stephen gardiner – Page 2

BBC/Playground Entertainment/Nick Briggs

In episode 5 of The Mirror and the Light, it is all coming part for Thomas Cromwell. After finally finding a woman willing to marry King Henry, Anne of Cleves is delayed as she gets to England, and is not stunned into undying love when she sees her sub-par new husband. Henry’s ego is hurt, and the year is off to a bad start.

In reality, Henry not liking Anna of Cleves was borne out of fear, not Anna’s appearance. Her brother was Wilhelm of Cleves, who had just declared war against Emperor Charles over the German duchy of Guelders. By marrying Anna, Henry was essentially making himself an ally against the Emperor in war. Trade with the Low Countries had already been halted, and Cromwell had traded Eustace Chapuys for Thomas Wriothesley, Stephen Vaughan and Edward Kerne, who were held hostage by the Emperor’s sister, Queen Mary of the Netherlands. Marrying and sleeping with Anna meant preparing to go to war against Emperor Charles, and after Anna had not been particularly chatty or enamoured with Henry, he was livid at having married the beautiful, young duchess. Henry was trying to make the best of it, Anna was well-liked by everyone but her husband, and Cromwell was busy infuriating the Duke of Norfolk by closing Thetford Priory, where the Howard ancestors were all buried.

Anna of Cleves, 16th century hottie. Hans Holbein, Louvre INV 1348

The English bible was out and it was the law to preach the reformed religion in England. Henry, Cromwell and Cranmer all graced the cover of the new bible. But getting everyone to obey the reforms was near impossible. In March 1540, Bishop Stephen Gardiner had been preaching the old doctrine at St Paul’s. Days later, Cromwell’s old friend Robert Barnes did the same, preaching the reformed doctrine. King Henry heard of these outbursts and ordered Gardiner and Barnes to appear before him to explain themselves. It was not simply two men forced to explain themselves, as the king was ‘scandalised’ by their words. It was Gardiner’s words against Cromwell’s words, Barnes simply the mouthpiece. Henry, unhappy with his German marriage, could turn his anger against the Reformation instead of its real target, bringing Cromwell and Gardiner’s long-running feud to its bitter end. Everyone needed to be silent to appease the king’s current mood, so Barnes recanted his words in late March, and Cromwell made a concession; he invited Stephen Gardiner to dinner at Austin Friars.

If the Lambeth Palace banquet with the Duke of Norfolk was a flashpoint in Cromwell’s fortune, the Austin Friars dinner party would go one step further. What should have been two men finding a truce, instead turned into a bitter dispute, free of the civility of court. Rumours were already flying; people believed Cromwell would lose the Vice-Gerent and Lord Privy Seal positions. With Henry turning from the Reformation due to his marital bed problems with Queen Anna, Cromwell needed to defend all he had done, just as Gardiner felt he needed to defend the papacy.

A withering and acrimonious shouting match ensued at Austin Friars, with Cromwell screaming at Gardiner, ‘if the King would turn (from the Reformation), yet I would not turn! And if the King did turn, and all his people, I would fight in the field in my person, with my sword in my hand, against him and all others’. Cromwell, holding a knife (claimed Gardiner), added, ‘if this dagger was not thrust into my heart in battle, and if I would not die in that quarrel against them all, and I live one year or two, it shall not be in the King’s power to resist me’.

Cromwell had made a huge mistake, not unlike several inappropriate outbursts over recent months. A man who could have his enemies cornered before they realised the hunt had begun, suddenly began making missteps for no apparent reason. Cromwell was discussing a theological battle, not an actual war, and if he had a knife, it would have been no more than a dinner knife. The lack of actual danger to Henry must have been apparent, as Gardiner kept this treasonous argument quiet, and Cromwell needed to get ahead of him. Cromwell surrendered the position of Secretary of State to the king, a job he held in an official capacity for six years. Secretary Cromwell was no more. The position that gave so much power beside the throne slipped away, but only just. The position would be divided between two people, a plan used regularly in the future, separating the immense power of the position. Ralph Sadler and Thomas Wriothesley were both given the job.

For a moment, things seemed to calm again but French Ambassador Marillac thought Cromwell was in trouble; Gardiner had not said anything, but Marillac, either listening to bad sources or simply sharing lies, wrote to King Francis, ‘Cromwell is tottering’. Marillac could not have been more wrong. On 17 April, King Henry astounded Cromwell and his friends and foes, telling him that he would become the 16th Earl of Essex (1st Earl, sixth creation), accompanied with a list of lands and manors five pages long. Henry Bouchier, whose family had held the Essex titles for eighty years, broke his neck after coming off his horse a month earlier, a sudden opportunity for Cromwell to be elevated. One day after this shock announcement, Cromwell was again bestowed with glory: the title of Lord Great Chamberlain, head of the royal household. The Earls of Oxford had held the role for the past 400 years, but John De Vere had died at home just a week after Henry Bouchier, leaving a vacancy at court.

But Gardiner had these words, spoken in anger at Austin Friars, coupled with the Duke of Norfolk’s French plan to remove Cromwell, were lying in wait, as the final traitor was about to reveal himself.

Norfolk and Gardiner – BBC/Playground Entertainment/Nick Briggs

Welcome to another installment of the details behind Wolf Hall 2: The Mirror and the Light. Thomas Cromwell’s fall from grace has long been seen as a sudden act – one minute he is being made the Earl of Essex, next he is dead, all because King Henry thought Anna of Cleves was ugly. None of that is true, and The Mirror and the Light shows the pivotal moment where Cromwell’s fall began, a full year before his death. However, the truth of the event is very different to what is shown onscreen.

In The Mirror and the Light episode 4, we see Cromwell at a banquet dinner held at Lambeth Palace by Archbishop Cranmer. All of the Privy Council attend, and Bishop Stephen Gardiner decides to stir up trouble by discussing the murder of Cardinal Bainbridge, talking of how he was poisoned by a priest, but instead veers into fantasy land and suggests Cromwell was the killer. Cromwell lashes out at Norfolk, who is off on another tangent complaining about how Cromwell isn’t good enough to be a nobleman, and conspires against everyone. This scene is a good show of research on Cromwell’s life, but bears no resemblance to the truth.

In 1514, Thomas Cromwell went to Rome, one of several trips he took during the decade, working on behalf of a private legal client to argue the Stratford Langthorne tithe dispute. Having seen the ‘factions and manners’ of the Italians for years, and able to speak fluent Italian and Latin, Cromwell was perfect for the job. In Rome, Cromwell stayed at the English Hospice, San Tommaso di Canterbury. The English Hospice at via Monserrato 45 (now The Venerable English College), sat a block from the Tiber river, and a two-mile walk to the Apostolic Palace. The hostel had been catering to English pilgrims to Rome for almost 200 years, and after renovation and reorganisation by King Henry VII, became an important hub for English diplomats visiting the city.

On his May stay, Cromwell met Lancelot Collins, nephew to the hospice’s master Cardinal Christopher Bainbridge, Archbishop of York, and resident English cardinal in Rome. This meeting between Cromwell and Collins would spark another genuine lifelong friendship, with Collins considered one of the kindest and most generous men in England by even cynical men. Collins valued his friendship with Cromwell for over twenty years, even when, in later life, it would threaten his safety. But Cromwell had already left Rome by 14 July 1514 when Cardinal Bainbridge was poisoned by Rinaldo de Modena, one of Bainbridge’s chaplains, and rumoured lover who had suffered a beating from the cardinal. When interrogated, Modena confessed to planning the murder with Silvester de Gigli of Lucca, Bishop of Worcester and English ambassador in Rome, however, Modena was soon murdered in prison. Bainbridge’s executors, Richard Pace and John Clerk, wanted Gigli arrested for his part in the death, but Gigli swore that Modena was insane, and no charges were brought in Rome or in England. Either way, Gigli was not charged and he died himself a few years later. Absolutely nothing in the case had anything to do with Cromwell or Wolsey.

Back to 1539, on 2 July, King Henry, already off on progress, commanded Archbishop Cranmer to host a banquet at Lambeth Palace, with both sides of the religious divide ordered to attend, as everyone remained in London. Henry did not attend, but Cromwell, starting to return to health after three full months, could attend his first public occasion. The banquet would go down in infamy. As a man freshly recovered from a torturous illness, Cromwell was far from the calculating, charming man he portrayed at court. Cranmer’s secretary Ralph Morice recorded the evening, which formed the basis of John Foxe’s later book detailing the event. Cromwell and Cranmer were warmest friends and allies, two leaders of the Reformation in England. Morice recalled a rarely recorded argument between the pair. Cromwell muttered to Cranmer:

‘you were born at a happy hour, for do or say what you, the King will always take it well at your hand. And I must needs confess that in some things I have complained of you unto His Majesty, but all in vain, for he will never give credit against you, whatsoever is laid to your charge, but let me or any other of the Council be complained of, his Grace will most seriously chide and fall out with us.’

Whether this uncommon, disrespectful, and candid complaint came before or after the main fireworks is unknown, as Cromwell again made a scene, publicly fighting with the ever-present, ever-meddling, Duke of Norfolk. Norfolk gave a speech about King Henry’s love for Cranmer, and compared Cranmer to Wolsey, calling Wolsey ‘a churlish prelate … who could never abide a nobleman … you know well enough Lord Crumwell, for he was your master …’ Morice then put down his quill, unwilling to record the awful things Norfolk insinuated about Wolsey and Cromwell. Cromwell, only just out of his sickbed, and already surrounded by enemies and a tense meeting of religious views, stood up to defend Wolsey. Cromwell told the room he did not regret his time with Wolsey, well-paid and well-provided for during their six-year friendship. Cromwell then roundly turned against Norfolk, giving him a caustic sixteenth-century dressing down, among other things, saying:

‘I was never so far in love with (Wolsey) as to have waited upon him in Rome if he had been chosen Pope, as I understand (Norfolk) would have done’.

The exchange does not sound hostile now, but it implied Norfolk was prepared to serve the Catholic faith and the Pope over his king, which would be treason. Norfolk bellowed a denial to the claim. Cromwell, through a lack of manners and a vast memory, told everyone Norfolk received 50,000 florins to transport Wolsey to Rome in 1523 when Wolsey was in place to become the Pope. The florins were proof of Norfolk’s plan to go to Rome with Wolsey. While Cranmer and others at the banquet diffused the screaming match, which was unquestionably complemented by bountiful wine and strong egos, the match had been lit between the men. Neither needed to wear the mask of courtesy again, as the peers of the realm had seen and heard all. Cromwell did not know it, but this banquet was the beginning of his ultimate downfall. The illness he suffered that caused him to miss the parliamentary session and the passing of the Six Articles would cause Cromwell to make numerous mistakes

All sources come from The Private Life of Thomas Cromwell. My publisher might come for you if you plagiarise.