Thomas Cromwell: The Rise And Fall Of Henry VIII's Most Notorious Minister (46 page)

64
LPFD, vol. XI, pp. 218 and 220.

65
The Virgin Mary.

66
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 221.

67
LPFD, vol. XII, pt i, p. 37.

68
Hoyle, p. 133 and Moorhouse, p. 57.

69
LPFD, vol. XII, pt i, pp. 38–9.

70
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 222.

71
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 226.

72
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 246.

73
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 230.

74
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 244.

75
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 258.

76
Hoyle, p. 173.

77
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 264.

78
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 280.

79
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 332.

80
John Gostwyck told Cromwell on 1 December that £6,470 8s. 2d remained in the Mint. ‘I have paid some of the greedy persons today and mean to pay the rest tomorrow.’ LPFD, vol. XI, p. 492.

81
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 282.

82
LPFD, vol. XI, pp. 304–5.

83
From the translation of the Greek word for ‘Jesus’.

84
BL Add. MS 38,133, fol. 9 has an account of his expenses as Percy’s servant in 1527. An account of a law case involving Aske as a lawyer is on fol. 7.

85
LPFD, vol. XI, pp. 360–1. The reference to ‘butt’ means an arrow range.

86
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 354.

87
Hoyle, p. 375.

88
He had written to Cromwell the previous July, begging for his compassion ‘else I shall be undone … and utterly shamed this day if there come not comfort’ from him. Bigod’s ‘friends, or rather foes are driving me from post to pillar’ despite his ‘large efforts to be out of debt’. See LPFD, vol. XI, p. 14.

89
LPFD, vol. XII, pt i, p. 227.

90
LPFD, vol. XII, pt i, p. 234.

91
Ellis, ‘Original Letters’, 3rd series, vol. III, p. 60.

92
LPFD, vol. XII, pt i, p. 441.

93
Ellis, ‘Original Letters’, 3rd series, vol. III, p. 60.

CHAPTER SIX
:
In a Glass Darkly

1
‘State Papers’, vol. II, p. 551, fn.

2
Holbein the Younger (
c
.1497–1543), the son of a painter, was born in Augsburg, Bavaria. He came to England in 1526 with a letter of introduction to Sir Thomas More from the humanist Erasmus, and spent two years there before returning to Basel, Switzerland. Holbein came back to England in 1532 and was appointed court painter four years later. Cromwell gave him £2 as a New Year’s gift in January 1538. Holbein died of the plague in London in 1543.

3
In 1538, Cromwell had spectacles to help him read. His accounts for 18 July of that year record the purchase of ‘a lace for his spectacles, four pence’. See LPFD, vol. XIV, pt ii, p. 337.

4
NPG 1727. The oil on panel measures 30¾ × 24¼ in. (7816619 mm). Another contemporary version of the portrait is in the Frick Collection, East 70th Street, New York. The National Portrait Galley in London also has two miniatures of Cromwell either attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger, or from his studio. One (NPG 6310), measuring 1¾ in. (44 mm) in diameter and painted in 1532–3, is similar to the larger portrait. The other (NPG 6311), exactly the same size, was painted around 1537 and shows Cromwell wearing a chain of office, probably that of Lord Privy Seal.

5
Galton, p. 81 and Stow, vol. I, p. 189.

6
LPFD, vol. X, p. 513.

7
Ellis, ‘Original Letters’, 3rd series, vol. III, p. 91.

8
Bearing a design portraying plants.

9
LPFD, vol. IV, pt ii, pp. 1,454–7.

10
The building was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. A new hall was built between 1667 and 1671 to designs by Edward Jarman, but this in turn was damaged by fire in 1772. John Gorham built a replacement which was re-fronted by Herbert Williams in the 1860s and again altered in 1898–9 by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson.

11
LPFD, vol. X, p. 131.

12
LPFD, vol. VI, p. 179, Chapuys to Charles V, 27 April 1533.

13
LPFD, vol. VII, p. 233. Henry had appointed him provincial of the order in April that year. He declared his obedience to the King as supreme head of the Church on 14 May 1534. See also p. 255.

14
LPFD, vol. VII, p. 617.

15
For an account of the priory, see
Victoria County History of England: London
, vol. I, London, 1909, pp. 510–13. The nave of the priory church was granted to Dutch Protestant refugees by the government of Edward VI in July 1550, with another part being used as a granary and coal store. This part was pulled down in 1603 and the whole church was later destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt in 1865, but this church was bombed during the Second World War Blitz of 1940. A new church was completed in 1950, with the foundation stone being laid by ten-year-old Princess Irene of the Netherlands.

16
A boundary fence of thin, split wooden stakes or pickets, from the Old French word
pal
.

17
Stow, vol. I, p. 179. This was probably not the Stow family home, which was most likely in the nearby parish of St Michael, Cornhill, as John Stow was born in that parish in the summer of 1525 and his father Thomas, a tallow chandler, was buried in the cloister of that church in 1559.

18
Hackney is contained in a list of the Knights’ property in BL Cotton MS Nero E vi, fol. 64–64B. See the Revd Daniel Lysons,
The Environs of London
, 5 vols., London, 1800–11, vol. II, pt i, ‘Middlesex’, p. 297.

19
LPFD, vol. XI, p. 185.

20
The arms of the now defunct Wimbledon Borough Council borrowed the Cornish choughs from Cromwell’s arms for use in its crest.

21
London Metropolitan Archives ACC/1720. See also Owen Manning and William Bray,
History & Antiquities of the County of Surrey
, 3 vols., London, 1804–14, vol. III, pp. 350–1.

22
Stow, vol. I, p. 89.

23
LPFD, vol. XIV, pt ii, pp. 330 and 336.

24
The State Papers record a case of embezzlement by one of Cromwell’s servants called William Body in 1535. The stolen items included a ‘standing cup with a cover from Mr Wither’s plate [Dr John Withers, d.1534], a gilt spoon of Mr Plimer’s
[probably Christopher Plummer], a gold Garter saved at the melting of Lord Dacre’s gold, [and] a pearl coronet which his wife has taken’. See LPFD, vol. VIII, p. 79.

25
Cited by Weir, p. 307.

26
CSP, vol. V. pt i, p. 569.

27
Cromwell’s accounts for 11 July 1538 record the ‘[payment] to Richard Trapes for two dozen each of platters, dishes, saucers and trenchers of silver at 3s. 9d the ounce: £359 18s. 1d and for burnishing the same: £2 11s. 8d’.

28
Cited by Williams, ‘Cardinal’, p. 150.

29
LPFD, vol. XIV, pt ii, pp. 328–44.

30
Such as his perjured testimony during the trial of Sir Thomas More.

31
Falconbridge was paid £20 ‘by my lord’s command’ on 23 December 1538.

32
Thomas Avery, who kept the accounts, had real problems spelling ‘lute’, then, as now, a stringed instrument. He wrote first ‘lutte’, then tried ‘lowtt’ and finally ‘lwwtt’. Unfortunately for him, dictionaries had not yet been invented.

33
For information on Somers’ unique relationship with Henry, see Hutchinson, pp. 144–8.

34
John Hussey told his mistress, Honor, Viscountess Lisle, on 14 December 1537 that ‘when the wine … comes [it] shall be delivered and your thanks given to the serjeant of the cellar’. See LPFD, vol. XIII, pt ii, p. 426.

35
Sir Brian Tuke, Treasurer of the Privy Chamber.

36
Sir Walter Kingston, Vice-Chamberlain of the Household.

37
LPFD, vol. XIII, pt i, p. 9.

38
See Maria Hayward, ‘Gift-Giving at the Court of Henry VIII: The 1539 New Year’s Gift Roll in Context’,
Antiquaries Journal
, vol. 85 (2005), pp. 125–75.

39
John Graynfield told Lord Lisle that Cromwell ‘keeps his chamber, much vexed with ague. He has been very ill fourteen days and few have spoken to him.’ See LPFD, vol. VIII, p. 125.

40
CSP, vol. V, pt i, pp. 411, 436 and 452.

41
Cited by Williams, ‘Cardinal’, p. 151.

42
Membership is limited to twenty-six, chosen by royal prerogative.

43
?John Lord Scrope.

44
‘Life’, p. 16.

45
‘Life’, pp. 19–21. The story was earlier recounted by Drayton, p. 22.

46
LPFD, vol. VIII, pp. 147 and 204.

47
LPFD, vol. IX, p. 156.

48
LPFD, vol. XI, pp. 55–6.

49
Cromwell was not popular amongst the monks of Lenton. The sub-prior reported in April 1537 that he had heard the monks ‘speak ill of the king and queen and Lord Privy Seal whom they love worst of any man in the world’. See LPFD, vol. XII, pt i, p. 398.

50
LPFD, vol. VIII, p. 387.

51
See, for example, Elton, ‘How Corrupt was Thomas Cromwell?’ In contrast, Muriel St Clare Byrne calls Cromwell a ‘looter and freebooter’ (Byrne,
The Lisle Letters
, vol. I, p. 96).

52
Cromwell may have had a sweet tooth. His grocer William Gardiner sent him ‘all the fine treacle of Cairo that I have and you shall pay nothing for it’. See LPFD, vol. XI, p. 13.

53
LPFD, vol. VIII, p. 189.

54
34 Henry VIII cap. 31.

55
LPFD, vol. VIII, p. 226.

56
CSP, vol. V, pt ii, p. 263.

CHAPTER SEVEN
:
A Merry Widower Thwarted

1
BL Harleian MS 282, fol. 233.

2
‘Waites’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon word
wacian
meaning ‘to guard’ and described official night watchmen. It later came to mean pipers or musicians.

3
A form of flute or oboe, named from the French
chalemie
. A number were recovered from the wreck of Henry’s 700-ton warship
Mary Rose
, sunk during an engagement with the French fleet off Portsmouth, Hampshire, on 20 July 1545.

4
‘Wriothesley’, vol. I, pp. 66–7.

5
The signet bears the arms of England and France, impaling the quartered arms of Seymour under a royal crown.

6
The letter to Cromwell is in BL Cotton MS Nero C x, fol. 1. Another copy is in BL Harleian MS 283, fol. 155. Tyrrell, the queen’s gentleman usher who brought the letter to Cromwell, was paid ten marks for his pains (LPFD, vol. XIV, pt ii, p. 332). Cromwell also repaid Wriothesley the £20 he had borrowed from him to tip the ‘ladies that attend on my lord Prince’.

7
BL Harleian MS 282, fol. 211.

8
The Lord High Admiral, Sir William Fitzwilliam, told Cromwell on 12 October that ‘three or four persons a day are dying of the plague’ in Croydon. Two persons were sick in the Dowager’s house. See LPFD, vol. XII, pt ii, p. 311.

9
‘State Papers’, vol. I, pp. 570–1.

10
‘State Papers’, vol. I, p. 571.

11
No duke was allowed to bring more than six persons; no marquis more than five; earls, four; barons, three; no bishop or abbot more than four; ‘and none of the king’s or queen’s chaplains above two’. See BL Harleian MS 442, fol. 149 and LPFD, vol. XII, pt ii, p. 311.

12
Throgmorton (
c
.1489–1552), a religious conservative, had been arrested in 1536 for showing a misplaced interest in the grievances of the Pilgrimage of Grace rebels and again the following year because his younger brother Michael had been sent to spy on Cardinal Pole but was suborned into becoming his servant.

13
DNB2, vol. 14, p. 373.

14
LPFD, vol. XII, pt ii, pp. 332–3.

15
Throgmorton’s wife immediately wrote to Sir William Parr, seeking help in obtaining his release: ‘Not that I desire you to speak to my lord Privy Seal for him, but merely to give me your best counsel what to do for the help of him, myself [and my children]’. See LPFD, vol. XII, pt ii, p. 332.

16
BL Add. MS 6,113, fol. 81. Another version, in a later hand, is in BL Egerton MS 985, fol. 33. He was proclaimed Prince of Wales on 18 October.

17
A sweet liqueur wine from Smyrna, flavoured with aromatic spices.

18
For details of Henry’s doctors and sixteenth-century medical treatments, see Hutchinson, pp. 131–7.

19
‘State Papers’, vol. I, p. 572.

20
‘State Papers’, vol. I, pp. 573–4.

21
LPFD, vol. XII, pt ii, p. 339.

22
LPFD, vol. XII, pt ii, p. 348.

23
LPFD, vol. XII, pt ii, p. 372.

24
Letter from Sir John Wallop to Lord Lisle, Deputy of Calais, 3 November 1537. See LPFD, vol. XII, pt ii, p. 358.

25
LPFD, vol. XII, pt ii, p. 339.

26
BL Royal MS 7C xvi, fols. 18–32.

27
A listing of property, assessing its value, from the medieval Latin meaning ‘value’ or ‘worth’.

28
BL Royal MS 7F xiv, fol. 78.

29
‘Mistress Jak’ was appointed as the baby’s wet nurse. See ‘State Papers’, vol. VIII, p. 2.

30
‘State Papers’, vol. VIII, p. 2.

31
She was aged fifteen. Madeleine, her sister, had married the Scottish king, James V, at the Cathedral of Notre Dame on 1 January 1537, before dying from a
viral infection in June 1537, only weeks after landing at Edinburgh’s port of Leith. James kept her substantial dowry.

32
Marie de Guise, aged twenty-two in 1537, had recently lost her husband, Louis d’Orléans, Second Duc de Longueville.

33
LPFD, vol. XII, pt ii, p. 348 and ‘State Papers’, vol. VIII, p. 2.

34
A funeral for a ‘good and lawful’ queen had not been staged since that of Henry’s mother, Elizabeth of York, in 1503. Then, Norfolk told Cromwell, there were ‘seven marquis and earls, sixteen barons, sixty knights and forty squires, besides the ordinary of the king’s house, which is more than we be certain of. Therefore we have named more persons, that you may choose them and others at the king’s pleasure.’ See LPFD, vol. XII, pt ii, p. 355. Norfolk also arranged for 1,200 masses to be said in the London churches for Jane’s soul in early November. See BL Cotton MS Nero C x, fol. 2.