is completed. ❖ Second session of *The Reformation Parliament. ❖ The *Convocation of Canterbury acknowledges Henry as the Supreme Head of the Church of England, adding the clause “so far as God’s law permits”. ❖ The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, accompanied by many of the King’s Councillors, the Bishops of Lincoln and London, and Richard Sampson, Edward Lee and Stephen Gardiner urge Catherine to drop the appeal to Rome and come to an agreement with Henry on where and when the trial would be held, and on which unbiased judges would discuss the cause. ❖ The newly-elected Archbishop of York, Edward Lee, the Earl of Sussex, Robert Radcliffe, Sir William FitzWilliam and Richard Sampson go to Catherine in Windsor in a final attempt to convince her to make

January, 5

January, 16-March, 31

February, 7-11

May, 31

October, 13

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an agreement with the king and consent to the marriage case being entrusted to bishops and other learned men from the kingdom, and to desist in her appeal to Rome.

1532 ❖ Third session of *The Reformation Parliament. *The Act of Conditional Restraint of Annates. *The Supplication against the Ordinaries. ❖ *Convocation of Canterbury. *The Submission of the Clergy. ❖ Lord Chancellor Thomas More resigns. ❖ Anne Boleyn is created Marquis of Pembroke. ❖ Meeting between Francis I and Henry VIII at Boulogne. Henry is accompanied by Anne Boleyn. ❖ Anne Boleyn falls pregnant.

1533 ❖ Henry VIII marries Anne Boleyn. ❖ Fourth session of *The Reformation Parliament. *The Statute in Restraint of Appeals. ❖ Thomas Cranmer is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

January, 1-May, 14

January, 16-May, 16

May, 16September, 1

October, 20

December

January, 25February, 4-April, 7

March, 30

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❖ *Convocation of Canterbury, chaired by Cranmer, declares that the marriage between Henry and Catherine is not valid because it is against God’s laws, justifying a posteriori the king’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. ❖ A commission made up of the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Marquis of Exeter, the Earl of Oxford, William FitzWilliam and Henry Guildford, goes to Catherine of Aragon at Ampthill Castle to formalise her deposition. ❖ Cranmer writes to Henry requesting his permission to set up and settle the marriage case and is authorised to do so. ❖ The marriage trial is convened by Cranmer at Dunstable. Supported by the decision of the *Convocation of Canterbury and the expert opinions of the universities, the archbishop declares that the marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon is against God’s law and hence not valid. ❖ Anne Boleyn is crowned. ❖ Clement VII declares that the marriage between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn is null and void and excommunicates the king, but he suspends the

April, 5

April, 9

April, 11

May, 10-23

June, 1July, 11

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September, 7

November, 7

January, 15-March, 30

January, 21

March, 23

end July

September, 25October, 13

excommunication until the month of September by which date the king shall separate from his new wife and return to Catherine pending the conclusion of the trial at the Roman Rota. ❖ Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, is born. ❖ Stephen Gardiner and Edmund Bonner go to Clement VII at Marseilles and present the council with Henry VIII’s appeal against any papal excommunication regarding him.

1534 ❖ Fifth session of *The Reformation Parliament. *The Act in Absolute Restraint of Annates. *The Act Concerning Peter’s Pence and Dispensations. *The Act of Submission of the Clergy. Bill to bestow the title of “Princess Dowager” on Catherine of Aragon. *The Act of Succession (I). ❖ Thomas Cromwell, the king’s vicar-general for spiritual affairs, appointed to visit the monasteries in the kingdom. ❖ Clement VII declares Henry VIII’s marriage with Catherine of Aragon valid. ❖ Anne Boleyn’s second pregnancy terminates in a miscarriage. ❖ Clement VII dies. ❖ Paul III is elected.

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November, 3-December,18

January, 30

June, 22July

July, 6August, 30

January, 7January, 29

February, 4-April, 14

❖ Sixth session of *The Reformation Parliament. *The Act of Supremacy. *The Act of First Fruits and Tenths.

1535 ❖ Under the leadership of Thomas Cromwell commissions are set up in every county to gather information on church property to be sent under seal to the Exchequer within May 30. ❖ Cardinal John Fisher is executed. ❖ Cromwell sends commissioners round the monasteries of the kingdom to examine the moral conduct and observance of the religious communities. The commissioners’ reports are collected by the Comperta (“investigations”). ❖ Thomas More is executed. ❖ Paul III issues another excommunication of Henry VIII, but suspends it pending the Catholic States uniting against the King of England.

1536 ❖ Catherine of Aragon dies. ❖ Anne Boleyn’s second miscarriage. ❖ Seventh session of *The Reformation

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April, 24

May, 2May, 11

May, 15May, 17

May, 19May, 30

June, 8-July, 18

July, 11

October, 1-12October, 13-December, 8

Parliament. *The Act of Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries. ❖ A commission led by Cromwell and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk is appointed to set up an inquiry against Anne Boleyn on charges of treason. ❖ The queen is taken to the Tower of London. ❖ Anne Boleyn is formally accused of adultery with several men and of plotting against the king for years with her brother the Viscount of Rochford. ❖ Trial against Anne and George Boleyn. ❖ Thomas Cranmer declares the marriage between Henry and Anne null and void and decrees their daughter Elizabeth illegitimate. ❖ Anne Boleyn is executed on the Tower Green. ❖ Henry VIII marries Jane Seymour. ❖ Sixth Parliament. *The Act of Succession (II). ❖ Parliament approves *The Ten Articles of Religion. ❖ Lincolnshire uprising. ❖ Popular rising in Yorkshire called *The Pilgrimage of Grace.

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January-February

JulyMarch, 31-August, 22

October, 12

August

December, 17

December-August 1539

1537 ❖ More riots in Yorkshire. Uprisings in Scarborough and Hull led by Francis Bigod and John Hallam. In Cumberland and Westmorland people rally under the leadership of Captain Poverty. ❖ * The Bishop’s Book is published. ❖ First diplomatic mission of the *papal legate, Cardinal Reginald Pole, to solicit the intervention of Charles V and Francis I against Henry VIII. ❖ Edward, son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, is born. The queen dies a few weeks after his birth.

1538 ❖ *The Exeter Conspiracy. Geoffrey, Cardinal Pole’s younger brother, is arrested and interrogated in the Tower of London. On November 4, Henry Pole, Baron of Montagu, and Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, are taken to the Tower. Later that month Edward Nevill and Thomas West, Lord La Warre, are also imprisoned there. Thomas West is released but Montagu, Exeter and Nevill are executed on December 9. ❖ The *bull of excommunication issued three years previously by Paul III against Henry VIII is published. ❖ Cardinal Pole’s second papal mission to solicit the emperor and King of France to withdraw their ambassadors from England and to enforce a trade

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April, 28-June, 28

November

January, 6April

April, 12-July, 24June, 10

July, 7-9

July, 10

embargo. Fears of an invasion by the united forces of the Catholic States spread throughout the kingdom.

1539 ❖ The Seventh Parliament is convened. First session. *The Act of Dissolution of the Greater Monasteries. *The Act of Six Articles. ❖ The first edition of *The Great Bible is published.

1540 ❖ Henry VIII marries Anne of Clèves. ❖ The second edition of the *Great Bible with a preface by Cranmer is published. ❖ Second session of Parliament. ❖ Thomas Cromwell is overthrown by a conspiracy led by the opposing faction headed by the Duke of Norfolk and taken to the Tower of London. ❖ Trial to annul the king’s marriage with Anne of Clèves set up by the *Convocation of Canterbury, that declares the marriage null and void. ❖ Parliament confirms the decision of annulment of the marriage between Henry VIII and Anne of Clèves.

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July, 28

June

August-September

November, 2

January, 16-April, 1

February, 11

February, 13

❖ Henry VIII marries Catherine Howard, the Duke of Norfolk’s nineteen year old granddaughter. Thomas Cromwell is executed on the Tower Green.

1541 ❖ Henry VIII is proclaimed King of Ireland. ❖ Henry VIII and his court visit Yorkshire. The King’s Council is informed of Catherine Howard’s dissolute behaviour prior to her marriage with the king and of certain adulterous relations with some courtiers. ❖ Archbishop Cranmer reports the information against the queen to the king.

1542 ❖ The Eighth Parliament is convened. First session. The decree to confiscate Catherine Howard’s property and the decree sentencing her to death. ❖ An expressly appointed royal commission approves the parliamentary decree sentencing Catherine Howard to death. ❖ Catherine Howard is executed on the Tower Green.

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October-NovemberNovember, 23

January, 22-May, 12February, 11

May, 29July, 1

July, 12

January, 14-March, 29

June-SeptemberSeptember, 18

November, 23- December, 24 December, 13

January, 14-31

January, 28

❖ Anglo-Scottish Wars. ❖ The Battle of Solway Moss.

1543 ❖ Second session of Parliament. ❖ Treaty between Henry VIII and Charles V to invade and conquest France. ❖ *The King’s Book is published. ❖ Peace treaty between Scotland and England is sealed by the betrothal of Edward, Henry VIII’s son, to Mary Stuart, the daughter of James V of Scotland. ❖ Henry VIII marries Catherine Parr.

1544 ❖ Third session of Parliament. *The Act of Succession (III). ❖ Military campaign against France. ❖ Henry VIII wins Boulogne.

1545 ❖ The Ninth Parliament is convened. First session. ❖ Thomas Howard, Duke Norfolk and his son Henry, Earl of Surrey, are arrested and taken to the Tower of London.

1546 ❖ Second session of Parliament that is dissolved on the king’s death.

1547 ❖ Henry VIII dies.

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Relation between an individual and the kindred of the person with whom the indi-vidual has carnal relations (ex coitu). Affin-ity was a diriment impediment to marriage, and led to the dissolution of an already formed union given that it had not been celebrated validly. Among the various de-grees of affinity (genera affinitatis), the first impediment was between a spouse and the kindred of the other spouse, and it was as strong as consanguinity. This was the case of Catherine and Henry, who was Cather-ine’s dead husband’s brother, provided that it was demonstrated that the queen’s first marriage had been consummated.

Treatise on theology written by Henry VIII to refute Martin Luther’s De Baby-lonica Captivitate Ecclesiae. In 1521, Henry VIII availed himself of the collaboration of several court intellectuals to complete the work: John Fisher, Bishop of Roches-ter, proud opponent of Luther’s heresy who contributed by selecting the sources and, seemingly, in particular the New Tes-tament editions, first of all the one by Er-asmus of Rotterdam; Edward Lee, theolo-gian and humanist who later collaborated with Henry in setting up the Church of England; Richard Pace, the king’s first secretary and influential advisor who, in all likelihood, researched and verified the sources of the work; Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London, who had personally attended the Diet of Worms where Luther was summoned to appear by Charles V; Brother Alfonso de Villa Sancta of the

Affinity

Assertio Septem Sacramentorum contra

Martinum Lutherum

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Brief

Bull

Commission (or proxy)

Friars Minor, theologian and Queen Catherine of Aragon’s confessor; Thomas More, member of the King’s Council and theologian who was involved in identify-ing and organising the topics to be ad-dressed.

A papal document sent expeditio brevis, i.e. much faster than other documents. Briefs were written on very white sheepskin vel-lum and sealed with a red wax seal im-pressed by the papal ring of the fisherman (anulus piscatoris).

The word bull (bulla) comes from the lead seal attached to papal or royal docu-ments and from the 14th century it was given to papal documents bearing seals. Litterae consistoriales, documents issued concerning decisions taken in consis-tory by the pope and the cardinals who signed the same document, belong to this category.

Certain power conferred by an authority on its own delegate on the basis of a pro-vision issued ad hoc by the same authori-

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Convocation

ty. In order to set up the legatine court to examine the matrimonial cause of Henry VIII, Clement VII issued a general com-mission in favour of Cardinal Legates Thomas Wolsey and Lorenzo Campeg-gio, appointing them to preside over that court. In virtue of such document, the two judges could convene the court, ex-amine the case and reach a judgement, which, to be effectively definitive, would have required confirmation from the pope. But according to Wolsey, the polit-ical situation Clement VII found him-self in, i.e. under Emperor Charles V’s thumb, called for another document: a decretal commission (or proxy). This docu-ment was modelled on the epistolae de-cretales, judicial prescriptions set by the pope alone or together with the council of cardinals in connection with particu-lar cases. Similar documents had been common in the 12th and 13th centu-ries, but had fallen into disuse in the papal chancery after the 14th century. Yet Wolsey pressed Clement VII so hard that he eventually consented and issued the vital commission. Thanks to that document, the workings of the judges were guided by rules, issued ad hoc by the pontiff, that the two *papal legates had to apply to the case under examination until judgement was reached. And, at least in theory, the pope would have been bound to ratify this judgement, in com-pliance with the rules he himself had set forth in the commission.

Assembly of one of the two provinces of the Church of England: Canterbury and York. The Convocation of Canter-bury customarily met at the same time as Parliament and, likewise, had an Upper Chamber mainly made up of bishops and abbots and a Lower Chamber comprising mainly archdeacons. On the other hand, the Convocation of York did not meet at the same time as Parliament; it was or-ganised along the same lines as Canter-bury, with some differences regarding the composition of the two Chambers.

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Divorce

Papal legate

For medieval canonists the word divortium meant the separation of spouses (vir ab uxore legitima separatio). However, such sep-aration could refer to two spouses as indi-viduals or refer to the same sacramental bond. The former was divortium quoad men-sam et thorum, separatio corporis o divortium particulare that could follow, for example, adultery, apostasy, or the taking up of re-ligious orders of one of the spouses after the marriage had been consummated. If the separation concerned the sacramental bond it was called divortium quoad vinculum, separatio sacramentalis or divortium totale, indicating the radical annulment of the marriage and thus allowing each spouse to remarry. Reasons for such separatio includ-ed, among others, diriment impediments to marriage, such as consanguinity and *affinity. And it was exactly this divortium that Henry desired: the dissolution of the matrimonial union with Catherine on the grounds of its intrinsic invalidity caused by the impediment of first degree *affinity.

This was the title given to persons repre-senting the pontiff and his authority. Up to the 16th century there were different categories of legates. There were legati mis-si whose power was strictly limited to the territories assigned to them and was on a par with the authority of the local bishops. There were legati a latere or de latere, cardi-nals whom the pope had granted full pow-ers to represent him in regions far from

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Praemunire

The Act Concerning Peter’s Pence

and Dispensations

Rome and who had more power than the local bishops. These legati a latere were al-lowed to bear papal vestments and insignia, a prerogative that Cardinal Wolsey always ostentatiously observed when on diplo-matic missions and on the short trips from his own palace to the court or Parliament. They could also exercise ordinary judicial power and instituted appeal petitions in the area assigned to them. Another category of legates was the legati nati, who exercised power they had been delegated in the capac-ity of bishops of important Sees. The clas-sic example of legatus natus was the Arch-bishop of Canterbury, an appointment set up by Alexander III. They had more power than the legati missi, while they were under the authority of the legati a latere. Indeed, Cardinal Wolsey’s appointment to legate sparked off many conflicts of jurisdiction between the same Wolsey and William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury.

The statute of Praemunire (1393) took its name from the formula (Praemunire facias) of the writ addressed to the accused, the charges against them being listed in the preamble of the same writ. Praemunire was a punishable offence of minor treason, less serious than high treason, and was punished by confiscation of property and imprisonment. In 1529, charge of abuse during the exercise of his legatine author-ity were brought against Cardinal Wolsey.

The act was passed by the House of Com-mons and the House of Lords on March 12 and 20, 1534 respectively. It declared that ecclesiastical dispensations should be issued in England and not requested to the pope, it granted the Crown the power to conduct visitations of monasteries which had been directly under the Holy See and exempt from the archbishop’s jurisdiction, and it forbid the sending of members of the English clergy to visit religious assem-blies abroad. On March 24 one clause was added at the king’s request: he would have the power at any period before June 24 to abrogate the complete act, or just a section of it, as he so wished. This was a ploy as

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Henry VIII still wanted some leverage in bargaining with the pope after the King of France attempted to reconcile them. The final clause was never used as the French mission did not succeed.

When the seventh Parliament of Henry VIII’s reign was opened, more than 150 great abbeys had been “voluntarily” hand-ed over to the Crown, even if up to that moment the law did not recognize any precise right to monastic properties so ac-quired. Initially, such disposals were con-sidered real and proper donations to the king, but such justification did not con-vince the jurists and other expedients had to be conjured up to reach a parliamen-tary solution. Thus, the Act for the Dis-solution of the Greater Monasteries was passed between May 13 and 23, 1539. It recognised the Crown’s right of possession of the religious houses that had been sup-pressed over the last three years with the free consent of the monks in accordance with the 1536 *The Act for Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries, and also of the ab-beys that would be dissolved later on. Ac-quisition of the property and possessions of monasteries was supported by a law of the kingdom protecting the Crown from any appeal or contest.

The act was definitely passed on March 18, 1536 and decreed the suppression of monasteries with income below 200 pounds per year and established, among

The Act of Dissolution of the Greater

Monasteries

The Act of Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries

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The Acts of Annates

The Act of First Fruits and Tenths

other things, that all their possessions, including furnishings, jewels and money were appropriated by the Crown.

The annates, or first fruits, were the taxes bishops had to pay the Papal Curia once they were installed in their own diocese. The first of the two acts, known as The Act in Conditional Restraint of Annates was passed by Parliament at the end of March 1532. It allowed only 5 per cent of the first year’s revenues to be remitted to Rome, obliged archbishops to proceed with the ordaining of persons appointed to an Episcopal See even if the Holy See had refused to send the relative *bull, and authorised the clergy to administer the sacraments and rites even if they had been excommunicated or debarred from doing so by Rome. Nevertheless, the ef-fects of the parliamentary decision were “conditional”: indeed the law was post-poned for a year and its conversion into law was subject to the king’s authority. The act obtained a wafer-thin majority in both Houses. In the House of Lords it was opposed by all the bishops, two abbots and one layman, William FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel. The king forced most of the members of the House of Commons to declare their vote publically in front of him and they approved the document out of fear of reprisals. The second act, also known as The Act in Absolute Restraint of Annates, was passed by the House of Lords on March 9, 1534 and a week later by the House of Commons: it suspended all remittance of taxes to Rome for the pro-vision of benefices and acknowledged the king’s power to appoint bishops.

The act was passed by the House of Com-mons probably before November 28, 1534 and obliged the members of the clergy awarded with an ecclesiastical ben-efice after January 1, 1535, to pay the Crown the same amount as the revenues of the first year, and, as from Christmas 1535, the tenth of all the revenues they received. A special commission made up of bishops and other members appointed

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The Act of Six Articles

The Act of Submission of the Clergy

The Act of Succession (I)

The Act of Succession (II)

The Act of Succession (III)

by the king was set up to assess the exact sum of the profit accrued from both secu-lar and regular ecclesiastical benefices.

The Act abolishing diversity in opinion was passed on May 2, 1539 and differed substantially from the Confessio Augusta-na written by Philipp Melanchthon and presented at the 1530 Diet of Augsburg by the German Lutheran princes. The act affirmed transubstantiation (art. I); declared that communion of both kinds is not necessary for salvation (art. II); prohibited marriage for priests (art. III) and also between men and women who had taken vows of chastity (art. IV); pro-claimed that private mass was admissible (art. V) and declared auricular confession a divine right (art. VI).

In 1534 *The Submission of the Clergy (1532) was confirmed by Parliament in The Act for the Submission of the Clergy.

The act was passed by Parliament on March 26, 1534. It removed Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, from the line of succession to the throne and declared Elizabeth, the daugh-ter of the king and Anne Boleyn heir to the throne. It also proclaimed that subjects throughout the kingdom were to swear an oath recognizing the king’s new marriage and its issue.

The act was passed in June 1536 and granted the sovereign the power to desig-nate, at any moment, a successor by letters patent or by testament.

The foremost reason behind this act was indubitably Henry VIII’s decision to take part in the French campaign and thus put his own life at risk. The act, ap-proved in 1544, overrode the previous one and set a new line of succession to the English Crown: the first in line was Edward, Jane Seymour’s son, the second was Mary, Catherine of Aragon’s daugh-ter, and the third was Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn’s daughter.

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The act was passed by mid November 1534, and proclaimed Henry as “the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England” and granted the Crown the power and jurisdiction pertaining to such dignity. The Treasons Act was passed without delay, whereby any person who opposed The Act of Supremacy was guilty of high treason.

On August 22, 1513, James IV of Scot-land took advantage of Henry’s absence abroad in the French campaign and crossed the English border where he put siege to Norham Castle that fell six days later. Then he advanced to Ford Castle and captured it on September, 4. Mean-while, the English troupes led by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey (and later sec-ond Duke of Norfolk) lined up at Aln-wick. The Scottish army crossed the east bank of the River Till and took up posi-tion between three hills above a narrow dale where they positioned their artil-lery. Surrey led his rearguard along the east bank of the River Till and crossed it at Heton, while his son Lord Thomas Howard, Admiral of England (later third Duke of Norfolk), marched the vanguard and the artillery over Twizel Bridge, five miles North of the Scottish troupes and out of enemy reach. When the Scots de-cided to change position and line up near Flodden Field it was too late. The troupes enjoined in battle on September 9 dur-ing a thunderstorm. The archers’ arrows were ineffective in the rain and the slip-pery, muddy ground hindered the assault.

The Act of Supremacy

The Battle of Flodden Field

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The Battle of the Spurs

The Bishop’s Book

The right flank of the Scottish army had the edge in the hand-to-hand fight in the thick of the battle, but the left was rap-idly routed. James IV, the flower of the Scottish nobility and most of the army perished in the battle.

On August 16, 1513 a contingent of French cavalry tried to force the English siege of Thérouanne and relieve the town. But they were routed by Henry’s forces and the French knights spurred away. The historian Edward Hall explained why the battle was given this name: “The Frenchemen call this battaylle the journey of the Spurres, because they ranne awaye so faste on horssebacke” (HALL, I, p. 87).

The book was published in July 1537 and officially entitled The Institution of a Chris-tian Man. It systematically presented the doctrine of the Church of England drawn up on Henry VIII’s express wishes after the Lincolnshire and Yorkshire risings had shown just how strongly the popula-tion clung onto the traditional religion. The book also presented the four sacra-ments that were not mentioned in *The Ten Articles of Religion (Confirmation, Ordination, Marriage and Extreme Unc-tion). Henry entrusted the writing of the book to an assembly of bishops and theo-logians who worked on it for six months from February to July 1537. Although he was continually solicited to read the book before it was published, the king never did and it was published without his official approval. Henry was only able to examine the book several months later and found different points that did not meet with his favour, so he wrote to Archbishop Cran-mer suggesting about 250 changes to the text. The prelate frankly refuted the points raised by the king and, in particu-lar, criticised the tendency to water down any statement referring to the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone. For this reason, the book never received royal approval and was replaced by *The King’s Book in 1543.

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The Exeter Conspiracy

The Field of the Cloth of Gold

This was a supposed Yorkist conspiracy against the Tudor monarchy that was crushed by executing 16 persons, including Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, Henry Pole, Lord Montagu, and Edward Nevill. In effect, the persons condemned were really a group of courtiers who opposed the king’s shift in politics after the matter of the *divorce. They had expressed their discontent publi-cally in careless conversations and were thus punishable by law as traitors. Their position was further jeopardised by the fact they all had close ties with Cardinal Reginald Pole who championed papal supremacy. The exe-cution of the conspirators brought on Pole’s downfall and ended the White Rose faction (see *The Wars of the Roses).

A spectacular but politically unsuccess-ful meeting of Henry VIII and Francis I held from June 7 to 20, 1520 in Val d’Or between Ardres and Guisnes near Calais. Cardinal Wolsey had made the complicat-ed preparations and had sent all the ne-cessities Henry required and a retinue of more than five thousand people over the English Channel. The ostentatious dis-play of gold cloth earned the meeting place between Francis and Henry the sobriquet “The Field of the Cloth of Gold”.

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The Great Bible

The King’s Book

On September 5, 1538 royal injunctions were enacted to order the parishioners of every church of the kingdom to contribute towards the purchase of the most popular Bible printed in English. Two transla-tions of the Holy Scriptures were in cir-culation at the time: the Matthew Bible published in 1537 by John Rogers (un-der the pseudonym Thomas Matthew) of clear Protestant slant and the reprint of Coverdale’s Bible that appeared in 1537. Neither of the two translations met with widespread approval and it was decided to publish an authorised version of the Bi-ble in English, the so-called Great Bible. The work was directed by Cromwell with the approval of Archbishop Cranmer of Can-terbury, and Coverdale was put in charge of the edition that was printed in Paris. Cromwell received some previews of the new book between August and Decem-ber 1538, but shortly after the Inquisi-tor of France suddenly halted the project. English diplomacy managed to have the confiscated material, except for the pages that had already been printed, returned by Francis I and work on the edition contin-ued in London. The Great Bible was ready to be put on sale in November 1539 and sales were boosted by royal and episcopal injunctions. A second edition with a pref-ace by Cranmer was published in 1540. However, two years later the *Convocation of Canterbury condemned the work as full of errors and revision was entrusted to a commission directed by Stephen Gardin-er and Cuthbert Tunstall and comprising, among others, John Longland, Richard Sampson, John Bell, John Wakeman and John Chambers. But the corrections were soon interrupted by Cranmer who report-ed that the king wanted the university to conduct the revision. Then things ground to a halt.

The official title of the book was The Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of any Christian Man and it gives utterance to the conservative approach Henry’s poli-tics assumed during the final years of his rule. The king was personally involved in

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writing the text that was granted his offi-cial approval and carried an introduction signed by him. The formulary was pub-lished in 1543 and revised the contents of *The Bishop’s Book published in 1537, its aim being to make it conform to the dictates of *The Act of Six Articles. In the exposition of the Creed, the seven sacra-ments, the ten commandments and the Paternoster, the King’s Book distanced it-self from the Protestant overtones of *The Ten Articles of Religion and *The Bishop’s Book, but did not go so far as reinstating Catholic dogmas. Although it confirmed transubstantiation and rejected commun-ion under the two species for laymen, it did not mention the sacrificial nature of mass. Nevertheless, it recognized the va-lidity of the seven sacraments without iden-tifying which were confirmed in the Holy Scriptures. It accepted prayers and masses for the dead, but underlined the benefits to the entire Christian community and denounced abuses, saddling the pope with responsibility for such. On the issue of justification, the formulary adopted typi-cal Lutheran language, yet stressed it was each individual’s own responsibility to obtain salvation. Finally, the King’s Book, defended Royal Supremacy, made a dis-tinction between the Universal Church,

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The Pilgrimage of Grace

The Reformation Parliament

and all the faithful belonging to it and the national churches with their respective princes, and confirmed the king’s right to appoint bishops and the need for the clergy to exercise their functions abiding to the laws set by the king.

This rising broke out in the district of East Riding, Yorkshire in October 1536 and was fuelled by social, economic, political and religious discontent. The rebels were led by the charismatic leader Robert Aske, a lawyer from York. *The Act of Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries was enacted im-mediately afterwards.

This was the name given to the Henry VIII’s fifth Parliament that sat between 1529 and 1536. It legalised the radi-cal changes imposed by the reformation in religious, political, social and finan-cial areas. Its intense lawmaking activity changed the nature of the same body of Parliament that took on a new and major role in the system of government of the Tudor monarchy.

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The Statute in Restraint of Appeals

The Submission of the Clergy

This act was drafted by Thomas Cromwell in September 1532 in collaboration with the king and a commission of prelates and experts in civil and canon law, including Bishop Gardiner of Worcester and Bishop Longland of Lincoln, the Abbot of Hyde and Rowland Lee. The bill was presented to the House of Commons on March 14, 1533 and passed by both Houses the fol-lowing month. The preamble to the act contains one of the best known assump-tions of English National sovereignty, “Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an empire”, “governed by one supreme head and king”, “unto whom a body politic, compact of all sorts and de-grees of people divided in terms and by names of spirituality and temporalty, be bounden and ought to bear, next to God a natural and humble obedience”. The act proclaimed England’s jurisdictional inde-pendence in spiritual and temporal mat-ters, forbidding among other things, all appeals to Rome on judgements taken at ecclesiastical courts. And it was this act that stopped the pope in Rome interfering in the *divorce cause.

On May 10, 1532 the king presented three articles strictly limiting church pow-er to the *Convocation of Canterbury for approval. On May 15, the Upper Cham-ber was swayed by royal pressure exerted by some of the king’s influential coun-cillors, i.e. the Dukes of Norfolk and of Suffolk, the Marquis of Exeter, the Earl of Oxford, William Sandys, Thomas and George Boleyn. Hence The Submission of the Clergy was approved and established that henceforth the *Convocation could meet only if convened by royal decree, that no canon could be enacted with-out royal consent, and that the existing canons would be examined by a govern-ment commission of 32 members, half of them being clergymen and half laymen. Among the bishops, Stokesley and Long-land approved the document with reserve, whereas Warham and other two prelates

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The Supplication against the Ordinaries

The Ten Articles of Religion

together with a small number of mitred abbots willingly voted in favour of it. On May 16, The Submission of the Clergy was signed by the Lords before a government commission comprising, among others, Thomas Cromwell, George Nevill, John Hussey and William FitzWilliam.

The document was presented to Henry VIII on March 18, 1532 by Thomas Audley, Speaker of the House of Com-mons. It contained a prologue and a list of nine charges against the clergy and re-quested the king’s intervention to remove such abuses.

The Ten Articles were produced as a for-mulary of the English Reformation and were originally called Articles devised by the Kinges Highness Majestie to stablyshe chris-ten quietnes and unitie among us and avyoyde contentious opinions. These articles were the result of the workings of a commission of bishops headed by Thomas Cranmer, who had been appointed by Henry VIII in February 1536. The formulary set out to provide an adequate answer to the growing religious divisions in the kingdom, and at the same time, to facilitate negotiations in view of an alliance between England and the German Lutheran princes. Al-though Henry had made numerous cor-rections to the final version of the text, the Ten Articles were largely written by Edward Foxe, Bishop of Hereford, who presented them at the *Convocation of Canterbury in July 1536. The formulary acknowledged that the Bible, the three Symbols of Faith and the decrees of the first four councils underpinned faith. The sacraments of Baptism, Penitence and the Eucharist were declared necessary while Marriage, Confirmation, Ordination and the Last Rites were not mentioned. The articles declared that salvation could only be attained through Christ and that jus-tification was gained through contrition and faith united with charity, emphasising the need to perform good actions and thus moving away from the Lutheran concept. They addressed the issue of the use of sa-

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The Wars of the Roses

cred images, saint’s days and other rites and defended religious practices in them-selves, but condemned abuses. Finally, they recommended prayers for the dead, acts of mercy, but did not mention pur-gatory. The Ten Articles were received by the *Convocation of Canterbury in July 1536 and replaced by the second formu-lary *The Bishop’s Book in 1537.

The Wars of the Roses were a series of bloody dynastic wars that lasted on and off for over thirty years during the reigns of Henry VI (1422-1471), Edward IV (1471-1483) and Richard III (1483-1485), all of whom descended from Ed-ward III (1312-1377). The name the “Wars of the Roses” comes from the names of the rival factions, i.e. the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster. In 1455, the Duke of York, Edmund of Langley, son of Edward III, started clash-es against the House of Lancaster that was represented by King Henry VI, a direct de-scendent of Duke John of Gaunt, another of Edward III’s sons. The fighting contin-ued at spasmodic intervals until the Battle of Bosworth on August 22, 1485 where “an unknown Welshman” called Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, whose mother had been a Lancaster, beat and killed Ri-chard III of York. He ascended the throne with the name of Henry VII and married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, the brother of the dead king Richard. In this way the first Tudor king united the two rival Houses of York and Lancaster. The Wars of the Roses ended at the Bat-tle of Stoke on June 16, 1487 where the Earl of Lincoln, John de la Pole, Richard III’s nephew and heir was killed. He had been involved in the plot devised by Lam-bert Simnel to overthrow Henry VII and to return the throne to a member of the House of York.

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PASSION AND REASON OF STATE

On February 18, 1516 after her son Prince Henry died in his infancy and three fruitless pregnancies, Catherine gave birth to a baby girl who was called Mary. Giustiniani, the Venetian ambassador, went to court to congratulate the king but expressed his regret that the child was not a boy. Henry replied with feigned optimism “We are both young; if a daughter was born this time, by God’s grace others will come”1. A hope that was to be dashed within a few years. In 1517 what may have been a pregnancy terminated prema-turely and the queen had another miscarriage in Novem-ber 15182. The doctors who had come from Spain did not manage to reverse the situation and in 1525 Catherine had reached the age of forty and had passed: “The age women are wont to be fertile and bear children”3. The thorny di-lemma of descent loomed over the king and the queen and jeopardised peace in the kingdom, a kingdom that was still in the throws of getting back onto its feet after the bloody *The Wars of the Roses.

All the many possible ways to address and resolve the issue were tricky to pursue. Initially, Henry thought about making Henry FitzRoy, the son he had fathered out of wedlock with Elizabeth Blount, his legitimate son and he made him Duke of Richmond and Somerset on June 18, 15254. However, the stigma of being illegit-imate was destined to haunt Henry forever, especially because there were many people at court who had more rights to the throne than he did, such as Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who had married Edward IV’s daugh-ter5; Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, a direct de-

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scendent of the same king on his mother’s side; Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk and husband of Mary Tudor, the king’s sister6. The only way of warding off the danger of cruel infighting was to pass the crown to a legitimate heir, in other words to Princess Mary. Although there was no law in England debarring women from the right of succession7, so far only one case of a woman becoming a queen was known8, and such had plunged the kingdom into nineteen years of anarchy and civil war. Henry could have arranged a wedding for his young daughter without delay, hoping that she would bear a male successor to the throne during his lifetime. But the plane was shaky and pinned the kingdom’s fate on Henry’s longevity and on a child who, hopefully, could have children9. In addition, even the choice of husband for Mary was problematic: if her husband were a subject of the kingdom, and a high ranking noble, this might once again give rise to the per-ilous conditions that had sparked off *The Wars of the Roses10; if Mary were to wed a European king, England would be jeopardised as it could fall under foreign rule. In such a scenario of uncertainly, a third way began to gather momentum as the months passed by: Henry could

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shake off his marriage ties with Catherine and remarry. And the political circumstances made this solution even more desirable. After Charles V, Catherine’s nephew, had defeated Francis I at Pavia and taken him prisoner, he had not responded to Henry’s enthusiastic idea of in-vading France together and splitting the territory. The English king was greatly offended by the emperor and had been forced to patch up the alliance with his de-tested enemy, Francis. Indubitably, due to her ties with Charles, Catherine was in an embarrassing position. So after a short-lived period of improved relations between husband and wife, Henry stopped sleeping with Cather-ine in autumn 1525.

Anne Boleyn had already been received at court and was the queen’s maid of honour. Henry had met her for the first time three years before during a pageant organ-ised by Cardinal Wolsey at York Place in honour of the imperial ambassadors11. It is not known when the king’s passion for Anne was kindled, but in all likelihood what had initially been mere kindness towards the maid of honour turned into a real and proper infatuation at the beginning of 1526. A passion that was fanned by the conviction that this young girl could have given him the long-awaited heir to the throne12.

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The difference between the queen and the king’s new flame was obvious to all. The numerous pregnancies had left their mark on Catherine and in 1519 the Venetian ambassadors Giustiniani and Surian reiterated the King of France’s opinion saying that:

“Soa Maestà […] ha mojer diforme e vechia a lui ch’è zovene e zentil” 13.

The six year age gap between the royal couple was accentuated by the king’s athletic physique, his riding outings and his hunts14. Yet Catherine, who was cul-tured, intelligent, and by no means devoid of charm when they were wed, had acted as her husband’s es-teemed advisor and important supporter of the king-dom. Indeed, the king had appointed her his lieuten-ant when he had left for France on the 1513 military campaign, and it was under her regency that the Eng-lish won the glorious *Battle of Flodden Field against the Scottish army. Yet, in 1526 the king’s heart no longer belonged to Catherine, it belonged to the dark-haired maid with beautiful eyes15, the twenty five year old daughter of Thomas Boleyn, the Viscount of Ro-chford.

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Anne’s progressive and inexorable rise to a posi-tion of prestige radically changed the balances of power at court and spawned complex alliances that were not simply aimed at solving the problem of royal descent. It was in those years that the king’s “Great Matter” be-came inextricably linked with another, just as thorny, is-sue, i.e. the predominant and meddling position of Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey. The latter commanded the highest spiritual and temporal powers of the kingdom and had become the king’s most trusted advisor. He had slowly eroded the nobles’ control of power and this had caused great acrimony and a desire for revenge. This re-sulted in the emergence of three opposing factions cut-ting across the king’s inner circles, i.e. the King’s Coun-cil and the Privy Chamber. Wolsey’s faction favoured the *divorce and the cardinal’s ongoing power at court, the queen’s supporters including the Marquis of Exeter and Thomas More opposed both questions, and the Boleyn faction, together with their allies under the leadership of the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, supported the *di-vorce in order to topple the detested Lord Chancellor16.

THE KING’S CONSCIENCE

Thus, the decision taken at the beginning of 1527 to annul the marriage was not merely Henry’s solution to his “great madness”, his passion for Anne Boleyn. Henry and Catherine’s marriage was undermined by an intricate series

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of concomitant circumstances, which on their own would not have led to such a drastic decision. Such circumstances all played a role in jeopardising the marriage and making the prospect of the *divorce an important and urgent solu-tion to the dynastic issue, a solution that would success-fully rebalance powers. Careful appraisal of the contingen-cies of the moment addressed Henry’s conscience: now, as never before, had England needed a peaceful succession, now, as never before, had so many children of a king died in such a short space of time, and never before had an Eng-lish king married his own brother’s widow17. Such a deadly train of negative events could only be explained by Henry’s marriage to Catherine. Although it had been endorsed by the dispensation *bull granted by Julius II in 1503, their marriage had incurred divine wrath that punished the royal couple by not giving it the desired heir18.

The king’s scruples can be found in an authoritative passage in Leviticus:

“Qui duxerit uxorem fratris sui, rem facit illicitam, tur-pitudinem fratris sui revelavit: absque liberis erunt”19.

Exactly when Henry began to harbour qualms that his marriage was not valid is not sure. According to what a certain John Barlow, Deacon of Westbury referred to Louis Helwegen, member of the Royal Council of Bra-bant in 1532, the king had seemingly discussed the mat-ter with his confessor John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, nine or ten years earlier20: hence Henry seems to have been troubled by misgivings between 1522 and 152321. But who or what rekindled the king’s doubts on the va-lidity of his marriage? During the issue of the *divorce different answers were given. On October 24, 1528, during a conversion with the Cardinal Legates Campeg-gio and Wolsey22, Catherine accused the latter of setting up the whole matter:

“But of thys trouble I onely may thanke you my lorde Cardinal of Yorke, for because I have won-dered at your hygh pride and vainglory, and abhorre

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your volupteous life, and adhominable Lechery, and little regard for your presumptuous power and tiranny, therfore of malice you have kindled thys fyre, and set thys matter a broche, and in especial for the great malice that you beare to my nephew the Emperour, whom I perfectly know you hate worse then a Scorpion”23.

According to Wolsey’s sworn enemy, Polydorus Virgil-ius, the cardinal enlisted the help of the Bishop of Lincoln to advance the *divorce:

“Is [Wolsey] proinde quod cogitarat, cum spe magna id exequi cupiens, cum Ioanne Longland Lincolniensi episcopo de quaestione futura amice communicat, quod is esset, qui regis confessionem audiret. Episcopus, qui ex sua opinione nihil se perperam, sed recte facere af-firmabat, iampridem coniugium regium veluti infirmum labefacturum iri censebat, idque clam suis saepe intimis amicis insusurrabat, oppido quam libenter audivit Vol-saeum, sic, ut ambo mox inter se disceptare coeperint, utrum ius matrimonii Henrici et Catherinae legitimum foret necne”24.

However, such accusations were denied by the parties involved and by the king himself25 who declared what had compelled him to set up the *divorce trial at Blackfriars:

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“It was a certain scripulosity that pricked my con-science upon divers words that were spoken at a certain time by the Bishop of Bayonne, the French King’s ambassador, who had lein here long upon the debating for the conclusion of a marriage to be concluded between the Princess our daughter Mary and the Duke of Orléans, the French King’s second son. And upon the resolution and deter-mination thereof he desired respite to advertize the King his master thereof, whether our daughter Mary should be legitimate in respect of the mar-riage which was sometime between the Queen here and my brother late Prince Arthur”26.

It is unthinkable that the French ambassador would have raised such a delicate issue without a valid reason, nor would he have challenged the validity of the marriage of the sovereign he was to enter into negotiations with.

Many years later and long after the definite break with the Church of Rome, Cardinal Reginald Pole blamed the same Anne Boleyn for having prompted Henry to declare his marriage with Catherine null and void.

“Sacerdotes suos, graveis (sic) theologos, quasi pigno-ra promptae volumptatis misit, qui non modo tibi li-

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cere affirmarent uxorem dimittere, sed graviter etiam peccare dicerent, quod punctum ullum temporis eam retineres ac nisi continuo repudiares, gravissimam Dei offensionem denunciarent. Hic primus totius fabulae exorsus fuit”27.

But also this version of the facts is unlikely. It seems that it was Henry who was assailed by qualms of guilt. In a letter dated December 5, 1527 and addressed to Gre-gory Casale, the English agent at the court of the pope, Wolsey wrote:

“[…] Ante hoc tempus vobis aperui, quemadmodum Regia Maiestas, partim assiduo suo studio et eruditio-ne, partim relatu ac judicio multorum theologorum et in omni doctrine genere doctorum virorum asseveratione, existimans conscientiam suam non esse sufficienter exo-neratam, quod in coniugio existeret cum regina, Deu-mque primo et ante omnia ac anime sue quietem et sa-lutem respiciens, mox vero sue successionis securitatem, perpendensque accurate quam gravia hinc mala prove-nirent, aperte sentit quam maxime futurum sit Deo mo-lestum, inhonorificum sibi, et ingratum apud homines, suisque subditis periculosum, ex hoc non sufficienti co-niugio, si deprehendatur dicta Maiestas sciens ac volens in eo perstare et vivere preter modum debitum, juxtaque ritum et legitima Ecclesie statuta[…]”28.

Besides Henry had written *Assertio Septem Sacramen-torum contra Martinum Lutherum, the treatise that earned him the title Fidei Defensor 29, and was well versed in the Holy Scriptures. Indeed, it was the king’s learning and great knowledge that troubled his conscience. Accord-ingly, he informed Wolsey of his desire to free himself from his marriage ties with Catherine in spring 1527, perhaps after the French delegation headed by the Bishop of Tarbes had departed. The cardinal made the first diplo-matic moves regarding a possible union between the king and Renée, the sister-in-law of Francis I. However, the king was very careful not to mention his secret plan to

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marry Anne Boleyn and Wolsey only found out Henry’s real intentions in September 1527, at his first court au-dience after he returned from the mission to France30.

At the end of his life, he confided his vain attempts to dissuade the king from pursuing his intentions to the Constable of the Tower of London, William Kingston, who had come to arrest him:

“I have often kneeled before him in his privy cham-ber on my knees the space of an hour or two to try to persuade him from his will and appetite; but I could never bring to pass to dissuade him there-fore”31.

However, when he went to Greenwich with William Warham in 1527 to ask the king’s formal authorisation to investigate whether the marriage was legal, Wolsey never imagined that Henry had already chosen the person who would have taken Catherine’s place: Anne Boleyn “the night crow”32.

THE CAUSA ANGLICA: THE TRIALS OF WESTMINSTER AND BLACKFRIARS

On May 17, 1527, the cardinal opened the Westmin-ster proceedings together with the Archbishop of Can-terbury, William Warham, in his capacity of assessor and in front of the witnesses and doctors in law John Allen, William Bennett and John Coks. Wolsey was assisted by his personal secretary Stephen Gardiner, while the min-utes were drawn up by the registrar of the court, William Clayborough, the Canon of York. After having sworn the ritual oath, the cardinal and president “so that it does not appear as if a subject summons the king before the court”, asked the king to publically acknowledge the authority of the court. Henry gave his consent and took his place at the right hand of the cardinal: and this was the first act of the proceedings filed at Henry’s request where the king was both the accused and the guarantor of the judges’ powers.

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Wolsey took the floor and after having sworn his loyalty to the Crown, asked the king to answer the universally known fact

“that the most serene Queen Catherine, who is now Your Majesty’s wife and with whom you have cohabitated for eighteen years, and by whom in such time you have had children, one of whom is still alive, was the wife of your deceased brother Arthur, who lived with him and had carnal rela-tions with him when he was alive”33.

The king read his answer from a written text, then he declared that he could not attend all the sessions in person because of reason of state and thus appointed his proctor, John Bell, to represent him during the trial. Ri-chard Wolman was appointed promoter of the suit and the court adjourned.

On May 20, the king’s proctor appeared at the next hearing to answer the charges and a new session was set for May 23. On that day Bell produced the dispensation *bull sent by Julius II, Wolman requested a copy and asked for a deadline to be set by which any objections to the va-lidity of the document had to be presented; the court de-cided to examine the argumentations the coming May 31. On that day Wolman was granted permission to present any challenges to the *bull; then Wolsey declared that, in order to express itself on the trial, the court would have to allow itself be guided by the opinion of the theologians and jurists, including the Bishops Fisher of Rochester, Longland of Lincoln and Tunstall of London.

But the proceedings were brought to a standstill by the escalation of international political events. Indeed, on June 1, an alarming dispatch from John Clerk, Bishop of Bath-Wells and the English ambassador residing at the French court, carried the news that Rome had been sacked by the imperial troupes led by the Duke of Bour-bon and that the pope had fled. He was asked to surrender, pay a hefty penalty and formally pledge allegiance to the Emperor in Spain34. This disturbing event had happened

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before the Westminster trial had started but Cardinal Wol-sey was informed of it only now and rapidly changed his tactics: the new international balance was now dangerously biased towards Catherine who, had she wanted to contest the court’s decision, would have been able to turn to a pope who was totally under his nephew’s thumb, Charles V.

The trial was concluded in great haste and Wolsey in-formed the king of his doubts on June 2:

“And surely, Sire, if the Popes Holines fortune eyther to be slayne or taken, as God forbede, it shal not a litel hindre Your Graces affaires, which I have nowe in hande, wherin such good and sub-stancial ordre and processe hathe hitherto been made and used, as the like, I suppose, hath not been seen in any tyme hertofore”35.

Almost two years of taxing negotiations between Eng-land and the Holy See were to pass before another trial could be started. After ten long months of disputes, prom-ises, nerve-racking waits and false concessions, Henry ob-tained what he wanted, at least so it seemed: a court would

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be set up to adjudicate the suit in England. The pope ap-pointed Thomas Wolsey and another *papal legate a latere from Rome, Lorenzo Campeggio36, to preside over the trial. The latter was the cardinal of Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome, and non resident bishop of Salisbury, and was will-ingly accepted by the English. He was a shrewd diplomat and was expressly instructed to procrastinate as much as possible and prevent the trial from opening37. The *papal legate took two months to get to England where he finally landed in October 1528, and then another seven months passed before the court could meet. To a certain extent this long delay was caused by Campeggio’s ill health (he was af-flicted by gout38) and by procedural obstacles39, but it was also part of the *papal legate’s strategy to attempt a recon-ciliation of the parties involved or to find an extrajudicial solution to the case40.

Meanwhile, Catherine had sent to the imperial ambas-sador in Rome, Miguel Mai, a secret request to call up the case that he received on March 6, 1529. She commis-sioned him to deliver it to the pope41, and on April 27 the Spanish diplomat and his colleague Andrea Borgo, the am-bassador of King Ferdinand of Hungary who was Charles V’s brother, presented the same request to Clement VII in the name of the above-mentioned sovereigns42. Even be-fore it commenced, the trial seemed doomed. However, at the two *papal legates request43, Henry VIII granted them permission to proceed with the marriage case44 on May 30, 1529, just over two years after the Westminster trial had been rapidly wound up.

On June 1, the court convened in the Parliament Chamber at the Dominican monastery at Blackfriars, London45. The chronicler Edward Hall gives the follow-ing description:

“In the begining of this yere46, in a great Hal within the black Friers of London, was ordeined a solempne place for the two legates to set in, wyth two cheyers covered with cloth of gold, and cushyons of the same, and a Dormant table railed before, lyke a solempne court, al covered with Carpettes and Tapissery: on

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the right hand of the court was hanged a clothe of estate, with a chayer and cushyons of ryche Tyssue, for the kyng, and on the left hand of the courte was set a ryche chayer for the quene”47.

The first session dealt with the necessary formalities. After the two presidents took their places, the Bishop of Lincoln presented then with the papal *bull that invested them with the power to examine the case and, “in eventum improbatae dispensationis et declarationis nullitatis matrimo-nii”, to pronounce the *divorce judgement48. The document was handed over to Floriano Montini, Cardinal Campeg-gio’s secretary, who read it publically in front of the vari-ous witnesses, including the proctor William Clayborough and the two notaries Richard Watkins and William Clay-ton, John Islip, Abbot of St. Peter’s Westminster and Wil-liam Warham, Archdeacon of Canterbury and Archbishop William Warham’s nephew49. The Bishops of Lincoln and Bath-Wells were charged with summoning the king and queen respectively to the hearing set on June 18 between nine and ten o’clock in the morning; then the court was adjourned. Two days later Campeggio received a visit from the queen.

“La reina […] oltrepassò l’aqua50 et venne a ritrovarmi et, per gratia delle mie podagre, che a questa volta hanno con esse in compagnia un poco di alteratione di febre, sino al letto, assai anxia et perplexa ne’ casi suoi; et la cagione di questa soa venuta fu per dirmi che li advocati suoi, che doveano venire di Fiandra, non venivano […] et però che si vedeva destituta di chi dicesse la ragione soa, che, benché havesse qui alcuni altri consiglieri as-signatoli dal re51, pur che era facil cosa a credere che in tutto mirarebbono più al volere del re che al bisogno suo; onde mi dimandava aiuto e consiglio”52.

The *papal legate urged her to trust in the king’s jus-tice and the judges’ conscience and once again tried to convince her to abdicate and to retire to a convent, but she was adamant on that point:

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“[…] Ha per gran sollevatione de la mente soa et per buon fondamento della soa iustitia questo: che ab am-plexibus primi viri accesserit virgo et incorrupta ad huius coniunctionem, quod persancte iurat atque olim dixit et tuttora dice et afferma, etiam ipsi regi. Que res pare che faccia qualche scrupo a Sua Maestà […]”53.

The court convened on June 18 and Henry was rep-resented by Richard Sampson, who produced the king’s proxy for himself and John Bell. Unexpectedly, Cather-ine attended in person accompanied by four bishops and a large retinue of gentlewomen and ladies-in-waiting54, and read her objections to the jurisdiction of the *papal legates and asked them to be put on record. The two cardinal presidents entrusted Montini, Clayborough and Watkins with the task, then appointed John Hughes the court promoter, and he summoned the queen to ap-pear in court on June 21 to hear their decision regard-ing her protest.

On the day of the hearing both sovereigns came in person. Henry took the floor first and pronounced a long, vehement speech defending the legality of the proceedings, declaring that he only wanted to appease his conscience and confirmed his trust in the judges’ actions. Then two cardinals rejected the objections that had been put for-ward by the queen who then made a sweeping appeal to the pope55 before leaving her place.

“[…] coram tribunali genuflexa, benché il re due volte la sollevasse, dimandò licentia al re che per trattarsi del honore et conscientia sua et de la casa di Spagna le volesse concedere libero addito di scrivere et mandar messi a Roma a nostro signore, et sua Maestà gliela concesse […]”56.

Then she left the chamber after curtseying to the king. Thrice the *papal legates summoned her to return but Catherine did not go back into the chamber so the court declared contumacious and summoned her to ap-pear on June 25.

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Campeggio wrote a long report to Giacomo Salviati on the day of that turbulent session informing him of his difficult position in England:

“[…] Se Vostra Signoria mi vedesse, in letto con le podagre crudeli in 7 luoghi et con febbre, benché ac-cidentale per li dolori, attorniato da XV doctori con due some de libri, in volere dimostrarmi che tutto quello concludono sia iuridico e non si possa né debbia fare altrimenti, son certo, ch’ella m’haria compassione, con-venendomi anchora farmi portare al luogo del iuditio, Dio sa con che dispiacer mio et pericolo nel movimen-to, a scendere et discendere scale et entrare e uscire di nave. Prego Dio, ch’io non habbia a restar per sempre in Anglia […]”57.

On June 25, in the absence of the queen, twelve ar-ticles were set forth on the basis of which the validity of the royal marriage was challenged: Henry and Arthur were brothers (arts. 1-2); Arthur and Catherine contracted and consummated their marriage (arts. 3-4); then Henry and Catherine, after the death of Arthur, contracted and consummated their marriage (art. 5); Henry and Cath-

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erine’s marriage was prohibited by civil and church law (art. 6); by virtue of this ban their marriage union was to be considered null and void (art. 7); their marriage had caused an uproar in the clergy, in the English population and elsewhere, both at the time of the preliminary nego-tiations and also when it was effectively contracted (art. 8); the king and queen are still united in marriage and live together (art. 9); the above mentioned facts had often been reported to the pope by trustworthy witnesses (art. 10); the pontiff had invested the legate cardinals with the authority to investigate the royal marriage and pronounce themselves on its validity (art. 11); the above-mentioned *papal legates are fully competent to judge the case (art. 12)58. Hence, the proceedings continued despite Cather-ine’s appeal, that to be effective, had to reach Rome and be received by Clement VII.

The twist the case had taken made Campeggio fear that it could favour the king.

“[…] Non so dire altro, salvo che io prego Vostra Si-gnoria consideri bene in che travaglio mi trovo, et che non basta dire: dà la sententia contra il re; et per la con-tumacia della reina et modo loro di procedere, faranno il processo in modo che, secundum deducta, facilmente non si potrà fare se non al loro modo per molti capi […]”59.

At a new court session held on June 28, one of the queen’s counsels, Bishop Fisher of Rochester, gave a very powerful speech and declared that neither human au-thority nor divine power could dissolve the royal mar-riage. He added that he was ready to die for his declara-tion60, then he handed the court his writings defending the marriage union between Henry and Catherine61. The Bishop of St. Asaph sided with Fisher. Wolsey made a short reply and it was decided to examine the witnesses on the basis of the twelve previously mentioned articles. The court continued meeting at regular intervals and a vast amount of evidence was gathered and presented to the two *papal legates.

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So much so that on July 13, Campeggio wrote to Salviati:

“[…] Per le mie lettere di XXI, XXIIII, XXV et XXIX del passato avisai Vostra Signoria in che termine stava questa causa et come si procedeva con gran celerità et con maggiore instantia; et così, per la medesima via, siamo caminati a gran passi fino a questo dì, et vassi tuttavia più che di trotto, di maniera che alcuni expetta-no una sententia fra X giorni; […] et non è ch’io non dica il parer mio et quel che mi pare che fosse più conve-niente, ma poco giova, et in casa altrui l’homo non può tutto quel che vuole. Ma causa è indefensa: procuratori, advocati et testimonii non mancano a un re, et in casa sua, né chi desidera la gratia et favore suo […]”62.

The *papal legate’s dispatch had an effect. Indeed, on July 16, William Bennet, Gregory Casale and Pietro Vanni, the three agents in Rome, wrote to Cardinal Wol-sey to inform him that despite their attempts to avert it, Clement VII had accepted to call up the case presented to him by the Imperials:

“Tandemque, non expectato istinc responso, [eius San-ctitas] voluit causam advocare, asserens se nec posse

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nec velle amplius expectare, nam ex literis domini Cam-pegii fuerat monitus quod causa istic precipitabatur, precipitabatur festinanter. Itaque die 14 huius mensis […] denunciata fuit ad hunc solum finem signatura. […] Non tunc signavit, sed ad proximum concistorium se dilaturum dixit; secreto tamen cognovimus heri mane [July 15] ab eo fuisse signatam. […] Videt Vestra Reverendissima Dominatio que sit voluntas pontificis et bona actio Campegii. […] Videt Vestra Reveren-dissima Dominatio quid expectandum sit a pontifice, si forsan istic lata fuerit sententia. Pontifex a nemine alio preterquam a Cesare pendet, ab illo solo timet et in illo solo confidit […]”63.

Meanwhile the trial continued in London. Many wit-nesses were summoned to appear and heard in the queen’s absence between July 12 and 19. These included the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Marquis of Dorset, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Archbishop Warham of Canterbury, Rob-ert Radcliffe FitzWalter, Thomas Darcy, William Blount, Henry Guildford, Richard Sacheverell, Bishop Kite of Carlisle, John Hussey64 and many more65.

William Warham admitted that he had not approved the marriage between Henry and Catherine at the outset, that he had discussed it with the Bishop of Winchester, Richard Foxe, who had agreed with him, and that he had clearly ex-pressed his opinion to the same Henry VIII, declaring that such marriage did not seem honourable or pleasing to God. However, when the pope had granted the dispensation, he no longer opposed the marriage and the public outcry re-garding the marriage calmed down, only to be revived when the king began to have qualms of conscience66.

Robert Radcliffe reported that he had served as Arthur’s cupbearer the morning after the wedding and that when another courtier, Maurice St. John, who had been acting as carver on such occasion, asked the prince how the night had gone, the answer had been: “Last night I was in Spain”67.

Other witnesses, including the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, confirmed this version of the facts and Norfolk

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reported that he had believed the prince’s remark alluded to the consummation of the marriage.

Nicholas West, Bishop of Ely, declared he could not testify on the carnalis copula of the two spouses but he doubted that marriage had been consummated as Catherine had often confessed sub testimonio conscientie sue that she had not had carnal relations with Prince Arthur68.

Meanwhile the court, on July 14, had acquired many documents in favour of the annulment from the royal ar-chives and they were carefully studied by Abbot Islip, Wil-liam Burbank, Archdeacon of Carlisle, and others appoint-ed by the king69. On July 19, the deposition that had been written by Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, and re-ceived by Richard Wolman two years earlier was presented. The elderly prelate provided information on young Prince Henry’s objections to the marriage contract with Cather-ine that had been ratified in 1505 when he was a minor70, revealing that such act was part of Henry VII’s plan to put off the wedding because of the disputes between him and Ferdinand of Aragon over Catherine’s dowry.

The deposition was written by a notary between April 5 and 6, 1527 and Wolman pressed Foxe to endorse it, which he did two days later. Indeed, the bishop was re-luctant and initially refused to sign it, blaming his bad eyesight and the fact that he was not authorised to give his opinion on the matter. Eventually, his loyalty to the king71 prevailed, a loyalty that guided the hand of many of the signatories of the letter to Clement VII.

On the same day in July the pope sent a *brief offi-cially informing the King of England that the matrimo-nial cause had been called up to Rome, entrusting his own excusatio for the decision taken to a second *brief also sent to Henry VIII:

“[…] Qua instantia et quamdiu nostra aures pulsave-rint Cesarei agentes, ut causam isthic ad instantiam Tue Serenitatis commissam avocaremus, non dubitamus ad Serenitatem Tuam per oratores tuos sepius esse per-scriptum. Quod autem interea nobis fuerit gratificandi

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tibi studium, res ipsa hactenus docuit, qui tanto tempo-re tam iustas petitiones sustinuimus, ne Tue Serenita-ti, cui placere semper cupimus, in eo displiceremus: sed tamen victa est ad postremum patientia nostra ratione iustitie coactique sumus […] avocationem ipsam con-cedere et ius quod unicuique debemus ipsi etiam Cesari aliquando reddere […]”72.

In a third *brief dated the same day the pope wrote the following to Cardinal Wolsey:

“[…] Difficile est nobis explicare literis, qua nostra mo-lestia seu potius dolore fuerimus coacti ad avocationem cause istic commisse concedendam. […] Nec vero mi-nus, fili, doluimus tua causa cui rem hanc tante cure esse perspeximus quantam tua erga dictum regem fides et amor postulat, sed tamen quod datur iustitie minus esse molestum debet, cum presertim id fuerit tam di-latum a nobis omniaque antea pertentata ne ad hoc descenderemus[…]”73.

In the meantime, the trail continued in London and the document challenging the marriage contract with Catherine signed by the young Henry, at that time Prince of Wales, and four witnesses74 was presented to the court on July 21.

The court convened again between nine and ten o’clock in the morning of July 23, and John Hughes the court promoter informed the two *papal legates of the evidence that had been gathered so far, declaring that he expected the judgement to be pronounced that very day.

At that point Cardinal Campeggio intervened and in an elegant speech in Latin drew attention to the Ro-man Curia’s well-known custom of suspending activities for summer recess (feriae messium et vindimiarum) prior to that day, and that he and his colleague, Cardinal Wol-sey, in the capacity of presidents of a legative trial, were obliged to observe the stilus Curie: hence, in the presence of the king and in the absence of the queen he deferred the trial until October 175.

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When this announcement was made Charles Bran-don, Duke of Suffolk, stood up and banged his fist on the table, exclaiming:

“By the Mass! Now I see that the olds sayd saw is true, that there was never Legate nor Cardinal, that dyd good in Englande!”76.

The decree to call up the Causa Anglica, that was as-signed to Paolo Capizucchi the deacon of hearers of the Rota, was posted the same day in Rome77.

Events escalated. On August 29, Clement VII fur-ther prolonged the suspension of the trial until Christmas and, on September 1, he officially removed the case from the jurisdiction of Cardinals Campeggio and Wolsey. The latter immediately started to plot for the king’s revenge: but the Lord Chancellor Thomas Wolsey fell afoul of the charge of *Praemunire on October 9, and a week later was forced to hand over the Great Seal to his arch-enemies, the Duke of Norfolk and the Duke of Suffolk.

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In reality, Henry had lost hope of finding a solution to his “Great Matter” in England. It was now necessary to appeal to the pontiff to be granted the declaration that his marriage with Catherine was null and void. According-ly, the king honed a two-pronged strategy: first, between November and December he sent his agents laden with money to the leading European universities78 to obtain expert opinions in favour of the *divorce in order to be able to show them to Clement VII; then, at the beginning of the following year he charged Thomas Boleyn, John Stokesley, the elected Bishop of London, and Edward Lee, the King’s Almoner, to lobby the case with the pope and emperor when they met in Bologna at the coronation of Charles V79.

But despite frenzied negotiations, Henry’s plan failed. In April 1530 only the opinions of the universities of Cambridge, Orléans and Oxford80 had reached the court, and even if they were favourable to the *divorce they were by no means sufficient to sway the decisions of the pope in Rome. Furthermore, the English ambassadors headed by Boleyn had been snubbed and rejected by Charles V, who had told the leader of the mission to leave that affair to others, since he was Anne’s father and hence party to the case81. And the officials of the papal Curia took advantage of the occasion to present the English agents with a writ of subpoena summoning their king to appear in front of the tribunal of the Roman Rota. Finally, on March 7, Clem-ent VII issued a warning to Henry, forbidding him from entering into a new marriage while the process was pend-

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ing in Rome82. And it was in these circumstances that the king was forced to turn to Parliament to find a solution to the “Great Matter”. Giovanni Gioacchino di Passano, sieur de Vaux, the French agent wrote the following concerning Montmorency in a dispatch dated April 4, 1530:

“[…] Sua Maestà mi disse, se li suoi ambassiatori, si come la dubita, tocante la sua causa, dal papa non ri-porterano qualche buona resposta et conclusione, ch’in tal caso la pensa nel suo Regno pigliar tal ordine qual al suo Consiglio et Parlamento parerà conveniente, per non haver da ricorrere dal papa, havendolo et per si-moniaco et per ignorante et, in consequentia, per non buon pastore et padre universale […]”83.

The first session of Parliament in 1530 was set for April 26 and in all likelihood would have addressed the question of the king’s marriage, but it was postponed until June 2284 and then to October 185, on the excuse of the plague that had reached London and surrounding areas. In reality the plague was merely an excuse to cover up the king’s indecision, i.e. whether to obtain annulment through Parliament without waiting for the pope’s judgement, or to use Parliament to intimidate the pope and show him that he would solve the matter one way or another.

Meanwhile, Clement VII foiled Henry’s projects: in a *brief dated May 21, he banned judges, lawyers, notaries and witnesses, on punishment of excommunication, from intervening, verbally or in writing, on the case of the mar-riage of the English sovereigns, as such was entirely under the jurisdiction of the tribunal of the Roman Rota86.

Eventually, Henry decided not to enter into direct conflict with Rome but to carry on prudent negotiations and to play a waiting game adopting “a policy of tempo-rizing, threatening, cajoling and hoping” (LEHMBERG). So, while the opinions in favour of his *divorce expressed by many universities of the continent were arriving at court, on June 12, the king summoned a number of his sup-porters, mainly members of the House of Lords, to court where the assembly was shown a letter addressed to Clem-

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ent VII. And, once completed with the signatures and seals of eighty three of the most important persons in the king-dom, this document was “physically, perhaps the most im-pressive piece uttered by Tudor England” (SCARISBRICK).

THE SUMMONS TO COURT

The event is not mentioned by Hall, but described by Herbert as follows:

“[…] Thus did the king begin to shake off the Romish yoke; to which he was much animated by the concurrence of his subjects in Parliament, both spiritual and temporal, who (as it appears by our records) in July 30. This year [1530], under their hands and seals, sent a declaration to the pope […]”87.

If the chronology is disregarded, the bare description by the biographer is basically correct88. The unfolding of this secret court meeting is described in detail in a dis-patch sent by the imperial ambassador in London, the well informed Eustache Chapuys89, to Charles V on June 15, 153090:

“Immediately after the dispatch of my last let-ters of the 10th inst. I received information that the King had written to certain of the prelates and high officials of this country, desiring them to be present at his court on the 12th inst., each of them bringing with him his seal of office, and that such as for some sufficient cases could not be present themselves should at least send the said seals of office. On the 12th, which was last Sun-day, the greater part of those who had been sum-moned appeared at Court, where, as I am given to understand, they were most urgently exhorted, as the representatives of one portion of the King-dom, to write conjointly to the Pope, explaining

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the necessity there was for the King to *divorce the Queen and make another marriage, and point-ing out also all the evils that would arise if this were not done. The address ended by praying His Holiness, in conformity with the opinion of the most famous universities and most learned men in Christendom, to declare the marriage between the King and Queen illegal, and authorise the King to take another wife, intimating that should His Holiness refuse to grant so just and reasonable a petition the King and his people must seek some other means of redress even if that should involve the summoning of a General Council. […] To give the address greater weight and authority it was to bear the signatures and official seals of all those prelates and gentlemen. […]”.

Chapuys’ report, albeit accurate, raises many questions, many of which – it should be added – have not been an-swered. The first question is just how many of the eighty three signatories came to court on June 12. According to the imperial ambassador, not all but “most of the persons summoned” attended the meeting, it is difficult to conjec-ture exactly who. It is certain that Cardinal Thomas Wolsey did not appear. He had been stripped of the post of Lord Chancellor in October 1529 and accused of 44 serious charges against by Parliament in the period between No-vember and December. He had been ordered not to come within seven miles of the court91 and to retire to Esher near Hampton Court, his residence in the capacity of Bishop of Winchester92. He stayed here until February 1530 when Henry granted him permission to move to Richmond Pal-ace93, where he stayed until April before moving to his final residence in the northernmost diocese in England when he was appointed Archbishop of York. The journey took about two months and Wolsey reached Southwell on June 5, so he could not have attended court on June 12, also because he had been banned from it for a long time.

Only cautious assumptions can be put forward regard-ing the other signatories. It is highly probable that the

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members of the opportunistic political coalition formed by the Boleyns and the members of the aristocracy who were Wolsey’s enemies attended: George Boleyn, Lord Rochford and Anne’s brother, perhaps representing his father Thomas, who was on a diplomatic mission in France; Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, one of the king’s closest advisers; Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, the leading Peer, and many of his affiliates in-cluding the Earls of Sussex, Oxford and Derby, Gerald FitzGerald, Earl of Kildare and former Lord Steward of Ireland– who was under arrest and in the custody of the same Howard94 – the Barons Berners, Daubeney and Dacre of the South95; and also, Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, and Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter and king’s cousin. Among the bishops, the presence of John Longland of Lincoln and of John Kite of Carlisle is al-most certain. And in all likelihood, the signatories of the last column of the document, William FitzWilliam, Henry Guildford, John Gage, William Kingston and Ri-chard Sacheverell, all members of the House of Com-mons, were present, as were Brian Tuke and Stephen Gardiner, Henry VIII’s secretaries, Richard Sampson, John Bell and Richard Wolman, the king’s proctors dur-ing the Westminster and Blackfriars trials, and the theo-logian Edward Lee. Judging from the more or less close contacts each had with the court, John Islip, Abbot of Westminster, and John Reeve, Abbot of Bury St. Ed-munds, both members of the Royal Council, may also have attended.

The presence of these persons, on June 12, is sup-ported by the fact that they were involved in the “Great Matter”. There may have been others, but Chapuys’ re-port does not provide enough details to identify them. In any case, no matter who attended the meeting con-vened by the king on June 12, the ruler did not achieve the results he desired.

Indeed, the imperial ambassador continues:

“[…] Sire, and though only those known to be on the King’s side were summoned to the meeting, still

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they were unable at the time to come to a resolu-tion, and therefore the meeting was adjourned un-til to-morrow, Corpus Christi Day [June 16] […]”.

For some reason that letter to the pope had not met with the unanimous approval of the persons summoned who, according to Scarisbrick, were vexed by the “over bel-licose tone of the letter”. It cannot be ruled out that it was this explicit threat of an appeal to the council that made the clergy, in particular, advance cautious reserves: indeed it was well known that Clement VII feared such council as “extremely dangerous to his affairs”96. And what’s more the same Chapuys considered the allusion to the council a deliberate intimidation:

“[…] as if they thought that what the Pope most fears is the calling of a Council of the Church […]”.

In any case, no reference to an appeal to the council was mentioned in the letter to Clement VII, although the letter conveys a concealed reference in those “extrema remedia” evoked by the signatories in the eventuality the pope did not find a rapid solution to the matrimonial cause97.

Thus, on June 12 Henry was defeated. He had to withdraw the document and consent to the drafting of a new, and more restrained, text. But who drew up the contents of the letter to Clement VII?

Examination of the document has only identified the person who actually drafted the document: Pietro Van-ni, the king’s Secretary for the Latin Tongue98. It is more difficult to establish who decided the content, though the active participation of Stephen Gardiner, Cardinal Wolsey’s close collaborator who had been Henry VIII’s Principal Secretary for over a year and who had been sent to Rome on many diplomatic missions regarding the *divorce, cannot be ruled out.

Finally, Chapuys’ report provides another piece of im-portant information:

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“[…] Not one of the prelates known to be favour-able to the Queen received a summons, nor the Chancellor either, whom they suspect […]”.

The “great absentees” on June 12 were Thomas More, who had replaced Wolsey as the Lord Chancellor of Eng-land a few months before, the bishops who sided with Catherine, in first place John Fisher of Rochester, fol-lowed by other members of the queen’s counsel99.

THE CREATION OF THE DOCUMENT

Another meeting was held on the Corpus Christi Day, and was described in a dispatch sent to the emperor by Chapuys on June 29100:

“As I informed Your majesty by my despatch of the 15th inst. the King has so urgently pressed the knights of his Order101, as well as other noble-men, to sign and affix their seal to those letters addressed to the Pope about which I wrote that he has actually gained his purpose […]”.

There is no reason to doubt that the same persons who had gathered at court four days before were present on June 16, thus it can be assumed that most of the sig-natures and seals were applied on that occasion.

In order to make sure the meek consent of the attend-ees was obtained this time, the king devised a stratagem that is faithfully reported by the imperial ambassador:

“[…] Great trouble has been taken to bring this about, for each person has been dealt with sepa-rately. No doubt it was feared that if the appli-cation were made to the whole body conjointly it would have met with either refusal or delay […]”.

As for the absentees, Henry decided to use the same document bearing the numerous seals and signatures to

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induce them to align themselves to the persons who had already performed the deed at court:

“[…] When the King had thus obtained a certain number of the said seals and signatures, presum-ing that others would do as these had done, he no longer considered it necessary to insist on the sig-natories coming here with their seals, but has sent commissioners to go from house to house and ob-tain separately from each nobleman, whether ec-clesiastic or layman, the required signatures […]”.

So on June 16, a certain number of noble church-men and laymen, whose identity is not mentioned in the dispatch, was absent. Once again the only person who was certainly not present was Cardinal Wolsely, he being ap-proached by the king’s commissioners at Southwell, as re-ported by his biographer George Cavendish102:

“[…] It chanced that upon Corpus Christi Eve [June 15] after supper he [Wolsey] commanded me to prepare everything for him in a readiness against the next day for he intended to sing High Mass in the minster that day. […] This done, I went to my bed, where I was scantly asleep and warm but that one of the porters came to my chamber door, call-ing upon me, and said there was two gentlemen at the gate that would gladly speak with my lord from the King. With that I arose up and went incon-tinent unto the gate with the porter demanding what they were that so fain would come in. They said unto me there was Master Brereton, one of the gentlemen of the King’s Privy Chamber, and Master Wriothesley, which were come from the King empost to speak with my lord. Then, having understanding that they were, [I] caused the porter to let them in. And after their entry they desired me to speak with my lord without delay, for they might not tarry. At whose request I repaired to my lord’s chamber and waked him that was asleep. But

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when he heard me speak, he demanded of me what I would have. ‘Sir’, quod I, ‘there be beneath in the porter’s lodge Master Brereton, gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber, and Master Wriothes-ley, come from the King to speak with you. They will not tarry, therefore they beseech your grace to speak with you out of hand’. ‘Well then’, quod my lord, ‘bid them come up into my dining chamber, and I will prepare myself to come to them’. Then I resorted to them again and showed them that my lord desired them to come up unto him, and he will talk with them with a right good will. They thanked me and went with me unto my lord, and as soon as they perceived him, being in his night apparel, did to him humble reverence; whom my lord took by the hands, demanding of them how the King his sovereign lord did. ‘Sir’, said they, ‘right well in health and merry, thanks be unto our Lord. Sir’, quod they, ‘we must desire you to talk with you apart’. ‘With a right good will’, quod my lord, who drew them aside into a great window and there talked with them secretly […]”.

Cavendish’s report reveals the names of the royal com-missioners: William Brereton103 and Thomas Wriothes-ley104. But the date they visited the cardinal is not so clear. Chapuys tells us that the final form of the letter to Clem-ent VII was not ready before June 16 and thus the two commissioners could not have shown it to Wolsey on the night of June 15, but only after that date105. The terminus a quo is provided by the imperial ambassador in the dispatch, dated June 29, where he writes that the king’s agents:

“[…] started two days ago. There will doubtless be but few who will venture to oppose the King’s will in this matter […]”.

Therefore, Brereton and Wriothesley did not leave be-fore June 27 and reached the cardinal one night between that date and July 13, the day the document was ready to

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be sent. Their movements in various parts of the kingdom are documented by signed reports of their expenses106.

But here is Cavendish’s version:

“[…] And after a long talk they took out of a male a certain coffer covered with green velvet and bound with bars of silver and gilt, with a lock of the same having a key which was gilt, with the which they opened the same chest […]”.

The description of the chest carried by the two com-missioners matches, albeit vaguely, the one they declared having purchased in Windsor:

His biography of Wolsey continues:

“[…] Out of the which they took a certain instru-ment or writing containing more than one skin of parchment, having many great seals hanging at it, whereunto they put more wax for my lord’s seal; the which my lord sealed with his own seal and subscribed his name to the same […]”.

Cavendish’s account seems to provide an important piece of information, i.e. the commissioners took out of the case “writing containing more than one skin of parch-ment” or, in other words, “a single document in two parch-ment exemplars”. This interpretation of the text is corrob-orated by the conventions followed for letters to Clement

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VII, whereby two original examples, kept respectively in the Vatican Secret Archives and in the Kew National Ar-chives (London), have been handed down to us today108.

Once they had performed their task, Brereton and Wriothesley got ready to continue their journey:

“[…] After that done they would needs depart; and for as much as it was after midnight, my lord de-sired them to tarry and take a bed. They thanked him and said they might in no wise tarry, for they would with all speed to the Earl of Shrewsbury’s directly without let because they would be there or ever he stirred in the morning […]”.

Also here Cavendish’s account is corroborated by the kings’ commissioners report, which at a certain point says:

“[…]Item for our gyde from Grantham to Southwell et so to Wyngfield, V s.[…]Item to my lorde stewards servant, V s.109

[…]”.

Even though it is only a mere note – as are all book-keeping accounts – the document confirms that the two commissioners came from Grantham, went to Southwell where Wolsey resided, and thereafter they set off for Wyn-gfield, the location of one of the favourite residences of the Earl of Shrewsbury, George Talbot, Lord Steward of England110, where they gave a servant the sum of five shil-lings.

It is not certain when Brereton and Wriothesley reached Talbot’s abode, but in all likelihood they arrived around dawn. But there is reason to believe that, unlike Wolsey, the Earl of Shrewsbury did not seal the document on that occasion: the reddish orange colour of the cardinal’s seal that, as has been seen, was impressed by the cardinal using his own seal matrix on the wax prepared by the same com-

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missioners, is totally different from the dull brown wax of Talbot’s seal111. As Shrewsbury for some reason could not attend the meeting convened on June 12, he may have sent his own seal to the court, as expressly requested by Henry VIII112. Thus, Talbot would have sealed the letter in absentia, and only later signed it in the presence of the two royal commissioners113.

The exemplar destined to be dispatched was dated July 13114, while the other almost perfectly identical letter bearing the same signatures and the same number of seals was placed in the royal archives115.

As mentioned, the completed letter addressed to Clement VII bears the signatures of 83 dignitaries, 70 of whom were members of the House of Lords and 5 of whom were members of the House of Commons. If this group is compared with the over 400 members of *The Reformation Parliament summoned in November 1529, one has to agree with Parmiter and Knowles that the let-ter was not signed by many persons. However, as Knowles points out, it is not a parliamentary document but the re-sult of an initiative put forward by the king to which a by no means small part of the House of Lords, to be exact 70 members out of 102, adhered.

It is worth noting that among the different groups of supporters, consent was highest in the group of abbots. Only the abbots of the monasteries of Battle, Shrewsbury, Tavistock, Burton, St. Albans – however due in commen-dam to Thomas Wolsey116 – and the Prior of Coventry did not apply their signatures and their own seals on the fold of the letter, in other words only a sixth of the mitred ab-bots of the kingdom.

Looking at the twelfth column of the document, bar negligible traces of a carefully erased signature, a wide gap can be seen between the third and fourth signatures, and this is matched by a similar space in the ribbon attaching the seals, a space that could have housed at least five skip-pets117. It seems plausible to postulate that, at least accord-ing to Henry’s wishes, also the other five above-mentioned abbots should have signed and sealed the document, but this did not come about because time was too short, they

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did not wish to, or because of other reasons that we are not aware of.

Upon receipt of the letter, Clement VII must have been greatly struck by the peremptory and threatening tone of the writing, corroborated by the signatures and seals of such important members of the English clergy. But what made the two archbishops, the four bishops and the twenty two abbots sign such document, a document that so obviously led them into a conflict of loyalties, loy-alty to their king or to the Church of Rome? And indeed this conflict sent some of them to the gallows many years later. It is not unlikely that many of them were won over by the fear of the consequences their refusal to consent to Henry’s wishes would have had on the religious orders. So, at least from the viewpoint of the clergymen who signed it, such letter “at the same time a respectful and intimi-dating plea” can really be considered an “appeal motivated by desperation” (JANELLE).

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o help readers understand the letter that, like many of the documents of the same pe-riod, adopts a characteristically complex syntax and par-ticular vocabulary, it was decided to present an exhaustive synopsis of the content instead of the customary document summary. This synopsis is divided into four separate parts, each provided with cross-references to the text of the docu-ment. An English translation of the letter can be found in HERBERT, pp. 448-451.

Modern spelling and punctuation have been used in the transcription. Great efforts have been taken to try to re-produce the elaborate and complex layout of the eschatocol by dividing it into two columns. In order to provide readers with a quick and accurate method to compare the docu-ment and the transcription, a Roman numeral in square brackets has been added to the headings of the 13 columns (conventionally printed in bold), and an Arabic number in square brackets has been placed beside each signature. The two series of numbers are then used in the Appendix that contains a short biographic profile of each signatory.

I express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Giovanna Nico-laj who kindly and patiently reread the transcription and offered me precious and expert advice, and to Prof. Paolo Cherubini, teacher and friend, with whom I had construc-tive discussions on the interpretation of the syntactic terms of some of the parts of the text and on the criteria followed in the transcription.

T

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Sanctissimo ... flagitaremus. (lines 1-19) Although the king’s matrimonial case in itself obliges the pope to find a rapid solution, one that had been long-awaited and hoped for in vain, the precarious condition the kingdom is in and the dangers a lengthy marriage trial would expose it to (ex hac litis protelatione) could not but force the signatories to join their king in exhorting the pope to come to a decision on the cause without further delay.

Sufficere ... reducere. (lines 20-54) The opinions in favour of the *divorce expressed by leading experts on the subject and by various universities should have satisfied the pope and sufficed to allow him corroborate such declara-tions with his authority; above all in view of the fact that the cause concerned the very king and nation whose merit the Papal See had acknowledged. But, since neither the le-gitimacy of the case, nor the memory of the many benefices received, or the king’s repeated pleas sufficed to obtain from the pontiff what his role of Universal Father (paterne pieta-tis offitium) demanded, the great anguish exacerbated by the memories of the tragedies the kingdom had suffered, gave voice to the single parts of the nation (reipublice nostre mem-bra vocalia facit), urging them to express their grievances in words and in writing. It was a real misfortune that the Papal See has refused to grant the king what the two English uni-versities, the University of Paris and other French univer-

SUMMARY OF THE DOCUMENT

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sities, together with many of the most learned and upright scholars of the kingdom and continent declare to be right; all the more so because the king has personally defended the authority of the Holy See from attacks from different quarters with his sword and pen (partim ferro, partim calamo). Yet, he alone is denied the support of the authority he has always striven to defend so that others could benefit from it (tamen solus illius auctoritatis beneficio non fruitur, qui curavit semper ut esset qua alii fruerentur). And meanwhile a moun-tain of evil (malorum pelagus) and a type of deluge (certum quoddam diluvium) loom over the nation, while the spectre of the struggle for succession (successionis controversiam) that had erstwhile been crushed with the blood of many massa-cres (multa cede ac sanguine restinctam) raises its head again.

Habemus ... tolerandum. (lines 54-84) England is ruled by a very virtuous prince, a very noble king (certis-simo titulo) who will guarantee the kingdom undoubted sta-bility, if he is able to hand over rule to a male heir that can only be the fruit of a legitimate marriage (cuius in vero matrimonio sola spes esse potest). A single obstacle has to be overcome in order to allow this yearned for marriage to take place: the pope has to confirm with his authority what so many experts on the subject declare regarding the king’s first marriage; but if he were not so inclined, disregarding the needs of the English, they would feel authorised to set-tle the question themselves and would look for solutions elsewhere. The king’s cause is their cause, all of them share their king’s distress and the pope could easily, indeed as a father, should, find a solution. If he does not intervene, or delays acting, their condition will become worse but not unsolvable. Extreme remedies are always unpleasant, but the sick always want to recover and in leaving one bad situ-ation behind and moving on hopefully things may improve, at least the ensuing lesser evil is expected to be easier to endure in the long term.

Ista ... liberemur. (lines 85-96) The signatories urge the pope to ponder over the arguments expounded, exhort-ing him to reveal the truth about Henry’s first marriage by

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means of his decision, since such truth has been exposed, proved and confirmed by the diuturnal studies of the schol-ars. Meanwhile, they will beseech God, the same Truth, to guide the pontiff’s decisions, so that they, obtaining from him what is right, holy and true, are exonerated from eve-ry distressing attempt to pursue truth (ab omni molestia asse-quende veritatis).

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SANCTISSIMO IN CHRISTO | patri et domino, domino CLE-MENTI, divina providentia eius nominis pape septimo, oscu-latis pedibus omni cum humilitate, felicitatem precamur et optamus perpetuam in Domino nostro Jesu Christo.

BEATISSIME pater, tametsi causa matrimonii invictissi-mi | et serenissimi principis, domini nostri Anglie Francie-que regis1, fidei defensoris2 et domini Hibernie3, multis ipsa per se argumentis Vestre Sanctitatis opem imploret atque efflagitet, ut illum quam celerime finem accipiat, quem nos summo cum desiderio iam diu desideravimus et longa | sed hactenus vana spe a Vestra Sanctitate expectavimus, non potuimus tamen committere(a) ut, rebus nostris Regnique statu ex hac litis protelatione in tantum discrimen adducto, omnino sileremus sed, quod Regia Maiestas nostra, caput atque adeo anima omnium nostrum, et in cuius | verbis nos, tanquam membra conformia, iusta compagine capiti cohe-rentes, multa sollicitudine Vestram Sanctitatem precati, et frustra tamen precati sumus, id nos litteris nostris, doloris gravitate adacti, seorsum et separatim nunc flagitaremus. Sufficere sane alioqui debuisset cause ipsius iusticia, erudi-tissimorum | virorum calculis passim probata, celeberima-rum academiarum suffragiis iudicata, ab Anglis, a Gallis,

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ab Italis, prout quisque apud eos ceteros eruditione ante-cellit, pronunciata et diffinita, ut Sanctitas Vestra, etiam nemine petente et reclamantibus quibuscumque, suo ore suaque auctoritate aliorum senten|cias confirmaret, preser-tim cum cause diffinicio eum regem, illud regnum respiciat, quod de Sede illa Apostolica tam multis nominibus bene-meritum sit4; precibus autem nihil opus fuisset, nisi quate-nus homines doloribus indulgent et preces non necessarias interdum effundere | solent. Ceterum, cum apud Sancti-tatem Vestram nec ipsius cause iusticia nec beneficiorum acceptorum recordatio nec optimi principis tam assidue et diligentes preces quicquam profecerint, ut obtineatur a vo-bis quod paterne pietatis offitium exigebat, adauctus supra modum in nobis miseriarum ac cala|mitatum recordatione, doloris cumulus singula etiam reipublice nostre membra vocalia facit ac verbis et litteris conquestionem edere com-pellit. Nam que tandem infelicitas, ut quod due academie nostre5, quod academia Parisiensis, quod multe alie aca-demie in Gallia6, quod pas|sim doctissimi, eruditissimi et intigerimi viri, domi forisque, verum affirment ac pro vero defendere, tam verbis quam calamo, se paratos ostendunt, id pro vero non obtineat a Sede Apostolica ille princeps, cuius ope atque presidio sua stat Sedi Apostolice auctoritas a tam multis ac populis | etiam potentissimis tam valide impetita, quibus partim ferro, partim calamo7, partim voce atque auctoritate sepius in ea causa restitit et tamen solus illius auctoritatis beneficio non fruitur, qui curavit semper ut esset qua alii fruerentur; hiis quid responderi possit non(b) vide|mus et malorum interim pelagus reipublice nostre im-minere cernimus ac certum quoddam diluvium comminari aut, quod diluvio par est, multa cede ac sanguine restinctam olim successionis controversiam denuo reducere. Habemus

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enim summis virtutibus principem, certissimo(c) | titulo re-gem, indubitatam tranquillitatem Regno daturum, si so-bolem ex corpore masculam nobis reliquerit, cuius in vero matrimonio sola spes esse potest. Matrimonio autem vero tantum illud nunc obstat, ut, quod de priori matrimonio tot docti viri pronuntiant, id utique Vestra Sanctitas | sua auctoritate declaret: hoc autem si non vult et, qui pater esse debeat, nos tanquam orphanos relinquere decrevit et pro abiectis habere, ita certe interpritabimur nostri nobis cu-ram esse relictam, ut aliunde nobis remedia conquiramus; sed, ad hoc ne adigamur, Sanctitatem Vestram oramus, ut | regi nostro in tam sanctis desideriis adesse et sine mora aut dilatione favere velit; vehementer obsecramus, ut iudi-tio suo comprobet, quod doctissimi viri affirmant; per illam quam nobis ex pastorali officio debet pietatem, ex intimo cordis affectu obtestamur, ne claudantur paterna | viscera tam obsequentibus(d) filiis, tam benevolis tamque morigeris. Causa Regie Maiestatis nostre, nostra cuiusque propria est, a capite in membra derivata: dolor ad omnes atque iniu-ria ex equo pertinet; omnes in eius Maiestate compatimur, quibus facile Sanctitas Vestra possit mederi nec pos|set modo, sed(e) etiam ex paterna pietate deberet. Quod si vel id non facere vel facere quidem distulerit Sanctitas Vestra, hactenus sane miserior erit conditio nostra, quod tam diu sine fructu frustra laboratum(f) sit, sed non omni prorsus remedio(g) destituta: sunt quidem extrema remedia semper | duriora, sed morbum omnino utcumque levare curat egro-tus, et in malorum commutacione non nihil est spei, ut, si minus succedat quod bonum(h) est, sequatur saltem quod est minus malum et id temporis etiam cursu facile tolerandum. Ista autem, ut secum consideret Sanctitas Vestra, iterum | atque iterum rogamus in Domino Jesu Christo, cuius vices

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[I] Archiepiscopi[1] Thomas cardinalis

Eboracensis[2] Guilielmus

Cantuariensis

[II] Duces[3] Thomas Norffolk[4] Charlys Soffolke

[III] Marchiones[5] Thomas Dorssett[6] Henry Exetar

[IV] Comites[7] William Arundell[8] John(i) Oxynford

[9] Henry(j) Northumbreland[10] Raff Westmorland[11] George Shrewsbury[12] Henry Essex[13] Edward Derby[14] Henry Worcester

[V] Comites[15] Thomas Rutland[16] Henry Comberland[17] Robert Sussex[18] George Hunttyngdon[19] Gerald of Kyldare

[VI] Episcopi[20] Robertus Cicestrensis

in terris se gerere profitetur, idque ut nunc factis conetur ostendere, ut veritatem doctissimorum hominum vigiliis ac laboribus inventam, probatam et confirmatam, ad Dei laudem et gloriam sua sentencia et pronun|ciatione velit illustrare. Interim vero Deum Optimum Maximum, quem ipsam esse veritatem certissimo testimonio cognoscimus, comprecabimur, ut Sanctitatis Vestre consilia ita informare atque dirigere dignetur, ut quod sanctum, iustum ac verum est a Vestre Sanctitatis | auctoritate obtinentes, ab omni alia assequende veritatis molestia liberemur.

EX Anglia, XIIIo iulii anno Domini millesimo quingen-tesimo XXXmo. |

Sanctitati Vestre obsequentissimi.

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[21] Johannes Karliolensis[22] Johannes

Lincolniensis(k)

[23] Ricadus Menevensis

[VII] Barones[24] Henry Monntague[25] George Rocheford[26] Wylliam Weston[27] George Bergebenny[28] John Andelay[29] Herre Scrop[30] Thomas Decre[31] Thomas La Warre[32] William Dacre[33] Thomas Berkeley[34] Harry Morley

[VIII] Barones[35] Georg Cobhan[36] Rychard Latymer[37] Edwar Stourton[38] John Fictzwarren(l)

[39] John Berners[40] Jhon Lumley[41] William Mountioy

[IX] Barones[42] Cristofer Conyers[43] Herry Daubeny[44] Thomas Dercy[45] Tomas Montegle(m)

[46] Wylliam Sandys[47] John(n) Huse[48] Andrew Wyndesore[49] Thomas Wentworth[50] Thomas Burgh(o)

[X] Abbates[51] John abbott of Westminster[52] Johannes abbas de Bury

Sancti Edmundi[53] Ricardus abbas

Glastonbury[54] Willelmus abbas

Gloucester[55] Thomas abbas de Abendon[56] Hugo abbas Redyng[57] Edmund abbot of York[58] Johannes abbas de Burgo Sancti Petri[59] Johannes abbas de Ramsey[60] Johannes abbas de Croyland[61] Robertus abbas de Thorney

[XI] Abbates[62] Robertus abbas of(p)

Selby

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[63] Willelmus abbas de Bardeney[64] Wilielmus abbas Sancti

Benedicti de Hulmo[65] Thomas abbas Sancti

Joannis iuxta Colcestre[66] Johannes abbas de Hyde(q)

[XII] Abbates[67] Clement abbott of Evesham[68] Richerd abbot of Malmesbury[69] Rycharde abbott of Wynchelcombe(r)

[70] Robertus abbas Sancte Crucis de Waltham

[71] John abbot of Circeter

[72] Henry abbott of Texbury

[XIII] Milites ac doctores in Parliamento

precipui[73] Wylliam(s)

FytzWylliam[74] Henry Guldeferd[75] Steven Gardyner[76] John Gage[77] William Kyngston[78] Brian Tuke[79] Richard Sacheverell[80] Richard Sampson[81] Edouarde Lee[82] Ricardus Woleman[83] Johannes Bellus(t)

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No. 1

He was Lord Chancellor of England, Bishop of Win-chester and Abbot of St. Albans’. He came from a humble family background but had a brilliant mind. He was ap-pointed Royal Almoner in November 1509 and then rose through the positions of power in Henry VIII’s court. He was supported by Bishop Foxe and Lord Chancellor Wil-liam Warham1, Archbishop of Canterbury, and became the King’s unofficial secretary and intermediary between him and his ministers. He was away from court on government business for long periods of time.

His total dedication to work, his determination and his political shrewdness made him an irreplaceable royal counsellor, and Henry VIII entrusted home and foreign policies to Wolsey for a period of over fifteen years from 1513 to 1529. He was appointed Lord Chancellor in 1515 after Warham resigned.

He was made cardinal by Leo X the same year and then in 1518 the pontiff appointed him and Lorenzo Campeg-gio *papal legate a latere in England for three years. When his mandate expired in 1521 his powers were extended for another two years, until Clement VII in 1524, hard-pressed by the same cardinal and Henry VIII, appointed him *pa-pal legate a latere for life. As such he set up the Westminster and Blackfriars2 marriage trails, and tirelessly coordinated diplomatic relations and years of frenetic negotiations with the Holy See until the pope revoked the case to Rome. This event caused his downfall. He was stripped of most of his vast possessions, banned from court and banished to his own Archdiocese of York, where he signed and sealed the letter

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to Clement VII3. On November 4, 1530 he was arrested on charges of high treason by William Walsh, gentleman of the Privy Chamber and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland4, in his residence Cawood Castle. Two days later he set out on his journey to London and, after a stopover at Pontefract and Doncaster, reached Sheffield’s Park, the residence of the Earl of Shrewsbury5, on November 8. He was demoralised and exhausted by frequent bouts of dysentery, and had to re-main there until November 24.

On November 22, William Kingston6 with a retinue of twenty four men came to take the cardinal to the Tower of London, but Wolsey never reached his destination. He was debilitated by the disease and continued his journey with great difficulty, stopping at Hardwick Hall, then Nottingham, until hardly able to stay in the saddle, he reached Leicester Abbey on November 26. Three days later, around six o’clock in the morning, he received a visit from the Constable of the Tower of London and addressed the latter saying:

“Well, well, Master Kingston, [...] I see the matter against me how it is framed. But if I had served God as diligently

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as I have done the King, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs7. Howbeit this is the just reward that I must receive for my worldly diligence and pains that I have had to do him service, only to satisfy his vain pleasures, not re-garding my godly duty”8.

Wolsey died on November 29, 1530 at eight o’clock in the morning.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCAVENDISH, Wolsey; DNB, XXI, pp. 796-814, edited by James Gairdner; POL-

LARD, Wolsey; ODNB, 60, pp. 17-38 (with updated bibliography), edited by Sybil M. Jack; ROUTH, Tudor England, pp. 52-58.

No. 2

“Suprema autorità sacerdotale, dalla cui sentenza non è permesso ad alcuno potersi appellare a Roma”9.

He was Chancellor of Oxford University, presided over Queen Catherine’s defence council and was a member of the King’s Council. He was an austere, devout and a very accom-plished man, one of the most distinguished humanists of the period and a close friend of Erasmus of Rotterdam. He grad-uated in canon law and in 1488 started working at the Court of Arches, the ecclesiastical court of the Archbishop of Can-terbury. In 1496, Henry VII appointed him to carry out ne-gotiations with the Spanish ambassador on the marriage be-tween Arthur and Catherine of Aragon. Between 1497 and 1502 he was sent on several diplomatic missions to Scotland, the Netherlands and to the court of Emperor Maximilian of Hapsburg. He was ordained Bishop of London in 1501 and in 1503 became Archbishop of Canterbury. On January 21 of the following year, he became Lord Chancellor of England. He crowned Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon on June 24, 1509 and after his chancellorship had been confirmed by the king, he opened the workings of the first three Parliaments of

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Henry’s reign. He ordained Wolsey as cardinal in November 1515, and the latter succeeded him as Lord Chancellor on December 22.

The king continued to employ Warham on several of-ficial occasions: in 1518 the archbishop welcomed Cardi-nal Campeggio on his first visit to England in the capacity of *papal legate a latere to organise the crusade against the Turks; in 1520 he assisted the king at the encounters with the emperor at Canterbury, Gravelines and Calais10 and he accompanied him to *The Field of the Cloth of Gold11. In May 1527 he assisted Wolsey at the Westminster marriage trial as the cardinal had convinced him that the trial was nec-essary to appease the king’s scruples and conscience. Indeed, initially the same Warham had expressed strong doubts on the canonical validity of Henry and Catherine’s marriage12. In advanced years he became marginally involved in the dif-ferent stages of the *divorce case and in 1529 gave evidence at the Blackfriars trial13. He was the only bishop acting as the Queen’s counsellor to sign the letter to Clement VII. The signature of the Archbishop of Canterbury, legatus natus, was by no means of minor importance to Henry, indeed as from the end of January 1530 Catherine had become aware of the mounting pressure Henry exerted on the prelate14. In March 1530 Warham, Chancellor of Oxford University, solicited the professors of theology at the university to express them-selves in favour of the royal *divorce. Moreover, the follow-ing December he summoned Bishop Fisher and urged him to withdraw his writings supporting the indissolubility of Henry and Catherine’s marriage15. A few months later the same queen explicitly complained about Warham’s deference to the Duke of Norfolk16 who had come to Windsor with a large retinue of dignitaries to attempt to convince her to consent to the trial being carried out in England and to avail herself of her own counsellors, these being leading jurists17. Catherine burst out saying: “Pretty counsellors those are, for if I ask Canterbury’s advice he answers me that he will have nothing to do with such affairs, and keeps repeating to me the words ira principis mors est”18.

In 1531 the *Convocation of Canterbury was convened to acknowledge the king as the supreme head of the Anglican

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Church and Warham and his colleagues, solicited by John Fisher, approved an amendment to the formula proposed by the king, that later became the well known formula: “Ecclesie et cleri anglicani, cuius singularem protectorem, unicum et supre-mum dominum et, quantum per Christi legem licet, etiam supre-mum caput ipsius maiestatem recognoscimus”.

The Archbishop’s acquiescent deference to Henry may have been dictated by his naïve assessment of the contingent circumstances: Warham, like the other bishops, may have been convinced that the king’s anticlerical and antipapal policy was due to the “Great Matter” and that once the issue of the *divorce had been settled, things would have returned to normal. The archbishop opposed the king’s ecclesiastical policies with greater vigour at the end of his life when he was over eighty years old. His death in 1532 almost certainly saved him from capital punishment.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, XX, pp. 835-840, edited by James Gairdner; ODNB, 57, pp. 411-415,

edited by John J. Scarisbrick; ROUTH, Tudor England, pp. 50-52.

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No. 3

“[...] General tesoriere, principal vassallo di Sua Maestà. [...] Di questo eccellentissimo duca, di sangue inglese no-bilissimo, Sua Maestà si serve più che d’ogni altra perso-na in tutti li maneggi. [...] Egli è savio, prudente, liberale, piacevole ed astuto; [...] è pratichissimo dell’amministra-zioni regali; discorre benissimo le cose del mondo; aspira a maggior altezza. [...] Ha anni cinquantotto, è di persona piccola, magro e negro di pelo [...]”19.

Norfolk covered up his violent, unscrupulous nature and ruthless ambition with a pleasant and courteous man-ner in public. From a religious viewpoint he was certainly

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one of the most committed conservatives and in later years he was openly hostile to reformist ideas and staunchly op-posed Thomas Cromwell. Yet he held a deeply rooted con-viction of sweeping royal power and this led him to im-plicitly deny papal sovereignty in England, restricting it to cases of heresy20.

After Cardinal Wolsey’s downfall, Norfolk, who was al-ready Lord High Treasurer, became the head of the King’s Council and gained even more clout. This, plus his fam-ily ties with several members of the House of Lords, al-lowed him to control wide swathes of both houses of Par-liament.

On January 13, 1530 Eustache Chapuys reported to Charles V that, among the nobles of the kingdom, Nor-folk was the most powerful and the most willing to serve the sovereign21. Even if he was Anne Boleyn’s uncle on her mother’s side, he did nothing to encourage her advance-ment at court: it was more the political opportunity to strip Cardinal Wolsey of his powers in conjunction with a strongly anticlerical feeling that made him support the *di-vorce. However, the duke was not able to provide the king with a successful strategy to shake off the power of Rome in religious matters and remained totally convinced that the solution to the “Great Matter” was the annulment of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon’s marriage. Norfolk’s real feelings can be revealed by what he said to Chapuys just before the letter was sent to Clement VII: “he would have given most of what he owned in this world if God had called Queen Catherine and Anne to his presence, because the king would not find peace unless he remarried, to ap-pease his own conscience and ensure stability to the king-dom with a son and heir to the throne”22. When Anne did not produce a son, Norfolk, with implacable pragmatism, played his part in her tragic end. Indeed, he presided over the jury of Peers that sentenced the queen and her brother George, Viscount of Rochford, to death23.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IX, pp. 615-620; DNB, X, pp. 64-67, edited by Mandell Creight-

on; FROUDE, Divorce (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 28, pp. 423-429, edited by Michael A.R. Graves; HDTE, pp. 252-254, edited by Eu-gene Bourgeois III.

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No. 4

“[...] Gran Maresciallo, [...] uomo di sessantun’anni, molto prosperoso, il quale ancora che non sia di sangue tanto nobile, nientedimeno, per avere in moglie la regina che fu del Cristianissimo Aloise, sorella di Sua Maestà, è riguardato assai ed onorato: tiene il secondo luogo nel secreto consiglio di Sua Maestà, nel quale rare volte en-tra, se non per cose di qualche importanza, consumando il tempo in altri spassi più sollazzevolmente”24.

He grew up at court with Henry and like the young price was skilled at jousting. He distinguished himself in battle, took part in the military campaign against France in 1513 and the king rewarded his valour by creating him Duke of Suffolk in 1514. He was of much humbler origins than Howard and his political clout was much less, yet he served the king faithfully in the issue of the *divorce, pandering to the king’s every whim. He gave evidence of the consumma-tion of Arthur and Catherine’s marriage at the Blackfriars’ trial in 1529 and in 1530 he was sent with Norfolk and John Bell25 to Oxford University to obtain the opinions in favour of the annulment of the marriage between the king and queen. Even if he was less hostile to the Lord Chancel-lor than Norfolk, he sided with the Boleyn faction against Wolsey, but in 1536 he was one of the judges that con-demned Anne and her brother Lord Rochford26 to death.

Like Henry VIII, Suffolk was rather ambivalent on the issue of religion: his prominent position brought him into contact with conservatives and reformers and although he was biased towards the traditional religion, he protected members of both factions27.

Like Henry VIII, Suffolk had a very complicated matri-monial history. While he had been a member of Henry VII’s court, he had contracted to marry Anne Browne, by whom

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he had a daughter28 before their marriage. In 1506 Suffolk had broken off the betrothal in order to marry her widowed aunt, Margaret Mortimer, after being granted the required dispensation. However, within 1507 he had requested and obtained the annulment of the marriage from the tribunal of the Archdeacon of London on grounds of consanguinity between himself and Margaret’s dead husband, and between her and Anne Browne: thereafter, he married Anne and they had another daughter. After he was widowed in 1511, he turned his attentions to Mary Tudor, the king’s sister and his love was requited. In 1514 the princess was wedded to Louis XII, the elderly King of France, but she was prom-ised that she could marry her beloved Brandon on her hus-band’s death. Louis died a few months after the wedding and in February 1515 Mary secretly married Suffolk in Paris without waiting for Henry’s consent. This created a court scandal and the king’s anger was only placated when he was handed over twenty four thousand pounds plus Mary’s jew-els and plate and returned half the dowry the princess had taken to France. Once the king had consented to the mar-

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riage, Suffolk asked Clement VII to ratify the annulment of his previous marriage with Margaret Mortimer, who was still alive, in order to make sure his marriage was valid. It was obtained on May 12, 1528 and the following day he married Mary Tudor at Greenwich. Indubitably, the duke’s complex matrimonial events raised Henry’s hopes that he could successfully resolve his “Great Matter”.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, XII/1, pp. 454-459; DNB, II, pp. 1126-1130, edited by James

Gairdner; MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 7, pp. 353-358, edited by Steven J. Gunn; HDTE, pp. 71-73, edited by Steven J. Gunn.

No. 5

He was a member of the King’s Council, one of Hen-ry VIII’s favourites and also his cousin29. During the 1529 Blackfriars’ trial he was one of the witnesses who gave evi-dence of the consummation of the marriage between Arthur and Catherine30. After some mishaps involving his family and Henry VII, Grey rapidly gained the new king’s friend-ship, above all for his skill at tilting and jousting, and in 1511 the title of marquis he had been stripped off on grounds of a suspected plot was reinstated. When Henry decided to send troupes to France to fight alongside Ferdinand of Aragon to recapture Guienne in 1512 he put Dorset in command and appointed him lieutenant-general on May 231. Ferdi-nand’s duplicity scuppered the expedition. The English dis-embarked in Spain but were forced to prolonged inactiv-ity and fell foul to a severe plague that totally demoralised them. The troupes staged a mutiny that ended the venture and they returned home.

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Henry had caught wind of the rebellion and wrote to Fer-dinand telling him to hold the troupes in Spain even under force, but his orders arrived too late and in November the contingent and the very ill Dorset disembarked at Plymouth. However, this event did not undermine the king’s esteem of Dorset and the latter attended him on the French campaign in 1513. He was invested as Lieutenant of the Order of the Garter in 1516 and dedicated himself mostly to tournaments and administered several churches and abbeys.

He caught the sweating sickness in 1517 and even if he survived it, his health was greatly impaired. He was summoned to *The Reformation Parliament in November 1529 and on December 1, signed the 44 charges against Cardinal Wolsey32, despite the fact he had been his pupil at Magdalen College. The signing of the letter to Clement VII represented Dorset’s final official deed. He died on October 10, 1530.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IV, pp. 419-420; DNB, VIII, pp. 645-647, edited by Charles Leth-

bridge Kingsford; MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 23, pp. 882-884, edited by Robert C. Braddock.

No. 6

“[...] D’anni trenta, cugino germano del re, disceso dalla sorella della madre di Sua Maestà, più propinquo alla Co-rona d’ogni altro [...]”33.

He was Edward IV’s grandson34 and Henry VIII’s cousin and his noble birth was the cause of his own fortune and his final disgrace. His father William was arrested for conspir-ing with Edmund de la Pole, a leading Yorkist35, and deport-ed to Calais when Courtenay was about six. It was thanks to his aunt, Queen Elizabeth, that the young Henry was received at court and brought up with the king’s children. When Henry VIII ascended the throne, William Courte-

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nay was released and made Earl of Devon in 1511, only to die a month later. Henry inherited the title and officially became a member of the court in 1514 when he took part in the negotiations for the marriage between Mary Tudor and Louis XII. He was always at the king’s side in the com-pany of other members of the king’s inner circle, such as the Duke of Suffolk with whom he often dined.

In 1519 he married for the second time and his bride was Lord Mountjoy’s daughter36, Gertrude Blount, who, like him, was a staunch supporter of the traditional religion. The fol-lowing year Courtenay became a member of the Privy Cham-ber and in June 1520 was in Henry VIII’s retinue at *The Field of the Cloth of Gold where he, Suffolk37 and Dorset38 distinguished themselves in the tournaments held for the oc-casion. On the Duke of Buckingham’s death in 1521 he be-came a member of the Order of the Garter and was elected Lieutenant of the Order in 1528. He was created Marquis of Exeter in the summer of 1525, and few months later the

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king appointed him privy councillor and to be on immedi-ate attendance on him. The next year the Eltham Ordinances enacted by Wolsey reformed the Privy Chamber and reduced the number of gentlemen serving on it, removing the cardi-nal’s enemies, including Exeter. However, at the last minute Henry VIII insisted on his cousin being part of, and presiding over the Chamber, hence watering down Wolsey’s plans.

Courtenay was a staunch conservative and harboured a deep and longstanding dislike of the cardinal, and this re-sentment was enhanced by his personal devotion to Queen Catherine and Princess Mary. Thus he was one of the most convinced members of *The Reformation Parliament who signed the 44 charges against the former Lord Chancellor in December 1529. The Marquis of Exeter joined the Bo-leyn faction supporting the rise of Anne and her family in order to hasten Wolsey’s downfall and so he signed the let-ter to Clement VII. Moreover, in 1533 he was part of the commission appointed to notify Catherine of her deposi-tion39. Yet, as soon as Queen Anne began to lose power, the marquis had no qualms about joining forces with Thomas Cromwell to bring about her downfall, and he was part of the plot that sent her brother Lord Rochford40 to the gallows. Nonetheless, the king’s influential minister wanted to oust his rival and had no qualms about accusing the Marquis of Exeter of backing Princess Mary as successor to the throne. Therefore, Henry VIII obliged the marquis to demonstrate his loyalty to him publicly and commissioned him to lead the cavalry sent to crush *The Pilgrimage of Grace.

In 1537 the Marquis of Exeter seemed to have regained the king’s trust, yet the latter wanted to test him further and appointed him to preside over the court called to judge the supporters of the traditional religion: Lord Darcy41 and Lord Hussey42, who had been involved in the uprisings in the north. The marquis and Lord Montagu43 were unexpectedly arrested on November 4, 1538 and on November 21, the marquis’ wife Gertrude and young child Henry were sent to the Tow-er along with Edward Nevill, brother of the deceased Lord Bergavenny44, and other supporters of Pole. This wave of ar-rests followed the confession obtained under torture of Ge-offrey Pole, Lord Montagu’s brother. The detainees were all

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accused of being supporters of the Yorkists45 and thus guilty of high treason, that carried the death penalty, for having been supposedly involved in *The Exeter Conspiracy (after the Marquis of Exeter). On December 3, 1539 Courtenay appeared in front of the court presided by Chancellor Tho-mas Audley to answer charges of plotting against the king and conniving with Cardinal Reginald Pole, *papal legate and champion of papal authority in England46. The verdict of guilty was unanimous and the marquis was beheaded on Tower Hill on December 9.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IV, pp. 330-331; V, p. 216; DNB, IV, pp. 1261-1262, edited by

Sidney Lee; DODDS, Pilgrimage of Grace, II, chapter XXIII; MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 13, pp. 678-680, edited by John P.D. Cooper; STARKEY, Reign (ad indicem); ID., Six Wives (ad indicem).

No. 7

He was invested as a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1525, summoned to *The Reformation Parliament in 1529, and regularly attended the fifth session in 1534 when he was the only temporal Lord to vote against *The Act in Absolute Restraint of Annates. He attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn on June 1, 1533 and was one of the Lords that con-demned Queen Anne and Lord Rochford47 to death. After the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536, his vast posses-sions were supplemented by the addition of Michelham Priory and numerous properties confiscated from Lewes Priory.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, I, p. 250; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament; MILLER, English Nobility

(ad indicem).

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No. 8

“Gran Ciamberlano, [...] capitano dell’Isola, uomo va-loroso e di autorità, [...] solito sempre di cavalcare con dugento cavalli”48.

He was knighted by Henry in 1513 after *The Bat-tle of the Spurs, attended the king at *The Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520 and in 1526 was made an earl. Then, thanks to the intercession of Cardinal Wolsey he was appointed Lord Chamberlain of England for life and was created Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1527. He was summoned to *The Reformation Parliament in 1529 and sided with the Duke of Norfolk – his-in-law49 – who headed the faction supporting the *divorce.

On December 1, 1529 he signed the 44 charges against Cardinal Wolsey.

On April 9, 1533 he was appointed to the commis-sion charged with formalising the deposition of Queen Catherine; thereafter he was sent to Princess Mary to inform her of her status of illegitimacy. At Anne Bo-leyn’s coronation ceremony he carried the crown. Three years later he sat on the commission of Peers that tried the queen and her brother Lord Rochford and sentenced them to death50.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, X, pp. 245-247; DNB, XX, p. 242, edited by James Tait; LEH-

MBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 56, pp. 308-310, edited by Jonathan Hughes.

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No. 9

He was appointed Warden of the East and Middle Marches51 in 1522. Brought up in Cardinal Wolsey’s household and one of his retinue for many years, he was under the cardinal’s power even after he was made an earl in 1527. Percy met Anne Boleyn, the queen’s young la-dy-in-waiting, when he went to court in the retinue of the influential prelate after the queen had returned from France at the end of 1521. Soon the two fell passionate-ly in love but the affair was ended abruptly by Wolsey in order to safeguard the betrothal that had been stipulated between the young Henry and Mary Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury’s daughter52.

Henry and Anne’s affair was over by the end of 1523 and he was obliged to marry Mary in the first months of 1524. However, the marriage did not last long. Shortly after his wife delivered a premature child in April 1529, Percy confided to a servant that he wanted to repudiate his wife and the couple lived separate lives. He was sum-moned to *The Reformation Parliament in 1529, was on the commission that drew up the charges against Car-dinal Wolsey and on November 4, 1530 went to Cawood Castle to arrest the prelate53.

In May 1536 he served on the commission of Peers that judged Queen Anne who was accused of adultery. Percy did not shrink from the task and, like all his col-leagues, found her guilty. Yet when the death sentence was being read out, overcome by emotion, and perhaps his enduring love for the accused, he collapsed and had to be taken out of the chamber54.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IX, pp. 720-722; DNB, XV, pp. 861-862, edited by William Arthur

Jobson Archbold; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English No-bility (ad indicem); ODNB, 43, pp. 717-720, edited by Richard W. Hoyle; POLLARD, Wolsey (ad indicem).

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No. 10

In 1523 he was knighted by Thomas Howard55, at that time Earl of Surrey, invested with the Order of the Gar-ter in 1525 and became a member of the King’s Council the following year. He was summoned to *The Reformation Parliament in 1529 and during the seventh session in 1536 voted in favour of *The Act of Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries, and was probably well rewarded for this deed.

On May 15 of the same year he was one of the Peers that tried Anne Boleyn and her brother George and sen-tenced them to death56.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, XII/2, pp. 553-554; DNB, XIV, pp. 278-279, edited by William

Arthur Jobson Archbold; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, Eng-lish Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 40, pp. 522-524, edited by Richard W. Hoyle.

No. 11

Talbot was “Gran Stuardo”57, the Lord Steward of the Household58 from 1506.

He was one of the oldest and most authoritative mem-bers of the court. He attended Henry VII’s accession to the throne, the marriage of Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII’s coronation, and retained the position on the King’s Council he had held during the reign of Henry VII.

During the issue of the *divorce, Talbot showed stead-fast loyalty to his king, even if he had not much liking for Anne Boleyn59.

On June 28, 1529 he gave evidence in front of the le-gatine court60, declaring among other things that:

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“[...] He the same night of the daie of the saide mar-iage, conducting the saide prince Arthur [...] unto the forsaid ladye Catherine [...] and to her bed and there he left hym for all night [...]”61.

When questioned about the carnalis copula between the couple, he declared he assumed that the prince had consummated the marriage62. He was summoned to *The Reformation Parliament in November 1529 and on De-cember 1 signed the 44 charges against Cardinal Wol-sey.

In July 1530 he received a visit from the king’s com-missioners William Brereton and Thomas Wriothesley who presented him the letter addressed to Clement VII so that he could add his signature63. After Wolsey was ar-rested, Talbot lodged the former Lord Chancellor on his Sheffield’s Park and Hardwick Hall estates until Novem-ber 24, 1530.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, XI, pp. 706-709; CONSTANT, Réforme (ad indicem); DNB, XIX, pp.

313-314, edited by Albert Frederick Pollard; MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 53, pp. 690-692, edited by George W. Bernard; POLLARD, Wolsey (ad indi-cem); WILLIAMS, Henry VIII, pp. 32-33.

No. 12

He was the first cousin of Queen Elizabeth of York and attended Henry VII’s coronation. He sat in Parliament for the first time in 1495 and was invested with the Order of the Garter before April 1499. He was one of the Peers who received the Infanta Catherine of Aragon when she ar-rived in England in 1500 and in 1503 attended the fu-neral of Elizabeth of York. In 1505 he was made a member of the King’s Council. At Henry VIII’s coronation he bore the Sword of State. During the first years of the new reign, Essex took active part in the court festivities so dear to the

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king and on one occasion, in 1510, he and the king broke into the queen’s apartments dressed up as Robin Hood to dance and have fun with the ladies-in-waiting. On Mardi Gras of the same year, during a banquet in honour of some foreign ambassadors, he and the king retired only to return dressed up as Turks with a large scimitar hanging at their sides, accompanied by six gentlemen dressed up as Prus-sians and by valets disguised as Moors.

In November 1529 he was summoned to *The Refor-mation Parliament but seems to have attended the various sessions only occasionally – and mostly by proxy – because of his poor health more than because he was opposed to the king’s policy64.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, V, pp. 138-139; DNB, II, p. 919, edited by William Hunt; LE-

HMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 6, pp. 816-817, edited by Steven J. Gunn; SCARISBRICK, Henry VIII (ad indicem).

No. 13

He was one of the youngest signatories and was a ward of Cardinal Wolsey until the latter died and then a ward of

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the Duke of Norfolk65, whose half-sister Dorothy he had married in February 1530. He was summoned to *The Reformation Parliament in 152966 and was a member of the House of Lords, despite his youth.

He was cupbearer at the coronation of Anne Boleyn on June 1, 1533 and three years later was one of the Peers that sentenced her to death.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IV, pp. 209-211; DNB, XVIII, pp. 937-938, edited by Albert Fre-

derick Pollard; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobil-ity (ad indicem); ODNB, 52, pp. 175-177, edited by Louis A. Knafla.

No. 14

He was the son of Charles Somerset67, Lord Chamber-lain of the Household, and Lady Elizabeth Herbert. He succeeded to the barony with the title Lord Herbert when his mother died and added the title Earl of Worcester when his father died in 1526.

On June 15, 1514 he married Margaret, the sister of the Marquis of Exeter, Henry Courtenay68, after having ob-tained the necessary papal dispensation69. Margaret died in April 1526 and by the end of 1527 Somerset remarried. His second wife was Elizabeth Browne, William FitzWil-liam’s stepsister70.

In 1529 he was summoned to *The Reformation Par-liament. He attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn on June 1, 1533 and the christening of Princess Elizabeth on September 10.

In 1536 he was one of the Peers that sentenced the queen and her brother Lord Rochford to death71.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, XII/2, pp. 851-852; DNB, 18, p. 655 (under Somerset William),

edited by Albert Frederick Pollard; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 51, p. 598 (under Somerset William), edited by W.R.B. Robinson.

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No. 15

He became Lord Ros (or Roos) when his father died in 1513 and had Plantagenet blood72. He was a very close friend of Henry VIII and during the early years of the king’s reign took part in numerous tournaments along with the Duke of Suffolk and the king’s favourites. On June 18, 1525 he was created Earl of Rutland and a week later was invested as a Knight of the Order of the Garter.

In 1529 he was summoned to *The Reformation Par-liament and in 1533 attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn. He became a member of the King’s Council in 1536, and on May of the same year, was one of the judges that tried the queen for high treason. In December 1538 was one of the lords who sentenced the Marquis of Exeter73 and Lord Montagu74 to death on charges of high treason.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, XI, pp. 253-255; DNB, XII, pp. 941-942, edited by William

Arthur Jobson Archbold; MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 36, pp. 477-479, edited by Mark M. Norris.

No. 16

He was brought up at the court of Henry VII and grew up with Prince Henry, and it was this long-standing friendship that made him one of the king’s innermost circle of friends.

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However young Clifford was never one of the king’s companions at arms and courtiers who attended Henry most of the day in the early years of his reign, nor did he seem to yearn for military success. He married Margaret, the Earl of Shrewsbury’s75 daughter. When she died short-ly after their marriage, he married Catherine, the sister of Henry Percy, future Earl of Northumberland76, in 1516 and they had two sons and four daughters.

On April 20, 1523 he succeeded his father as Lord Clifford, Westmorland and Vescy and on June 18, 1525 was created Earl of Cumberland. He was summoned to *The Reformation Parliament in November 1529 and sided with the king on the issue of the *divorce.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, III, pp. 566-567; DNB, IV, pp. 519-520, edited by Thomas An-

drew Archer; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 12, pp. 91-93, edited by Richard W. Hoyle.

No. 17

Robert Radcliffe was the son of John Lord FitzWal-ter, who had been condemned to death for conspiracy in 1496, and the family possessions were confiscated un-til 1505. He served Prince Arthur and then Henry VII, and was eventually reinstated and acted as Chamberlain at Henry VIII’s coronation. The king trusted and confid-ed in Radcliffe from early on and the latter distinguished himself in military achievements. In 1513 he was in the vanguard of the royal army in the French expedition led by the Earl of Shrewsbury77 and took part in the sieges of Thérouanne and Tournay. He also acted as the king’s representative on many occasions and attended him at the meeting at *The Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. He was invested as a Knight of Order of the Garter in 1524, appointed to the King’s Council in 1525 and on June 18

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of that year was created Viscount of FitzWalter. He served Henry VIII loyally, and supported him during the *divorce trial at Blackfriars in 1529 where he gave evidence of the consummation of the marriage between Arthur and Cath-erine. On such occasion he declared he had personally ac-companied the prince, together with the Earls of Shrews-bury and Oxford78, into Catherine’s bedchamber, leaving him in the nuptial bed where he was sure the young bride was79. In November 1529 he was summoned to *The Ref-ormation Parliament and signed the charges against Car-dinal Wolsey, and he was created Earl of Sussex on De-cember 8. On June 5, 1532 he was present when Thomas More resigned from his position as Lord Chancellor and in 1533 attended Anne Boleyn’s coronation acting as the young queen’s Lord Sewer80.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, XII/1, pp. 517-520; DNB, 16, pp. 578-579, edited by William

Arthur Jobson Archbold; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 45, pp. 747-748, edited by David Grummitt.

No. 18

He succeeded his father as Baron of Hastings on No-vember 9, 1506 when he was still a minor, and in Decem-ber 1509 he married the Duke of Buckingham’s daughter, Anne Stafford, by whom he had five sons. From this date on, he attended court regularly and was one of Henry VIII’s favourites all his life. The king made him a captain of the archers in the royal service and steward of various manors and monasteries. He became a member of the House of Lords in 1509, was summoned to *The Reformation Parliament in November 1529 and created Earl of Huntingdon on De-cember 8. Later he was one of the judges that tried Lord Da-cre of Gisland81 (1534), Thomas More (1535) and Queen Anne Boleyn (1536) who were accused of high treason.

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Geoffrey Pole involved him in *The Exeter Conspiracy, but he came out of the trial unscathed and retained his posi-tions at court and the king’s favour.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, VI, pp. 654-655; DNB, 9, pp. 123-124, edited by William Arthur

Jobson Archbold; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English No-bility (ad indicem); ODNB, 25, pp. 750-751, edited by Claire Cross.

No. 19

He was one of the two lords not sitting in the English Parliament that signed the document. He was the only son of the Lord-Deputy of Ireland82, Gerald, eighth Earl of Kil-dare, and after the latter’s arrest he was sent to London as a hostage around 1497 to guarantee his father’s loyalty to the English Crown. FitzGerald grew up at court with Princes Arthur and Henry and received the same aristocratic edu-cation; hence he developed a great interest in classical and renaissance literature. In 1502 he attended Prince Arthur’s

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funeral and in the same year married Elizabeth Zouche who was a blood relation of the king83. He then returned to Ire-land with his spouse in August 1503.

In September 1513 he inherited his father’s title Earl of Kildare and Henry VIII shortly confirmed him Lord-Deputy of Ireland. When he came to court to discuss the affairs of the kingdom and obtain the mandate to convene the Irish Parlia-ment in May 1515, he was accused of abuse of power but his post of Lord-Deputy was confirmed for the meantime. He was not so lucky when he returned to England in 1519 when he was stripped of office that was then assigned to Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey. Kildare was put on court arrest and was forbid-den to leave the kingdom in May 1520, but in June of the same year he attended the king at *The Field of the Cloth of Gold. He was released in November, but in spring 1521 he once again fell under suspicion and was not allowed to leave London or send envoys to his country. FitzGerald was reinstated in 1522 and married for a second time. His wife was Elizabeth Grey, the daughter of the Marquis of Dorset84 and the king’s cousin, and the marriage provided him with a powerful protector at court. The next year he returned to Ireland and was appointed Lord-Deputy in 1524. After new clashes broke out, Kildare departed again, in 1526, and entrusted the government of the country to his brother Thomas, who was shortly replaced by Richard Nugent, Lord Delvin, on the king’s orders. When he arrived at court, Lord Kildare was put into the custody of the Duke of Norfolk. He was accused of high treason when, in May 1528, Lord Delvin was kidnapped by the O’Conner fac-tion, who was allied with the FitzGeralds, and riots backed by the same Kildare broke out in Ireland. While in Norfolk’s cus-tody, he decided to make the most of his ties with the duke, the Boleyns and the Greys to regain Henry VIII’s favour. And it was his desire to ingratiate himself with the king that led him to sign the letter to Clement VII, showing his support of the *divorce. As a result, he was pardoned by the king in 1530 and allowed to return home.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, VII, pp. 232-235; DNB, VII, pp. 118-120, edited by Robert Dun-

lop; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indi-cem); ODNB, 19, pp. 801-805, edited by Steven G. Ellis; HDTE, pp. 201-203, edited by Anthony Sheehan.

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No. 20

He was a trustworthy servant of Henry VII and in 1504, when he was the Dean of St. Paul’s, he was sent by the king to Julius II to obtain the marriage dispensation for Henry and Catherine.

He was one of the leading conservative bishops and spent his last years wavering between loyalty to the king and loyalty to the Church of Rome, yet eventually, like many others, resigned himself to Henry VIII’s ecclesiasti-cal policy.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, XVIII, pp. 69-70, edited by Albert Frederick Pollard; ODNB, 50,

pp. 283-284, edited by Christopher Harper-Bill.

No. 21

He was a friend of Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII’s faithful servant and was often sent on various diplomatic missions.

Kite was a conservative but supported the king in the marriage case; indeed he was one of the prelates who signed the document endorsing the king’s twinges of con-science in 1529.

As from 1530 he resided in London most of the time and did not enjoy good health in old age.

Hence, Bishop Kite may have been one of the persons

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present at court who signed and sealed the letter to the pope Clement VII85.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, XI, pp. 232-233, edited by Thompson Cooper; ODNB, 31, pp. 842-

843, edited by David G. Newcombe.

No. 22

He was Henry VIII’s confessor and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s friend.

He played an active role in the *divorce case, took part in the Blackfriars legatine trial86 and later urged the Univer-sity of Oxford to pronounce itself in favour of the king.

Henry respected his uprightness and favoured him even when the train of events following the *divorce obliged the

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bishop to progressively and inexorably move away from the king’s ecclesiastical policy87.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, XII, pp. 120-121, edited by Joseph Hirst Lupton; ODNB, 34, pp. 395-

398, edited by Margaret Bowker; SMITH, Tudor prelates (ad indicem).

No. 23

At the outset he supported the ideas of the Reforma-tion, but in later life he sided with the conservative prelates. Although he had been a signatory of the renunciation of papal supremacy in England in 1534, Thomas Cromwell did not trust him and placed his man, the ardent reformer, William Barlow, alongside him. Two years later the latter succeeded Rawlings as bishop of the diocese.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, XVI, pp. 768-769, edited by William Arthur Jobson Archbold; ODNB,

46, pp. 151-152, edited by John P.D. Cooper.

No. 24

He was the eldest son of Richard Pole and Margaret Plantagenet, and was Edward IV’s nephew on his mother’s side. He was certainly one of those who unwillingly signed the letter to Clement VII and his – and other Peers’ - in-volvement in the *divorce matter is to be ascribed to ex-

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pediency and prudence, reasons that obliged him to make what were not always easy compromises. When his father died in 1504, he became the king’s ward and in 1509 pre-sided over the coronation of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, as the queen’s attendant.

He joined the Royal Household88 in 1510 and for al-most twenty years the Pole family enjoyed the king’s fa-vours. He married Jane Nevill, Lord Bergavenny’s89 daugh-ter, at some date before May 1520 and in June accompa-nied Henry VIII to *The Field of the Cloth of Gold and to the meeting with Charles V at Gravelines in July of the same year. He was summoned to *The Reformation Parliament and on December 1, 1529 became a member of the House of Lords. Initially his very close ties with Queen Catherine and her daughter Mary did not ruffle his relations with Henry.

On April 29, 1535 Lord Montagu sat on the Oyer and Terminer Commission investigating the London Carthusians, and on July 1 he was one of the members of the court that sentenced the former Lord Chancellor Thomas More to death. On May 15, 1536 together with the other Peers he pronounced Anne Boleyn’s and Lord Rochford’s death sentence, a decision that he must have agreed to with great difficulty as a month before he had not hesitated to inform the imperial ambassador Chapuys of his disappointment regarding the king’s second mar-riage and his policy against the pope90.

The publication of Pro Ecclesiasticae Unitatis Defen-sione91 – written by his brother Reginald Pole against Henry VIII’s *divorce and Royal Supremacy – jeopardised the entire Pole family, first and foremost Henry and his mother, Countess Margaret of Salisbury. In a controver-sial letter dated September 13, 1536 Montagu expressed his personal dissent from his brother’s extremely critical stance against the king and begged him to recant92.

The position of the Pole family came to a head in the summer of 1538 when Geoffrey, Henry’s other brother, was arrested93. He was subjected to very harsh interroga-tion and eventually made declarations that led to the ar-rest of Montagu, the Marquis of Exeter94, Edward Nevill

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and three others95. The Sussex and London courts gathered serious accusations against Montagu who was tried in front of Lord Chancellor Thomas Audley and a jury of twenty eight Peers. He bravely and unsuccessfully defended him-self and was found guilty on December 2, 1538.

He was executed on Tower Hill96 together with Exeter and Nevill on December 9.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IX, pp. 94-96; DNB, XVI, pp. 24-25, edited by James Gairdner;

MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 44, pp. 701-703, edited by Thomas F. Mayer.

No. 25

He was Anne Boleyn’s brother and one of the two sig-natories who were not members of the House of Lords97 and in all likelihood he signed the letter to Clement VII in lieu of his father, Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, who was abroad on a diplomatic mission.

From 1528 he had been one of the king’s close col-laborators on the question of the *divorce, and had been sent with John Stokesley on a diplomatic mission that lasted from October 1529 to February 1530. The aim of the mission was, among other things, to make sure the theologians of the Sorbonne pronounced the invalidity of the royal marriage. He was a strong supporter of Luther’s ideas98 and in 1534 gave his sister, who had meanwhile become queen, two manuscripts written by French re-formers.

When Anne began to fall from Henry’s grace, her brother’s position began to totter and the anti-Boleyn fac-tion schemed with Rochford’s wife, Lady Jane Parker, who skilfully masterminded a plot hinged on suspected inces-tuous relations between him and his sister, the queen. The plot was successful and the viscount was arrested and taken

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to the Tower on May 2, 1536 on charges of incest with the queen and plotting against the king.

Despite his passionate and eloquent self-defence, his fate was sealed: he was tried and declared guilty and be-headed on Tower Hill on May 17, 1536.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IX, App. B, p. 18; X, pp. 140-142; XI, p. 51; DNB, II, pp. 781-

782, edited by James Gairdner; IVES, Anne Boleyn (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobil-ity (ad indicem); ODNB, 6, pp. 467-469, edited by Joseph S. Block.

No. 26

He was the Prior of the London Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem and of Malta from 1524 and was entitled to sit as the leading baron in the Upper House of *The Reformation Parliament in 1529.

He did not always take a consistent stance within the assembly, for example in 1534 he opposed *The Act of First Fruits and Tenths, but signed *The Act of Supremacy. Nevertheless, the king regarded him as a conservative and hence used Weston much less than he had used his pred-ecessor, Prior Thomas Docwra.

When the greater monasteries were dissolved in 1539, the existence of the Order of St. John was jeopardised, and that year Weston’s favourite nephew, Thomas Dingley, was executed for high treason.

The act dissolving the Knights Hospitaller of London was passed by the House of Commons on May 7, 1540 and the prior died that very day99.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, XX, pp. 1288-1289, edited by Ernest Clarke; ODNB, 58, pp. 312-

313, edited by Gregory J. O’Malley.

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No. 27

He had been a member of Parliament from 1497 and through his illustrious ancestors was well connected with the Tudors, the House of York and the Pole family100, the last supporters of the White Rose101. In January 1530 he married for the fourth time and his new bride was his lover, Mary Brooke, one of Lord Cobham’s102 sisters.

In 1501 he had received the Infanta Catherine of Aragon, Prince Arthur’s bride-to-be, at Richmond. He in-herited the position of Chief Larderer and as such attended Henry VIII’s coronation. He loved tilting and tournaments and became on of the king’s closest friends.

Thanks to this friendship the king granted him many favours, including the title of Lord Bergavenny togeth-er with the estates that had once belonged to his paternal grandmother Elizabeth Beauchamp.

In 1513 he was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports103 and invested with the Order of the Garter. Around June 1519, he married for the third time and his wife was Mary Stafford, one of the Duke of Buckingham’s daugh-ters, by whom he had six children. In June 1520 he at-tended Henry VIII at *The Field of the Cloth of Gold and the following month at the meeting with the emperor at Gravelines.

Buckingham fell into disgrace and was executed in 1521. This had a very negative impact on Nevill’s career as he was suspected of conniving with his father-in-law and his faction. As a result he was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London from May 1521 to the beginning of 1522. He was obliged to resign from all his official positions, had to sell his residence at Birling to the crown and committed himself to pay a hefty fine before the king pardoned him.

Nonetheless, his position was fatally compromised and Lord Bergavenny was ousted from the King’s Council that he had sat on since 1515.

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He gradually backed away from royal and court poli-cies, yet publicly showed he wished to regain Henry’s trust. And it may have been to obtain his unconditioned support of the *divorce case that Henry showed his favours by al-lowing him to buy back his residence at Birling, in April 1530. A few months later Nevill signed and placed his seal on the letter to Clement VII.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, I, pp. 31-33; DNB, XIV, pp. 257-258, edited by William Arthur

Jobson Archbold; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English No-bility (ad indicem); ODNB, 40, pp. 495-497, edited by Alasdair Hawkyard.

No. 28

He was the son of James Tuchet, who had been ex-ecuted on charges of conspiracy in 1497, Henry VIII’s distant cousin on his mother’s side104. In 1512 he was re-instated as Lord Audley, the title his father had lost, and the following year attended the king on the French mili-tary campaign. He was summoned to Parliament in 1514 and sat in the House of Lords until October 1556.

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He did not sit on *The Reformation Parliament regu-larly and was often authorised not to attend, at times ap-pointing Thomas Cromwell to represent him.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, I, p. 342; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER,

English Nobility (ad indicem).

No. 29

He was William Dacre of Gisland’s105 brother-in-law, and was summoned to Parliament for the first time in 1512, and then again in 1515. On September 9, 1513 he took part in *The Battle of Flodden Field and in 1523 followed Thomas Howard, at that time the Earl of Surrey, on the ex-pedition to Scotland against John Stewart, Duke of Albany. In November 1524 he was one of the royal commissioners charged with collecting the so-called “Amicable Grant” to fund the war against France.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, XI, pp. 546-547; DNB, XVII, p. 1079 (under Scrope John), edited

by James Tait; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem).

No. 30

He was summoned to sit for the first time on Henry VII’s fifth Parliament in 1495 and maintained his seat in the Lords also under Henry VIII. In *The Reformation Parliament he sided with the pro-*divorce faction lead by the Duke of Norfolk106.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IX, pp. 9-10; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER,

English Nobility (ad indicem).

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No. 31

He was a close friend of Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount of Lisle, of Henry Courtenay107, Marquis of Exeter, and of Robert Sherborne, Bishop of Chichester – all of whom were members of the conservative faction. He certainly must have felt uncomfortable at signing and sealing the letter to Clement VII and over the 1530s his support of the king’s ecclesiastical policies waned.

He was summoned to sit on *The Reformation Parlia-ment in 1529 and had a seat in the House of Lords until 1553, even if he did not attend sessions on a regular basis. Yet, he was one of the Peers who tried Lord Dacre of Gis-land108 in 1534, Queen Anne Boleyn and Lord Rochford109 in 1536 and Barons Darcy110 and Hussey111 in 1537.

Although he was a conservative in religious matters, West was acquiescent to the king’s wishes and in 1534 was one of the commissioners of oaths for *The Act of Su-premacy in Sussex.

However, in 1538, West’s life was endangered by his in-volvement in *The Exeter Conspiracy. Many of his friends were arrested in the space of a few days, including the same Marquis of Exeter, George Croftes, the Chancellor of Chichester, and Geoffrey Pole. The accused declared that La Warre was a member of the faction supporting the tra-ditional religion and Sir Henry Owen, his brother-in-law, declared he had heard him publically criticising the work-ings of Parliament and saying that God would have pun-ished the dissolution of the monasteries and the dissemi-nation of the English Bible.

On December 1, 1538 Thomas West was examined by seven members of the King’s Council who informed the king that they had not gathered sufficient information to arrest him.

Yet the next day West was taken to the Tower of London and it was rumoured that the king himself had ordered his

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arrest because on November 30 La Warre had refused to take part in, or to preside over, the commission trying Lord Montagu112.

However, the baron was released before Christmas after paying a three thousand pound fine.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IV, pp. 156-157; DNB, XX, pp. 1252-1255, edited by Isaac Saun-

ders Leadam; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 58, pp. 242-244, edited by Michael Riordan.

No. 32

He was appointed Warden of the East Marshes in 1527 and was the son-in-law of the Earl of Shrewsbury113 – he married his youngest daughter Elizabeth – and brother-in-law of Lord Conyers114 and Lord Berners115. He was called Lord Dacre of Gisland or of the North to distinguish him from Thomas Fiennes, Lord Dacre of the South.He had inherited the title of Baron of Greystoke from his mother Elizabeth in 1516, inherited his father’s title in 1525 and in 1529 was summoned to *The Reformation Parlia-ment. He was a conservative in religious matters, but his loyalty to Henry VIII stopped him from openly opposing the king until the latter died.

He was arrested during a parliamentary sitting on May 8, 1534, imprisoned in the Tower and a jury of Peers tried him for alleged connivance with the Scots.

After a seven hour long self-defence the baron was acquitted on July 9.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IV, pp. 21-22; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER,

English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 14, pp. 882-884, edited by Steven G. Ellis.

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No. 33

In 1529 he was summoned to *The Reformation Par-liament and was a distant cousin of Thomas Howard116, who had knighted him on September 9, 1513 after *The Battle of Flodden Field.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, II, pp. 136-137; MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem).

No. 34

He was the father-in-law of Lord Rochford117, who married his daughter Jane around 1525, and was one of the most cultured members of the House of Lords and a famous translator of Latin and Italian118.

He was basically a conservative in religious matters, yet he harboured antipapal ideas, supported limited reforma-tion and, on the whole, shared Henry VIII’s views.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IX, pp. 221-224; DNB, XV, pp. 238-240, edited by Sidney Lee;

LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 42, pp. 675-678, edited by James P. Carley.

No. 35

He was summoned to Parliament for the first time in November 1529. He was a Protestant supporter and in close contact with the leaders of the Lutheran movement in England.

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In 1536 he was one of the twenty seven Peers who sentenced Anne and George Boleyn to death119.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, III, p. 340; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILL-

ER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 7, pp. 887-888, edited by Charles S. Knighton.

No. 36

He had become a member of the House of Lords in 1491 but only sat on the first session of *The Reformation Parliament. He died between December 12 and 28, 1530 a few months after he had signed and sealed the letter to Clement VII.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, VII, pp. 481-482; DNB, XIV, p. 296, edited by William Arthur

Jobson Archbold; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English No-bility (ad indicem); ODNB, 40, pp. 537-538, edited by L.L. Ford.

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No. 37

He inherited the title on the death of his brother Wil-liam on September 19, 1524. He was summoned to *The Reformation Parliament on August 9, 1529 and sat in the House of Lords on and off until the beginning of 1534.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, XII/1, pp. 304-305; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem).

No. 38

He was the brother-in-law of Lord Daubeney120 and had married the latter’s only sister Cecily. He became a member of the King’s Council in 1520 and sat on *The Reforma-tion Parliament from November 1529 to June 1536. He was created Earl of Bath on July 9 of that year.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, V, pp. 510-511; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem);

MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem).

No. 39

He belonged to an important family with illustrious lay and ecclesiastical ancestors121. Moreover, Lord Berners was closely connected to the Howards122. He was Henry VIII’s friend and had been sent to Spain as ambassador at the court of Charles of Hapsburg for some months in 1518 and was appointed Deputy of Calais in 1520. He was sum-moned to Parliament in 1495, and sat in the House of

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Lords until 1533. In addition to his diplomatic and mili-tary career, he was renowned for his translations of French and Spanish works of chivalry.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, II, pp. 153-154; DNB, II, pp. 920-922, edited by Sidney Lee;

LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 6, pp. 819-821, edited by James P. Carley.

No. 40

He was a member of Parliament from 1514 and was Lord Scrope’s123 son-in-law, having married Scrope’s daugh-ter Anne. He was a staunch supporter of the traditional reli-gion and did not hesitate to take a leading part in *The Pil-grimage of Grace. However, after an amnesty was granted to the insurgents in December 1536, he did not take part in any other uprisings.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, VIII, pp. 275-276; DNB, XII, p. 272, edited by William Arthur

Jobson Archbold; HOYLE, Pilgrimage of Grace (ad indicem); LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 34, pp. 749-750, edited by Christine M. Newman.

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No. 41

He was the Superintendent of the Royal Mint and Queen Catherine’s chamberlain. He was a cousin of Eliz-abeth Blount, Henry FitzRoy’s124 mother, Henry Courte-nay’s125 father-in-law and Thomas Grey’s126 son-in-law.

In 1498 he met Erasmus of Rotterdam in Paris and became his pupil and close friend, inviting him to Eng-land to stay with him the following year. His residence soon became a refuge for erudite scholars.

In those years William studied with Prince Henry and he attended his coronation in 1509. In May 1521 he sat among the Peers during the trial against the Duke of Buckingham. He was invested with the Order of the Garter in 1526 and around 1529 was appointed Stew-ard of the Cambridge’s University.

It was his loyalty to the king that dictated his par-ticipation in the “Great Matter”. When he was called as a witness at the Blackfriars trial, he “said little, but by the way of the public report”127.

After signing and placing his seal on the letter to Clement VII, he maintained the position as the queen’s chamberlain until 1533. In July of that year he went to Ampthill to persuade Catherine to comply with the king’s wishes and renounce the title of queen, but on seeing the queen’s firm refusal the baron wrote to Cromwell in Oc-tober asking to be replaced.

In July 1534, shortly before he died, Mountjoy ful-filled another task for the crown when he was one the judges that tried Lord Dacre of Gisland128 on charges of high treason.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IX, pp. 338-341; DNB, II, pp. 721-722, edited by Sidney Lee;

LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 6, pp. 316-317, edited by James P. Carley.

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No. 42

His father-in-law Lord Dacre of Gisland129 had pre-sented him to Cardinal Wolsey in 1515 urging the prelate to take him into service130.

In 1522 he took part in the military campaign against Scotland under the Earl of Shrewsbury131 and two years lat-er he inherited his father’s title. He was summoned to *The Reformation Parliament and attended several sessions un-til it was wound up in 1536.

He took part in *The Pilgrimage of Grace along with other rebellious barons who assembled at Pontefract132.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, III, pp. 404-405; HOYLE, Pilgrimage of Grace (ad indicem); LEHM-

BERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); RICH-ARDSON-EVERINGHAM-FARIS, Plantagenet Ancestry (ad indicem).

No. 43

He was the son of Giles Daubeney, Lord Chamberlain of the Royal Household of Henry VII. After the death of his first wife Elizabeth Nevill, Lord Bergavenny’s133 daughter, he married Catherine Howard, daughter of the second Duke of Norfolk134, and hence became part of that powerful family. He was created Earl of Bridgwater in 1538.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IX, p. 105; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER,

English Nobility (ad indicem).

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No. 44

(1467-1537)

“Il maggior contavolo Ary [Darcy], cavaliere dell’Or-dine”135.

In 1499 he married, secondly, Edith Sandys, the Earl of Westmorland’s widow, and he became the stepfa-ther of his young successor136. This connection, plus his friendship with Henry VII, resulted in him being created a Peer in 1504 and invested as a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1509.

When Henry VIII ascended the throne, Darcy was given more and more military appointments, both on the Scottish borders and on the continent. In May 1511 he led the English contingent to flank Ferdinand of Aragon in the war against the Moors in Spain. In 1513 he went on the French military campaign with Henry VIII where he took part in *The Battle of the Spurs and the siege of Thérouanne137.

In the 1520s he became more and more strongly opposed to Cardinal Wolsey’s politics, and composed a long series of articles against him138 that was later used to draw up the 44 charges against the cardinal that were presented in Parliament in 1529.

Darcy took a critical stance against the *divorce. When summoned to Blackfriars, he merely gave evidence that he had been in the king’s service in the North of England at that time139.

Signing and applying his seal to the letter to Clem-ent VII cannot have been easy for him. Indeed, he was convinced that the marriage case was under ecclesiastical jurisdiction and was brave enough to declare his opinion publically in 1532, an action that angered the powerful Duke of Norfolk140. When the insurgents laid siege to Pontefract castle during *The Pilgrimage of Grace, he tried to call a truce with Robert Aske, but then joined sides with the rebels.

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Henry offered him one last chance to redeem him-self: he ordered him to arrest Aske and when the baron refused to carry out the order on grounds of honour, he fell into disgrace.

He was pardoned by the king in December 1536, but on March 7, 1537 he was arrested on charges of alleg-edly conspiring with the rebels led by Francis Bigod. On May 15 he was tried at Westminster Hall and sentenced to death for high treason141. He was executed on Tower Hill142 on June 30 and his head was placed on London Bridge143.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IX, pp. 73-74; DNB, V, pp. 499-503, edited by James Gairdner;

DODDS, Pilgrimage of Grace, I, chapter 2, and II, chapter 20; HOYLE, Pilgrimage of Grace (ad indicem); LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 15, pp. 134-137, edited by Richard W. Hoyle.

No. 45

He was the second cousin of the Earl of Derby144 and after his father died he became a ward of Lord Darcy145 and Lord Hussey146. He married Mary Brandon, daughter of the Duke of Suffolk147, around 1527 and they had six children.

In summer 1527 he accompanied Cardinal Wolsey to France on a diplomatic mission148. He was summoned to the House of Lords to sit on *The Reformation Parliament in 1529, and right from the outset supported the king in the matter of the *divorce.

On June 1, 1533 he attended Anne Boleyn’s corona-tion and in May 1536 he was one of the Peers who tried the queen and sentenced her to death.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, IX, pp. 115-116; DNB, XVIII, pp. 936-937, edited by Albert Fre-

derick Pollard; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobil-ity (ad indicem); ODNB, 52, pp. 174-175, edited by Gervase Phillips.

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No. 46

He was Lord Chamberlain of the Royal Household149, Henry VII’s confident and in 1501 was a member of the reception party that welcomed the Infanta Catherine of Aragon on her arrival in London. Henry VIII confirmed him as Knight of the King’s Body and the two of them became close friends.

In 1512, in the capacity of treasurer he accompanied the Marquis of Dorset150 on the military expedition to Gascony, and after the mission failed Sandys blamed it on Cardinal Wolsey who was the King’s Almoner at that time. In 1513 he took part in the invasion of France led by Henry VIII and in 1518 was invested as a Knight of the Order of the Garter and became a member of the King’s Council.

In 1520 he attended the king at *The Field of the Cloth of Gold.

He was made a baron in 1523 and, in 1529, sum-moned to *The Reformation Parliament, but despite the mutual feelings of esteem binding Sandys and the king, the former remained a conservative in religious issues. Nev-ertheless, like the majority of the members of court that signed the letter to Clement VII, he seemingly adapted to Henry’s new ecclesiastical policy in the ensuing years.

On June 1, 1533 he attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn, but in 1536 he sat on the Oyer and Terminer Commission that tried the queen for high treason, and in May of the same year was one of the Peers who sentenced her to death.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, XI, pp. 441-444; DNB, XVII, pp. 784-785, edited by William

Arthur Jobson Archbold; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 48, pp. 935-936, edited by Ronald H. Fritze; WILLIAMS, Henry VIII, pp. 32-33.

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No. 47

He was an eminent figure at the court of Henry VII and went on to become a member of Henry VIII’s King’s Coun-cil. He was one of the leaders of the rearguard during the 1513 French invasion and in 1520 attended Henry VIII at *The Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Hussey was summoned to Parliament in 1529 as Knight of the Shire for Lincolnshire and on December 1 he was created baron and summoned by writ to the House of Lords. Because of his long court career, he was inter-rogated at the Blackfriars trial on the diplomatic relations between England and Spain during Henry VII’s reign and the circumstances preceding the marriage of Henry and Catherine. But he was not questioned on the validity of such marriage151.

He shared the same religious convictions as Thomas Darcy152 and the conservative faction, yet showed his alle-giance to the king by signing the letter to Clement VII. In autumn 1530 he was appointed Chamberlain to Princess Mary alongside his wife who was one of her attendants. In 1532 Hussy sat on the commission appointed to receive *The Submission of the Clergy.

He attended the coronation of Anne Boleyn on June 1, 1533 and the christening of Princess Elizabeth on Sep-tember 10. In 1534 the baron decided to take a stance and secretly contacted Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, informing him of his hopes that Charles V would attack England to defend the traditional religion153.

He unsuccessfully tried to oppose the rebels of the Oc-tober 1536 Lincolnshire uprising and disguised himself as a priest to escape being taken prisoner. He fled from Slea-ford to Nottingham where he found refuge with the Earl of Shrewsbury154. The king pardoned him for his actions, but after further uprisings in the North, he fell under sus-picion once again in spring 1537 and he was arrested at Sleaford on May 12 of the same year.

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Three days later he and Thomas Darcy were tried by the jury of twenty one Peers155 presided by the Marquis of Exeter156 at Westminster.

Although he proclaimed his innocence, Hussy was sen-tenced to death. Cromwell offered him the possibility of saving his life if he provided him with information on the insurgents, but the baron refused to do so saying he knew nothing about the entire matter. He was taken back to Lin-coln and beheaded on June 29, 1537.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, VII, pp. 15-17; DNB, X, pp. 329-330, edited by W.J. Hardy;

DODDS, Pilgrimage of Grace, I, chapter 2, and II, chapter 20; HOYLE, Pilgrimage of Grace (ad indicem); LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 28, pp. 986-989, edited by Richard W. Hoyle.

No. 48

He was appointed Keeper of the Great Wardrobe in 1506. In 1512 he went on the military expedition to France under the leadership of the Marquis of Dorset157, and served under William Sandys158. Then in 1513, he went to Cal-ais with the king as Treasurer of the King’s Middlewards, and was invested as a Knight Bannered probably after *The Battle of the Spurs.

In 1520 he attended Henry VIII at *The Field of the Cloth of Gold and in 1529 was summoned to *The Ref-ormation Parliament among the Knights of Buckingham-shire, one of the shires he was sheriff of. He sat in the House of Commons at the opening of the first session on November 3.

He was created baron on December 1 and thus elevated to the House of Lords. Subsequently, he was among those who tried Anne and George Boleyn159, Lord Darcy160 and Lord Hussey161, the Marquis of Exeter162, Lord Montagu163 and Lord Dacre of Gisland164 for high treason. When the uprisings in the North broke out in autumn 1536 he was assigned two hundred men to protect the king.

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In January 1539 he was granted several estates that had belonged to the monasteries of Syon, St. Peter’s at West-minster, St. Albans and Bordesley.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, XII/2, pp. 792-794; DNB, XXI, p. 647 (under Windsor-Hickman,

Thomas, edited by Albert Frederik Pollard); LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem).

No. 49

He was a member of the Duke of Suffolk’s165 court, in-herited his own family estate in 1528 and in November 1529 was summoned to the House of Commons of *The Reformation Parliament among the Knights of the Shire of Suffolk. He was invested as baron on December 2 – per-haps on the request of the same Brandon - and elevated to the House of Lords.

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He was a staunch advocate of religious reform, was ac-tively involved in pursuing the clergy who were accused of professing papal supremacy and fostered the dissemination of Luther’s ideas in the kingdom.

On May 15, 1536 he was one of the Peers that sen-tenced Queen Anne and her brother Lord Rochford166 to death, and when the uprising in the North broke out in the autumn of the same year he was provided with one hundred soldiers to defend the king and flank the Duke of Norfolk167 in the county of Suffolk.

Between 1537 and 1538 he was assigned the mon-astery of Newhouse in Lincolnshire and the Monastery of the Franciscans at Ipswich. On December 2 and 3, he was one of the judges who tried the Marquis of Exeter168 and Lord Montagu169.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, XII/2, pp. 497-499; DNB, XX, pp. 1175-1176, edited by Albert

Frederick Pollard; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 58, pp. 136-137, edited by P.R.N. Carter.

No. 50

He was knighted in 1513 at Flodden Field or at Tournay, and inherited his family estates on February 22, 1529. The following December, without a formal writ of summons, he sat among the barons at *The Reformation Parliament. He was the new Queen Anne’s Chamberlain at her coronation in June 1533.

In 1537 he was one of the judges that tried Lord Dar-cy170 and Lord Hussey171 and in 1538 one of the Peers that sentenced the Marquis of Exeter172 and Lord Mon-tagu173 to death.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, II, p. 423; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER,

English Nobility (ad indicem).

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No. 51

He was elected Abbot of St. Peter’s Abbey, Westmin-ster174 in October 1500175. He was a member of the Ben-edictine Order and had always enjoyed cordial relations with the crown. He rendered great services to Henry VIII and the name of Islip appears in the King’s Council176 in the years from 1516 to 1526. In 1529, together with William Burbank, the Archdeacon of Carlisle, and others he searched for documents in the royal papers to present to the legatine court177.

In autumn 1530, Islip and all other high ranking members of the clergy were accused of *Praemunire for having placed themselves under the legatine authority of Cardinal Wolsey, the latter being condemned for abuse of power. The process was brought to a halt by *The Submis-sion of the Clergy to the king and the payment of hefty fines. During the last year of Abbot Islip’s life, Westmin-ster became one of the growing number of monasteries obliged to pay an annual tax to the king’s counsellor, Tho-mas Cromwell, who was wielding more and more clout.

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On May 12, 1532 after having been abbot of St. Pe-ter’s Abbey for over thirty years, Islip died on his estate at La Neyte near Chelsea. He was given a sumptuous funer-al, the likes never having been seen before for an abbot of Westminster: it was attended by large crowds and his body was escorted by monks and attendants until dawn.

Bio-bibliographic referencesBASKERVILLE, English Monks; DNB, X, pp. 510-511, edited by Mandell Creight-

on; DUNHAM, Members; KNOWLES, Religious Orders, III, pp. 96-99; Monasticon Angli-canum, I, pp. 277–279; ODNB, 29, pp. 436-437.

No. 52

He was elevated to Abbot of Bury St. Edmunds178 in 1514. He was a member of the King’s Council, attended court and lived a worldly life. He attended the 1534 Par-liament regularly even if he did not play a major role.

On November 4, 1539 the abbot, the prior and 43 monks signed the deed surrendering the abbey to the crown. He was granted a pension amounting to what would be al-most nine thousand pounds today and retired to private life in a dwelling in Bury where died, perhaps from gout, on March 31, 1540.

Bio-bibliographic referencesBASKERVILLE, English Monks; DUNHAM, Members; Monasticon Anglicanum, III,

pp. 115-116; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament; VCH, Suffolk, 2, p. 72.

No. 53

He became Abbot of St. Mary’s Abbey, Glastonbury179, the oldest Benedictine Abbey in England, in 1525. During his abbacy he attended court regularly and enjoyed friendly relations with the king, even if it is likely that he did not

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agree on the matter of the *divorce. Nonetheless, he signed and sealed the letter to Clement VII and in 1534 signed *The Act of Supremacy together with the prior of the abbey and fifty fellow monks. Meanwhile he did his best to keep the abbey in the king’s favour by presenting him, and his powerful vicar in spiritualibus Thomas Cromwell, with gifts.

His underlying reason for ingratiating himself with the king and yielding to Henry’s wishes was to save the abbey. In effect, the abbot’s efforts were rewarded as the crown saved the monastery from dissolution for some time. But, on September 19, 1539 Glastonbury was the last abbey in Somerset to receive a visit from Cromwell’s commissioners who had come to question the elderly ab-bot. They went to Whiting on his Sharpham estate, inter-rogated him and accused him of disloyalty to the king for allegedly taking part in *The Exeter Conspiracy.

A book against the *divorce and some precious ob-jects the abbot had hidden from the king’s visitors were found during a search, therefore Whiting was arrested, imprisoned in the Tower of London and handed over to the crown. The abbot was accused of robbing the mon-astery, and after a perfunctory trial at Wells he was tak-en back to Glastonbury, on November15, 1539, and dragged on a hurdle pulled by two horses to St. Michael Tor, the hill above the town, where he was hanged, drawn and quartered with two fellow monks, John Thorne and Roger James (or Jacob). His head was placed at the abbey gateway and his quartered body displayed at Wells, Bath, Ilchester and Bridgwater180.

On May 13, 1895 Leo XIII signed the decree for his beatification.

Bio-bibliographic referencesBASKERVILLE, English Monks (ad indicem); BS, XII, coll. 1403-1405, edited

by Niccolò Del Re; DNB, XXI, pp. 139-140, edited by W.H. Hutton; KNOWLES, Religious Orders, III, pp. 379-382; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament; Monasticon Anglicanum, I, pp. 7–9; ODNB, 58, p. 733, edited by Nicholas Doggett.

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No. 54

He became Abbot of St. Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester181 in 1514, and in 1524 wrote a story in verses about the foun-dation of the Benedictine Monastery.

He was considered an opponent of Henry’s ecclesiasti-cal policy, but nonetheless could not evade paying the in-demnity established by the Statute of *Praemunire against the clergy in the autumn of 1530. In August 1534 he signed *The Act of Supremacy together with 35 monks. In 1538 the king ordered him to recall the prior and the monks from the Prior of Stanley St. Leonard that be-longed to St. Peter’s, so that it could be leased to William Kingston182.

Parker died before 1539 and in 1540 the abbey was surrendered to the crown by an official deed signed by the prior and monks.

Bio-bibliographic referencesBASKERVILLE, English Monks (ad indicem); Monasticon Anglicanum, I, pp. 536-537;

VCH, Gloucester, 2, pp. 60-61; DNB, XII, pp. 892-893, edited by William Arthur Jobson Archbold; ODNB, 36, pp. 376-377, edited by Caroline Litzenberger.

No. 55

He was elected Abbot of St. Mary Virgin’s, the Benedic-tine Abbey at Abingdon183, around 1514 and was one of the first to officially acknowledge Royal Supremacy in 1534.

On February 7, 1538 the royal commissioners John Tregonwell and William Petre were given a large sum of money to acquire St. Mary’s for the crown and two days later the abbot, the prior and twenty four monks signed the official deed. Pentecost was given a new abode and a yearly pension, while the monks were given smaller, but adequate, lifetime annuities.

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Sir Rowland184 was no longer entitled to sit in Par-liament and was downgraded to a simple priest, yet he maintained his previous lifestyle, and the same number of servants he had had as an abbot, in his manner at Cumnor.

Bio-bibliographic referencesBASKERVILLE, English Monks (ad indicem); Monasticon Anglicanum, I, p. 510;

VCH, Berkshire, 2, pp. 58-59.

No. 56

He became Abbot of the Church of the Holy Trin-ity, St. Mary Virgin and St. John Baptist, Reading185 in 1520. The Benedictine Abbot exchanged the customary New Year’s gifts186 with the king for many years and be-came the king’s close friend and hunting companion187. Furthermore, Henry requested the abbot’s presence at court for several official ceremonies.

Cook had a strong character and was a conservative at heart. He led the monastery with a steady hand but wavered between devotion to the king and strong opposi-tion to his ecclesiastical policy.

After signing the letter to Clement VII and sending Henry several books from the abbey’s library that could support the *divorce case, in April 1533 he and 15 fel-low theologians had the courage to declare that Henry and Catherine’s marriage was valid and legitimized by the papal dispensation from the impediment of *affin-ity. However, he did not oppose *The Act of Supremacy and signed it with his fellow monks on September 19, 1534.

Over the following years his relations with Henry cooled. Some time between April and September 1539, Cromwell sent his visitors to find out whether Cook would “voluntarily” hand over the abbey to the crown. His friendship with the Marquis of Exeter and the Baron

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of Montagu proved fatal to him. The abbot was arrested on charges of high treason and the abbey surrendered to the crown.

Cook was given a perfunctory trial and sentenced to death on October 27, 1539. On November 14 or 15, he was taken to Reading where he was dragged round the town and to the abbey on a hurdle pulled by two horses. He was hanged in front of the abbey with two fellow monks, John Eynon (or Onyon) and John Rugg and his body was left to rot on the gallows at the monastery gateway188.

On May 13, 1895 Leo XIII signed the decree for his beatification.

Bio-bibliographic referencesBASKERVILLE, English Monks; BS, V, col. 466, edited by Celestino Testore;

DNB, VI, pp. 1070-1071, edited by C. Trice-Martin; GASQUET, English Monas-teries, II, pp. 356-373; HURRY JAMIESON, Reading Abbey, pp. 44-54; KNOWLES, Religious Orders, III, pp. 378-379; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament; Monasticon Anglicanum, IV, pp. 32-33; ODNB, 13, pp. 103-104, edited by Claire Cross; VCH, Berkshire, 2, pp. 68-73.

No. 57

He was elected Abbot of St. Mary’s Abbey, York189, in March 1521 and held the post until November 1530. On December 1, 1530 the prior and monks formally re-quested permission to elect another abbot after the death of Whalley190.

Once royal permission had been granted on De-cember 12 of the same year, the monks elected Wil-liam Thornton alias Dent, the former Prior of Weth-erale, and it was he who surrendered the abbey to the crown. Indeed, the abbot and fifty monks signed the official document on November 26, 1539 in return for a yearly pension.

Bio-bibliographic referencesMonasticon Anglicanum, III, p. 539; VCH, York, 3, p. 111.

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No. 58

He became Abbot of Peterborough Abbey191, the larg-est Benedictine Abbey in the diocese of Lincoln192, in 1528. He, the prior and thirty nine fellow monks signed *The Act of Supremacy on July 27, 1534.

In 1535 Catherine of Aragon was buried in the abbey between two columns situated north of the choir beside the high altar. After unsuccessfully striving to save Peterborough Abbey from dissolution, on November 29, 1539 Cham-bers and thirty eight monks signed the deed surrendering it to the crown. He became keeper of its temporal assets and was provided with a yearly pension. On September 4, 1541 the abbey became a cathedral193 and Chambers was ordained bishop of the new diocese on October 23.

In 1542 he sat on a commission set up to revise *The Great Bible and focused on the Book of Revelation. He died on February 7, 1556 and was buried in the cathedral choir.

Bio-bibliographic referencesBASKERVILLE, English Monks (ad indicem); CONSTANT, Réforme (ad indicem); Mo-

nasticon Anglicanum, I, pp. 363-365; VCH, Northampton, 2, pp. 92-93; DNB, IV, pp. 18-19, edited by E. Venables; ODNB, 10, pp. 983-984, edited by Andrew A. Chibi.

No. 59

He was the Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey dedicated to St. Mary Virgin and St. Benedict at Ramsey, the richest abbey in the diocese of Lincoln and one of the wealthiest of England194. He had been elected in 1507, but at the outset had not paid great attention to the tending of the monastery and in 1517 discipline was very lax.

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In 1539, despite his advanced years he readily surren-dered St. Mary’s to the crown and signed the official deed with twenty nine fellow monks on November 22. He strove to persuade other abbots to do likewise and in return he was granted a congruous pension, areas of woodlands and Bod-sey estate where he lived some years before his death.

Bio-bibliographic referencesKNOWLES, Religious Orders, III (ad indicem); LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament;

Monasticon Anglicanum, II, p. 550; VCH, Huntingdon, 1, pp. 382-384.

No. 60

He became Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey of Croy-land (or Crowland)195 dedicated to St. Mary Virgin, St. Bar-tholomew and St. Guthlac in 1512.

In 1534 the abbot signed *The Act of Supremacy to-gether with thirty two monks and he surrendered the abbey to the crown on December 4, 1539 in return for a yearly pension.

Bio-bibliographic references:Monasticon Anglicanum, II, p. 104; VCH, Lincoln, 2, p. 117.

No. 61

He had become Bishop of Down-Connor (Ireland) in 1520 and was elected Abbot of Thorney Abbey196 in 1525, maintaining possession in commendam. On December 1, 1539 the abbot, the prior and twenty fellow monks signed the document surrendering the abbey to the crown and were granted a lifetime annuity in return. In all likelihood, his death can be dated around the end of 1547.

Bio-bibliographic referencesMonasticon Anglicanum, II, p. 596; VCH, Cambridge, 2, pp. 216-217.

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No. 62

He became Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey at Selby197 dedicated to Our Lord Jesus Christ, St. Mary Virgin and St. German in 1526.

On December 6, 1539 he, the Prior of Snaith and twenty two fellow monks signed the deed surrendering the abbey to the crown in return for a substantial lifetime an-nuity.

Bio-bibliographic referencesMonasticon Anglicanum, III, p. 496; VCH, York, 3, pp. 99-100.

No. 63

He was elected Abbot of the Benedictine Abbey at Bardney198 dedicated to St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Os-wald in August 1507. During the early years of his ab-bacy, his tending of the monastery must have been lax as misconduct was widespread in 1519.

On August 5, 1534 the abbot, the prior and fourteen fellow monks officially acknowledged Royal Supremacy.

In October 1536, many members of the abbey were involved in the Lincolnshire uprising and six of them were hanged and quartered in Lincoln on March 6, 1537.

On November 1, 1538 the abbot, the prior and thir-teen monks signed the document surrendering Bardney Abbey to the crown and were given an annual pension.

Bio-bibliographic referencesKNOWLES, Religious Orders, III (ad indicem); Monasticon Anglicanum, I, p. 626;

VCH, Lincoln, 2, pp. 102, 104.

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No. 64

He was a staunch advocate of the king’s marriage case and endeavoured to obtain an opinion supporting the *di-vorce from the University of Cambridge. In April 1530 the king showed his gratitude by consenting to him being elected the Abbot of St. Benet’s Abbey at Holme199, where Rugg replaced the resigning John Salcot200, who was trans-lated to Hyde Abbey201.

However, the new abbot was lax in his tending of the monastery and in 1532 misconduct was widespread and its debts were in the region of several thousands of pounds. Yet Rugg was actively involved in the 1534 Parliament sittings and on June 7 of that year he and other twenty three monks signed *The Act of Supremacy.

In 1536 his unwavering loyalty towards the king earned him the vacant Espiscopal see of Norwich202 in what was a very advantageous exchange for the crown. In-deed, the crown appropriated the revenue of the diocese and, in exchange, passed a parliamentary act in February 1536 allocating it the possessions of St. Benet’s Abbey and Hickling Priory.

Hence, on June 11, Rugg was ordained as bishop of Norwich and St. Benet’s was the sole abbey in England not to be surrendered to the crown.

During his period as bishop, Rugg continued to support the king’s antipapal policy and went to extent of prosecut-ing those who did not acknowledge Royal Supremacy. In 1537 he and other bishops were involved in writing *The Bishop’s Book and in 1539 he was involved in the debates on *The Act of Six Articles.

He died in 1550.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, XVII, pp. 390-391, edited by A. Jessopp; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parlia-

ment (ad indicem); Monasticon Anglicanum, III, pp. 65–66; ODNB, 48, p. 101, edited by Ian Atherton; SMITH, Tudor prelates (ad indicem); VCH, Norfolk, 2, pp. 335-336.

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No. 65

He became Abbot of St. John’s Abbey, Colchester203 in 1523. In 1533 the Benedictine Abbot took part in the forth session of *The Reformation Parliament, during which *The Statute in Restraint of Appeals was read. He died a few days later and the monks elected his successor Thomas Beche alias Marshall204. The latter was later accused of high treason and executed in 1539 and thus the abbey passed into the hands of the crown.

Bio-bibliographic referencesKNOWLES, Religious Orders, III (ad indicem); Monasticon Anglicanum, IV, p. 605;

VCH, Essex, 2, p. 102.

No. 66

He became the Abbot of Hyde Abbey, the Benedictine Abbey North of Winchester205, in March 1530206.

He was a renowned theologian and preacher and was summoned to court to preach in February 1516 and March 1517. He was Prior of Colchester Abbey and was elected Abbot of St. Benet’s at Holme in 1517. He was on very good terms with Cardinal Wolsey and the king, and in Feb-ruary 1530 was sent to Cambridge University to obtain its opinion supporting the *divorce.

The following March 15207, he was transferred to Hyde Abbey. On June 10, 1531 the king sent a letter to his agent in Rome, William Bennet, instructing him to put pressure

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on the pope in order to sway him to consent to the *divorce trial being transferred to the court of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who would be assisted by Abbot Islip of West-minster, “a good, elderly father”, and the Abbot of Hyde, “a greate clerke, and singulerly lerned in divinitie”208.

In August 1533 he was appointed to the diocese of Bangor, but Clement VII did not grant the *bull of ap-pointment. Nonetheless, once royal consent was given in 1534, Capon was ordained on April 19 by the Archbish-op of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, and maintained Hyde Abbey in commendam. His elevation to bishop was probably a reward for his loyalty to, and support of, Queen Anne Boleyn. On April 30, 1539 he signed the deed surrender-ing the monastery to the crown and persuaded his twenty one fellow monks to do likewise. His prompt obedience to the king was soon rewarded, indeed when Bishop Shax-ton of Salisbury resigned from his diocese in the summer of 1539 after *The Act of Six Articles was enacted; Ca-pon was transferred to Salisbury on July 31, and remained there until he died.

In 1542 he was one of the bishops involved in writing the English translation of *The Great Bible, in particular the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians.

He died on December 6, 1557.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCONSTANT, Réforme; DNB, III, pp. 931-932, edited by R.H. Brodie; KNOW-

LES, Religious Orders, III (ad indicem); Monasticon Anglicanum, II, p. 432; ODNB, 9, p. 994, edited by Angelo J. Louisa; SMITH, Tudor prelates (ad indicem); VCH, Hampshire, 2, pp. 120-122; ibid., Suffolk, 2, p. 335.

No. 67

He was elected Abbot of St. Mary Virgin and St. Egwin’s Abbey at Evesham209 on December 28, 1513. In the quality of mitred abbot he, like other mitred abbots, was entitled to a seat in the House of Lords. He took part in the workings

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of Parliament but did not cover important political posi-tions, and used his energy to tend his monastery. When the king’s commissioners visited the monastery in 1535, they described Litchfield’s lifestyle as chaste and totally dedicated to restoring his monastery.

The Abbot faced difficult times between 1535 and 1538 when he bravely resisted the king’s agents who put pressure on him to surrender St. Mary’s to the crown. He was feared more than loved by his monks and fell foul to a plot hatched by the cellarer Philip Hawford alias Ballard who connived with Cromwell in 1536 to ease the surrender of the monastery. In return he would be appointed Litchfield’s successor.

In March 1538, after Hawford turned informer, the king’s visitor William Petre was sent to the abbey with a let-ter from Lord Chancellor Cromwell, and at the sight of the dispatch the abbot “struck sail to avoid shipwreck” (KNOW-LES) and resigned from his abbacy. He was granted a lifetime annuity and the estate of Offenham where he had been or-dained abbot twenty four years before.

On April 4, 1538 Hawford was elevated to abbot and signed the deed surrendering the monastery to the crown on January 27, 1540.

Litchfeld died on October 27, 1546.

Bio-bibliographic referencesGASQUET, English Monasteries, II; KNOWLES, Religious Orders, III; Monasticon

Anglicanum, II, pp. 8-9; VCH, Worcester, 2, pp. 125-127.

No. 68

Richard Camme had been appointed steward of St. Mary Virgin’s Abbey, Malmesbury210 in 1510 and was elected abbot in March 1515211. After some monks rebelled, on December 20, 1527 he received a visitation from William Malvern212, Abbot of Gloucester Abbey, in the capacity of reformator sent by John Islip213 of Westminster, president of the Benedictine general chapter214.

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Camme reported that fully armed monks had broken into his quarters, threatened him with physical violence and removed two monks whom he had imprisoned for evil be-haviour. The insurgents complained about the abbot’s vio-lent temper and, above all, they accused him of being under the influence of a local woman called Alice Taylor. The Ab-bot of Gloucester was therefore obliged to promptly impose a series of reform measures. Camme was dead by May 13, 1533215.

His successor, Robert Frampton alias Selwin, surren-dered the abbey to the crown on December 15, 1539 and was granted an annuity.

Bio-bibliographic referencesVCH, Wiltshire, 3, p. 231; KNOWLES, Religious Orders, III (ad indicem).

No. 69

He was elected Abbot of St. Mary Virgin and St. Kenelm’s Abbey at Winchecombe216 in November 1525217, and succeeded Richard Kidderminster who had stood down on grounds of age218.

He attended Parliament regularly in 1534 and on August 25 of that year he and twenty four monks of-ficially acknowledged Royal Supremacy. He surrendered the abbey on December 23, 1539 and was rewarded with a benefice in the new cathedral at Gloucester.

Bio-bibliographic referencesMonasticon Anglicanum, II, p. 299; VCH, Gloucester, 2, pp. 71-72; KNOWLES,

Religious Orders, III (ad indicem).

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No. 70

He became Abbot of the Augustinian Abbey of Holy Cross Waltham220, at Waltham, in September 1526, was later made Prior of St. Bartholomew’s at Smithfield and he maintained the priory in commendam with the abbey.

On March 23, 1540 he and seventeen canons signed the deed surrendering Waltham to the crown in return for a lifetime annuity and various estates, as well as the land belonging to St. Bartholomew’s Priory. The Abbey of Waltham was the last abbey to be dissolved in England.

Bio-bibliographic referencesMonasticon Anglicanum, VI, p. 58; VCH, Essex, 2, pp. 169-170, 172.

No. 71

He was elected Abbot of the Augustinian Abbey of Cirencester221 around 1522. In 1534, Blake, the prior and nineteen canons signed acknowledgement of Royal Supremacy. On December 19, 1539 he and fifteen fellow canons surrendered the abbey to the crown and received a pension in return.

Bio-bibliographic referencesMonasticon Anglicanum, VI, p. 176; VCH, Gloucester, 2, pp. 83-84.

No. 72

He was elected abbot of St. Mary’s t, the Benedictine Ab-bey of Tewkesbury222, in November 1509 and held the abba-cy at least until he signed the letter to Clement VII. The ab-bey was then tended by Abbot John Walker who died around 1531 and who was succeeded by Abbot John (or Robert) Wich

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alias Wakeman. It was the latter who, together with thirty five monks, signed the official deed surrendering the abbey to the crown on January 9, 1539 in return for an allowance.

Bio-bibliographic referencesMonasticon Anglicanum, II, p. 57; VCH, Gloucester, 2, p. 65.

No. 73

“Il magnifico Fizgugliemo, cavalier dell’Ordine e gran te-soriero della Casa di Sua Maestà”223.

He was a member of the Council, Treasurer of the Household, Knight of the Order of the Garter, and part of Henry VIII’s inner circle. He had been chosen to be the young prince’s companion at court at the age of ten and thus was very well educated.

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Documents attest his presence in Parliament from 1529, even if he may have entered Parliament in 1523 or even before. He was elected to the House of Commons among the Knights of the Shire of Surrey in 1529 and his election was certainly endorsed by the king, if not personally decided by Henry, who was in all probability with FitzWilliam at Windsor when some of the writs of summons were sent out.

During his long career at court he collaborated close-ly with the king’s most powerful ministers, from Wolsey to Cromwell, but when they fell into disgrace he immedi-ately left them to their fate, as he was first and foremost loyal to his king. He was present when Cardinal Wolsey handed the Great Seal over to the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk224, in 1529, and during a sitting of the King’s Privy Council in 1540 he stripped the Order of the Gar-ter from Cromwell who was accused of high treason225.

His loyalty was such that he adhered to Henry’s ec-clesiastical policies and assisted him – perhaps somewhat embarrassed – in the “Great Matter” and in the decisive steps leading to the break with the Church of Rome. In 1530 FitzWilliam and the Duke of Suffolk226 were sent to Oxford to force the university to pronounce its sup-port of the *divorce; in 1531 he was part of the dele-gation that visited Queen Catherine to persuade her to drop her appeal to the Roman Rota; in 1532 he sat on the commission that received approval of *The Submis-sion of the Clergy.

In 1534 he was one of the parliamentarians appoint-ed to study the bill on treason.

His unwavering loyalty to the king was rewarded; in-deed in 1537 he was raised to the Peerage as Earl of Southampton.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, XII/1, pp. 118-122; DNB, VII, pp. 230-232, edited by Gordon

Goodwin; HOP, Commons, II, pp. 142-145, edited by S.R. Johnson; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); MILLER, English Nobility (ad indicem); ODNB, 19, pp. 961-965, edited by William B. Robinson; SCARISBRICK, Henry VIII (ad in-dicem).

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No. 74

He was Comptroller of the King’s Household, a mem-ber of the Council and Henry VIII’s childhood friend. He shared the king’s love of tournaments and court pageants that were frequent during the first years of Henry VIII’s reign: he was one of the group led by the king in per-son that broke into Queen Catherine’s apartments dis-guised at Robin Hood and danced and made merry with the queen and her ladies, on January 1510; the following year at Epiphany he set up a mobile stage in the shape of a mountain that disgorged a group of Moor dancers when it reached the king.

He was elected to the House of Commons among the Knights of Kent in 1529. Seemingly, his remonstrations against his, and others’, disbursements to Cardinal Wol-sey and Archbishop Warham to authenticate the will of

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the under-treasurer of the household, William Compton, were the excuse to write the petition against the abuses of the clergy227. And on December 1, 1529 he was one of the signatories of the 44 charges against Cardinal Wol-sey. He was summoned to give evidence at Blackfriars trial on the consummation of Arthur and Catherine’s marriage but said he could not as he had been merely a boy228 at that time.

His involvement in the *divorce was basically dictat-ed by his loyalty and friendship towards Henry, even if he never concealed his great dislike of Anne Boleyn with whom he had clashed in 1531229.

However, the course of the “Great Matter” did not meet with his approval, so much so that after signing the letter to Clement VII he declared “it would be the best deed in the world to tie all the doctors who had invent-ed and supported this affair in a cart, and send them to Rome to maintain their opinion; or meet with the confu-sion they deserve”230.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, VIII, pp. 767-770, edited by Charles Lethbridge Kingsford; HOP, Com-

mons, II, pp. 263-265, edited by Helen Miller; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); ODNB, 24, pp. 187-190, edited by Keith Dokray; SCARISBRICK, Henry VIII (ad indicem).

No. 75

“Il dottor Stefano, secretario di Sua Maestà”231.

He was a doctor in civil and canon law, Henry VIII’s Principal Secretary, Archdeacon of Norfolk, Taunton and Worcester, and a member of the King’s Council and the Lower House of the *Convocation of Canterbury. Between 1528 and 1529 Cardinal Wolsey sent him on three long and difficult missions to Clement VII to con-vince the pope to grant the cardinal legate full powers to define the king’s marriage case232.

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The king rewarded Gardiner for his services by ap-pointing him First Secretary in July 1529. The same day he wrote to his friend Pietro Vanni:

“Ego aulae mancipatus, liber esse non possum, sed me-lioris conditionis libertinus. Secretarii munus obeo quod ad litteras pertinet, et sum a libellis. Quid futurum sit, nescio; nam hodie primum aulam ingredior; fortunae no-strae progressum tu, ut spero, brevi videbis [...]”233.

He was Henry’s faithful servant and in 1530 was sent to the University of Cambridge to obtain its opinion in fa-vour of the *divorce. Thereafter, his role in the “Great Mat-ter” became almost passive and despite his elevation to the diocese of Winchester, Gardiner gradually opposed the is-sue more and more openly.

Bio-bibliographic referencesBEDOUELLE–LE GAL, Divorce, pp. 352-353; DNB, VII, pp. 859-865, ed-

ited by E.T. Bradley; Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, IV, pp. 30, 63; VIII, p. 17; HDTE, pp. 215-217, edited by Ronald Fritze; JANELLE, Angleterre catholique, chaps. II-IV; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); ODNB, 21, pp. 433-445, edited by C.D.C. Armstrong; ROUTH, Tudor England, pp. 147-149; SMITH, Tudor prelates (ad indicem).

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No. 76

He was Vice-Chamberlain of the King’s Household and a member of the Privy Council. He was elected to the House of Commons among the Knights of the county of Sussex in 1529.

He was a conservative in religion and his involve-ment in the *divorce caused him twinges of remorse that had a negative impact on his career at court. After having signed the letter to Clement VII, he sat on the Dunstable court presided over by Thomas Cranmer that pronounced the annulment of the marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon in 1533. However, Gage retired from court in August of that year as his conscience was profoundly troubled by the developments of the *divorce. His friend William FitzWilliam234 reported to Cromwell the strong misgivings of the courtier who took his leave of the king “with the water standing in his eyes”235.

It was Gage’s wish to retire to Sheen Monastery and enter the religious order236, but he did not.

Nevertheless, he stayed away from the court for some years until the death of Catherine of Aragon and the ex-ecution of Anne Boleyn appeased the misgivings he had felt between showing loyalty to the king or to the Church of Rome.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, VII, pp. 790-792, edited by E.T. Bradley; ODNB, 21, pp. 251-253,

edited by David Potter; HOP, Commons, II, pp. 179-182, edited by R.J.W. Swales; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem).

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No. 77

He was the Constable of the Tower of London, cap-tain of the guard, a gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and had been elected to the House of Commons among the Knights of the Shire of Gloucester in 1529.

He became a member of the King’s Council in 1533, attended Anne Boleyn’s coronation and three years later received her at the Tower where he treated her with re-spect and allowed her to reside in the apartments she had used before her coronation.

In 1534, Chapuys reported to Charles V that King-ston seemed to be “a good servant of your Majesty and the said ladies” 237.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, XI, pp. 186-187, edited by William Arthur Jobson Archbold;

ODNB, 31, pp. 726-727, edited by Stanford Lehmberg; HOP, Commons, II, pp. 470-471, edited by L.M. Kirk-M.K. Dale; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem).

No. 78

He was the King’s Secretary for the French Tongue238, Clerk of Parliament and Treasurer of the Chamber.

His family had close ties with Thomas Howard, second Duke of Norfolk, who, in all likelihood, presented him at court. Brian commenced on a brilliant career: in 1509 he was appointed Clerk of the Signet, in 1516 he became a Knight of the King’s Body and in 1517 he was appointed Governor of the King’s Posts. He was in Thomas Wolsey’s service for many years and carried messages and dispatches between the minister and the king. Tuke strove to faithfully tune his be-haviour so that it was in line with Henry VIII’s desires and as a result the king was extremely satisfied with his services.

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During the extended absence of Gardiner – another of Wolsey’s retinue – on a diplomatic mission to the pope regarding the question of the *divorce in 1528, Tuke’s workload increased significantly and this impaired his health. Besides, in June of that year Henry VIII appoint-ed him to revise the book on his marriage, the book that the king had been personally involved in writing, and to extrapolate from theology texts passages that confirmed its invalidity239.

During the Lincolnshire and Yorkshire uprisings of 1536, he was appointed Master of the Posts and organ-ised communications between London and the North.

Between 1540 and 1541 he came into possession of some estates confiscated from the Augustinian Abbey at Waltham.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, XIX, pp. 1222-1223, edited by Albert Frederik Pollard; ODNB,

55, pp. 523-524, edited by P.R.N. Carter; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem).

No. 79

He was stepfather of the Earl of Huntingdon240 and in 1529 was elected to the House of Commons among the Knights from the Shire of Leicester241.

In 1513 he took part in the military campaign in France and fought in the vanguard under the leadership of the Earl of Shrewsbury242, and in 1520 he attended Henry VIII at *The Field of the Cloth of Gold.

In 1529 he was summoned as a witness at Blackfri-ars trial where he said that, according to public opinion, it was improper for a man to marry his own brother’s wife243.

Bio-bibliographic referencesCOKAYNE, VI, p. 375; HOP, Commons, III, pp. 242-244, edited by S.M. Thorpe;

LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem).

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No. 80

He was the Royal Chaplain, Dean of the Chapel Royal and Archdeacon of Suffolk, a member of the Lower House of the *Convocation of Canterbury, and one of the hu-manists at court who were friendly with Erasmus of Rot-terdam.

Although he was a churchman, he was always much more committed to his civil duties than to his ecclesiastical ones, rendering loyal service to the king.

He tended to be a conservative in religion, but he was not loath to enter into opportunistic compromises dictated by political contingencies244.

He was an advocate and doctor in civil and canon law and from 1522 to 1525 acted as the English ambassador residing at the imperial court in Spain. In 1529 the king nominated him his proctor to represent him in front of the Blackfriars legatine court. This appointment was later con-firmed in 1536 for the trial against Anne Boleyn.

In May and October 1531, he and other eminent fig-ures at court went to Catherine to persuade her to drop her appeal to the pope, and in September 1533 he was sent with the Earls of Oxford245, Essex246 and Sussex247 to Princess Mary at Beaulieu to inform her of the king’s decision to strip her of her title in favour of the newborn Elizabeth.

He advocated Royal Supremacy and published the Oratio248 between 1533 and 1534, this being one of the main humanistic antipapal treatises the king used in his battle against Rome.

On June 3, 1536, thanks to his close ties with Tho-mas Cromwell, he was made Bishop of Chichester after the death of Robert Sherborne249 and appointed on the following June 11. He was Bishop of Chichester until 1543, although he never resided there.

In 1537 he was involved in writing *The Bishop’s Book, but he was not particularly enthusiastic and gradu-

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ally aligned himself with the position of the conservative bishops. Thus, in May 1540, he fell foul of Cromwell’s schemes against the papists and was arrested and impris-oned in the Tower of London until the following August when he was released, probably because the Lord Chan-cellor had been executed.

In 1542 he was on the commission that revised *The Great Bible, in particular the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ro-mans.

The next year he was transferred to the diocese of Cov-entry-Lichfield and at the same time the king appointed him President of the Council of the Welsh Marshes, a post he held until 1548 and that obliged him to neglect his pastoral duties.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, XVII, pp. 719-721, edited by William Arthur Jobson Archbold; Fasti,

IV, p. 34; JANELLE, Angleterre catholique, chaps. III-VII; LEHMBERG, Reformation Par-liament (ad indicem); ODNB, 48, pp. 800-802, edited by Andrew A. Chibi; SMITH, Tudor prelates (ad indicem).

No. 81

He was the King’s Almoner, Archdeacon of Colches-ter and a member of the Lower House of the *Convocation of Canterbury. After attending the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Bologna and Leuven, where he went in 1516 to further his knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, he studied arts and theology. He met Erasmus of Rotterdam at Leu-ven and for some time collaborated with him in revising the New Testament. However, their relations were soured by the Dutch scholar’s reluctance to accept the corrections Lee proposed and the dispute lasted until at least 1526 during which period they exchanged polemic letters and abuse.

In 1520, he was actively involved in writing the *As-sertio Septem Sacramentorum and later fulfilled many diplomatic duties for the king. In 1523 Lee and Lord Morley250 were sent to Ferdinand of Hapsburg, King of

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Hungary, to present him with the Order of the Garter; in 1525 he replaced Richard Sampson251 as English am-bassador at the imperial court in Spain; in 1530 he was one of the ambassadors sent to Bologna to negotiate the *divorce case with Clement VII and Charles V252; on June 1, 1531 he was part of a delegation of jurists and theo-logians sent to Catherine of Aragon to persuade her to relinquish her rights as queen.

In September of that year, the king made Lee the Bishop of York, a bishopric that had been vacant since the death of Cardinal Wolsey. The pope granted the *bull of appointment at the end of the month and Lee entered into possession of the Episcopal see in December. Henry had made Lee bishop as he wanted a valid supporter of the *divorce case in the House of Lords, but Lee soon sided with the conservative faction lead by Stokesley and Gardiner253.

In 1536 he found refuge at Pontefract with Lord Darcy during the Yorkshire uprising, but when the lat-ter sided with the insurgents Lee was forced to join *The Pilgrimage of Grace. Thereafter, he did all he could back away from the position of the rebels and wrote a long memorandum defending himself in order not to be ac-cused of high treason.

In 1537 he sat on the commission that supervised the writing of *The Bishop’s Book and in 1539 supported *The Act of Six Articles in Parliament.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, XI, pp. 788-790, edited by William Hunt; Fasti, V, p. 14; ODNB, 33,

pp. 56-59, edited by Claire Cross; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); SMITH, Tudor prelates (ad indicem).

No. 82

He was a doctor in civil and canon law, a member of the King’s Council, the King’s Chaplain, Archdeacon of Sudbury,

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Dean of Wells and prolocutor of the Lower House of the *Convocation of Canterbury. His excellent legal training was indispensible for Henry VIII and he was the king’s trusted adviser during the unfolding of the entire “Great Matter”.

In April 1527, Wolman received the testimony of Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, on young Henry’s formal protest against the marriage contract between him and Catherine. Then on May 17, about a month later, he was promoter of the case in the Westminster trial and provided many argumentations against the pope’s power of dispensation254. He was rewarded for his services with the prebend of Holywell in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

In 1537 he signed the *Convocation of Canterbury’s address to the king, requesting approval of *The Bishop’s Book.

Bio-bibliographic referencesDNB, XXI, pp. 789-790, edited by Isaac Saunders Leadam; Fasti, IV, p. 32;

VIII, p. 6; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); ODNB, 59, pp. 1003-1005, edited by Brett Usher.

No. 83

He was a doctor in civil and canon law, Archdeacon of Gloucester and a member of the Lower House of the *Convocation of Canterbury255. He was the king’s proctor at the Westminster trial in 1527, and also at the Black-friars legatine court in 1529256.

On March 6 the following year, Henry VIII sent him to Oxford to assist John Longland257 who had met dif-ficulties in obtaining support for the royal *divorce from the academics.

In May 1533 Bell once again acted as the king’s proctor at the Dunstable trial presided over by the new-ly elected Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. He was strongly opposed to the Reformation and in the

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1530s he sided with the conservative faction led by John Stokesley, Bishop of London.

In 1537 he was involved in writing *The Bishop’s Book. In August 1539 was appointed Bishop of Worces-ter and succeeded the reformer Hugh Latimer who had been forced to resign after *The Act of Six Articles was passed. In 1542 Bell was appointed onto the commission to revise the English translation of *The Great Bible, fo-cusing on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians.

However, the following November 17, he voluntar-ily resigned from the diocese for reasons unknown and retired to the parish of St. James’ at Clerkenwell, east of London, where he spent the last years of his life.

Bio-bibliographic references:BEDOUELLE–LE GAL, Divorce, p. 321; CONSTANT, Réforme (ad indicem); DNB,

II, pp. 165-166, edited by P. Bruce Austin; LEHMBERG, Reformation Parliament (ad indicem); Fasti, IV, p. 62; ODNB, 4, pp. 947-948, edited by Susan Wabuda; SMITH, Tudor prelates (ad indicem).

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