Thomas Cromwell: Servant to Henry VIII (20 page)

When a report suggested serious moral or professional lapses on the part of a head of house, he would take steps to secure the dismissal of the offending party and his (or her) replacement with a more satisfactory candidate.
²⁰
The injunctions which the visitors carried with them are interesting in this respect. They demand loyalty to Henry as Supreme Head, and to the succession laid down; forbid monks from going out from their cloisters, or women to go in. At meal times the monks are to listen to a reading from the Old or New Testament, and one hour each day is to be devoted to the reading of scripture. All brethren are to observe the ‘rule, statutes and laudable customs of their order’, insofar as these agree with the word of God, and are to be disabused of the opinion that true religion lies in their apparel or monastic routines. True religion lies rather in ‘cleanliness of mind … Christ’s faith not feigned and in brotherly charity’.
²¹
These were demanding requirements, especially in places where the brothers were at each other’s throats for doctrinal or personal reasons, a result very often of the introduction of reformed ideas. No relics were to be displayed, or pilgrimages encouraged, and no fairs or markets were to be permitted in religious houses. In short the monasteries were to be converted into evangelical training colleges, because no house that denied the Pope’s authority could properly be called a monastery at all, and if they satisfied all these requirements they would be allowed to stand. The emphasis on reformation in these injunctions suggests that they were written by Cromwell himself, and the number of houses which satisfied them was small indeed. One such was St James in Northampton, where a new abbot had been appointed in 1533, thanks to the secretary’s patronage, and which received a glowing report from the commissioners.
²²
Another was St Gregory’s in Canterbury, where the head had also been replaced in a combined effort by Cromwell and Cranmer. As might be expected this policy became more noticeable after his appointment as Viceregent, and when the visitation was actually under way. When the Abbot of West Dereham died, Thomas Legh, who was conducting the visitation, asked whether Cromwell had anyone in mind as his replacement. On this occasion he accepted Legh’s own suggestion, and that seems to have been a common reaction.
²³
When the prior of St Swithin’s in Winchester resigned, the visitor Thomas Parry suggested a certain William Basing, a monk of the house of the ‘better sort’, as his replacement, and Cromwell acted upon his advice. Basing was an educated man, a doctor of divinity ‘favouring the truth’ who could be expected to lead his brethren in the way they should go. Basing had also solicited the position, writing to Legh on 16 March 1536, asking him to ‘move Mr Secretary’ for him. Legh in turn prompted Parry’s suggestion. On this occasion acceptance of the king’s authority was also required, but this presented no difficulty, and Basing was soon thanking the secretary for his promotion.
²⁴

During the visitation Cromwell appears to have authorised his commissioners to make interim appointments on his behalf, and to have confirmed them afterwards. It was in this manner that John Vaughan appointed Joan Skydmore to be prioress of Aconbury, and Drs Layton and Legh deposed the faulty Abbot of Fountains and replaced him with a member of his house, one Marmaduke Bradley. The old abbot had neglected his house, kept prostitutes and generally violated the rules of his order; even by his own confession he ought to have been deprived, and Marmaduke was a ‘right apt man’, provided of course that Cromwell had not already nominated somebody else to the vacancy.
²⁵
He had not, and their nominee was duly installed. Nor was the secretary a distant figure in respect of these activities. According to Chapuys he accompanied the king wherever he went, and conducted personal visitations of all religious houses in the vicinity. A good example of the way in which such intervention might work is provided by the Abbey of Winchcombe. About the time of his appointment as Viceregent, Cromwell had received a letter from one Hugh Coper, a Winchcombe monk, complaining of the ‘papistry’ of the abbot, who was endeavouring to stop the mouths of the true preachers of the gospel, and asking for release from his vows. He advised the appointment of a local priest, Anthony Saunders, to instruct the monks in the way of truth.
²⁶
Cromwell apparently acted on this advice, and visited Winchcombe in the summer of 1535, only to be bombarded with complaints from both sides. Saunders complained that he was being obstructed in his work, and the abbot that his authority was being undermined. It was true that he was losing ground in his battle to control his abbey, but he was in no mood to resign and, in the absence of any
verifiable treason, Cromwell did not have the power to dismiss him. He survived until the house was dissolved in the following year. However it was a troubled time, and Cromwell’s visit produced a complaint from another reform-minded member of the community, one John Placet. Placet, who was a passionate supporter of the king’s proceedings, besought the secretary to find him a benefice where he could preach the word of God uninterrupted. He was apparently successful in his quest, and wrote to Cromwell soon after promising to send him a little treatise that he had written on the Royal Supremacy, as a kind of thanks offering.
²⁷
Winchcombe was not the only place to benefit from a personal visit. The prior of Kingswood thanked him in fulsome terms for opening his eyes to the truth, for speaking ‘the Divine Word’ as he put it, in his abbey. He also sent a book which he had written on the Supremacy, dedicated to Cromwell, and begged for his ‘evangelical charity’ to be extended to his house. In this last he was only temporarily successful, because Kingswood went the same way as the rest in 1538.

What is clear from all this is that Cromwell was not pursuing a policy of general dissolution after the passage of the Act delivering the smaller monasteries to the king in February 1536. The care with which he planted reform-minded monks in conservative institutions, and removed obstructive heads of houses, argues in favour of a genuine policy of reform. Not that this would have placated the leaders of the Pilgrimage, who were as opposed to the ideas of the evangelicals as they were to the removal of the abbeys. A number of abbeys were involved in the Pilgrimage, sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly, and a number of abbots suffered execution for their role. From October to December 1536 there was also a lull in the process of closure, as Cromwell kept out of the public eye, and it remained uncertain what concessions the king might make to the rebels. However, by the beginning of 1537 the Dissolution had recommenced and as the year advanced it became obvious that the greater houses, which had been so lavishly praised in the Act, were also coming under threat. This change of policy can only be attributed to the king, because it clearly ran counter to the Lord Privy Seal’s advice, and raises the interesting question of who else he was listening to.
²⁸
It would not have been Stephen Gardiner, who was unhappy with the whole process and in any case was on mission in France a lot of the time; nor would it have been Queen Jane, who had no weight in such discussions, and whose only known intervention had been in favour of their preservation. The most likely candidates are the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, whom Chapuys had associated with a policy of plunder towards the Church as long before as 1529. However, it is equally likely that he was listening to no one, and that the idea was his own. He knew perfectly well that the monasteries held great wealth, enough to triple his income if he could lay hands on it, and he also knew that in spite of Cromwell’s efforts the great monasteries were the likeliest repositories of pro-papal sentiment. There was also the evidence of demand, because as soon as the process of dissolution began, Cromwell began to receive begging letters from noblemen and gentlemen, asking for grants or leases of former monastic property.
²⁹
It may have been his intention to create a new landed endowment for the Crown, and to reduce the need for constant appeals to Parliament for money, but it soon began to appear that an alternative strategy was available. By releasing much of this land onto the market, Henry would be creating a vested interest in the Royal Supremacy. A vested interest which would make it much more difficult for any future ruler to renegotiate relations with the papacy, as was proved to be the case when Queen Mary undertook such a negotiation in 1554.
³⁰
The king’s determination to do away with all monasteries was therefore backed by some sound strategic considerations, both practical and
religious, and Cromwell was soon converted. He began to put pressure upon the greater houses to surrender voluntarily, and they did so one by one, finishing with Waltham Abbey in Essex in February 1540. A second statute in 1539 vested the property of all these surrendered houses in the Crown, and placed it in the ‘order, survey and government of our said sovereign lord the king’s Court of Augmentations of the Revenues of the Crown’.
³¹

This Court of Augmentations had been established by statute in 1536, as a direct result of the first round of dissolutions, and represented a critical stage in Cromwell’s plans for the revenues of the Crown. He already had a foot in the Exchequer by virtue of his office as Chancellor, and a foot in the household through his office as Keeper of the Jewel House. However, although he succeeded in converting the latter into a significant spending department, neither of these personal positions represented the reform which was called for by the acquisition of the Church’s wealth. John Gostwick had already been appointed treasurer of First Fruits and Tenths in the wake of the Act of 1534, but no department had been created in his support, and he seems to have remained personally responsible to Cromwell for the revenues which he collected.
³²
He was the secretary’s servant, and his appointment was undoubtedly arranged, but the sums which he handled were not small. Between 1535 and 1540 he collected £406,000, an average of over £60,000 a year. Of this about £130,000 was earmarked for special purposes, and was handed over directly by Gostwick or Cromwell to the intended recipients.
³³
First Fruits and Tenths also administered the clerical subsidies, which had been withdrawn from the Chamber, and cash diverted to him from the Court of Augmentations. In some respects Gostwick was a paymaster rather than a treasurer, but he was nevertheless the officer responsible for handling the king’s spiritual revenues. It was only after Cromwell’s fall that a Court of First Fruits and Tenths was established and a proper accounting procedure introduced, which is an indication of his personal control. Augmentations did not handle spiritual revenues, but those temporalities and duties which resulted from the Dissolution. These were multifarious. The houses had to be suppressed or their surrenders accepted; surveys and valuations of their property taken; and the monks disposed of. The lands accruing to the Crown had to be administered, and their rents collected, expended and accounted for.
³⁴
Disposal by grant, sale or lease had to be arranged and supervised, and the litigation which inevitably accompanied the possession of land had to be coped with. The departing monks had also left obligations behind them that the government was determined to honour, in the form of leases to be carried over and debts to be paid. The monks themselves had to be pensioned, or sent to Chancery to collect their ‘capacities’ or licences to act as secular priests. Ahead of the establishment of the court, a commission was set up to advise on how to resolve these problems, and the commissioners consulted with officials of the Duchy of Lancaster, because it was intended that the duchy should exercise similar jurisdiction over houses dissolved within its bounds.
³⁵
A number of specific questions were identified. What was to be done with monks who wished to continue in their habit if there was no house of their order remaining nearby – or at all? How much in the way of personal possessions was each monk to be allowed to take with him? Who was to take immediate charge of the lead and bells from the dissolved houses? Who should be appointed to serve the cures of churches belonging to the houses, especially those which had been cared for by the monks themselves? And what was to be done with monks or lay brothers who were too sick or aged to be moved?
³⁶
These questions indicate the seriousness with which the commissioners took their responsibilities, and also that no existing department had the resources to deal with them in addition to its existing duties. Hence the need for a new court, which was to be a court of record, administering both a Great and Privy Seal, and given charge of all dissolved religious houses and their property, except those within the remit of the Duchy of Lancaster and those which the king should license to continue. This last proviso was an indication that in 1536 a wholesale dissolution was not intended, and a clause that later developments swiftly rendered obsolete. Augmentations was also given control of lands acquired from other sources, notably those previously administered by the general surveyors, who were thus absorbed into the new court.
³⁷
Its structure was closely modelled on that of the Duchy of Lancaster, governed by a council consisting of a chancellor, treasurer, attorney and solicitor, and employing ten auditors and seventeen local receivers, all of which offices were effectively within the gift of the Lord Privy Seal. Richard Rich became the first chancellor, and the other positions were filled with known Cromwell dependants. The Lord Privy Seal’s control over the operations of the new court was not as direct as that over First Fruits and Tenths, but was nevertheless real, and it must be seen as an instrument of his policy.
³⁸

Augmentations was almost entirely independent, Exchequer interference with its processes being expressly forbidden. All grants, gifts and leases of land under its control, although authorised by warrants under the sign manual, were written by the clerk of the court and issued under its own seal. The Chancellor was authorised to make leases of up to twenty-one years on his own authority, only the granting of reversions requiring special mandate from the king or Lord Privy Seal, and the clerk was ordered to enrol all grants and leases, keeping a register of appearances before the court, decrees and orders. That is what it meant to be a court of record.
³⁹
All the fees and expenses claimed by its officers were to be the same as for the Duchy of Lancaster. The Act of foundation specified methods of accounting both for the treasurer and for the individual receivers, but left it to the council of the court to specify how the latter should be organised, and in the event their work was divided by counties, no attempt being made to maintain the integrity of the original estates. England was divided into fifteen groups of counties, and Wales into two. Oxfordshire, for example, was linked with Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, and Middlesex with London and Kent. This was a rational and efficient system, well calculated to ensure that lands did not disappear down the cracks between jurisdictions, and a necessary precaution against the acquisitiveness of gentlemen armed with generous bribes.
⁴⁰
It also meant that the whole financial organisation was on a county basis, with receivers for parliamentary taxes, duchy lands and Chamber lands, in addition to the sheriffs who accounted for the ancient demesne and the profits of justice. Nevertheless supplementary orders were soon needed, and these seem to have been issued by Cromwell as early as the summer of 1536. The foundation Act had been concerned to make Augmentations an efficient element in the financial administration, and had little to say about the legal powers of its court. This was now remedied, and it was laid down that it was to have ‘authority and power to hear and determine all matters between parties anywise touching any Lordship, Lands, tenements etc. now being or that hereafter shall be within the survey and government of the same’. Apart from cases involving disputes to titles which had arisen since the lands concerned had been alienated by the Crown, which were to be resolved at the common law, the Court of Augmentations was to have full jurisdiction over all matters concerning the Crown, even disputes between party and party over property acquired at the Dissolution and not yet sold or given away.
⁴¹
Many of these points were put on a statutory basis when the law was codified in the Act setting up the Court of General Surveyors in 1542.
⁴²