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‘The Art of the Possible’: Thomas Cromwell's Management of West Country Government*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Mary L. Robertson
Mary L. Robertson
Affiliation:
The Huntington Library
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Extract

The relationships between central government and local community have attracted much attention among historians of early Tudor England. Administrative studies have long since described the network of offices and institutions which theoretically implemented executive action; more recent work has analysed the social and political structure of individual counties. But the actual mechanics of interaction between centre and locality have received less attention. How, in practice, did an active and capable minister translate programmes and policies into action and good order at the local or regional level? What limitations, and what opportunities, did entrenched networks of local interest present to the central administration ? And what tools were available in turn at the centre to co-opt or overturn those networks as necessary in the service of the state?

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , December 1989 , pp. 793 - 816
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

1 The Elizabethans and early Stuarts are better served. See especially Smith, A. Hassell, County and court: government and politics in Norfolk, 1558–1603 (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar, and Barnes, Thomas Garden, Somerset 1625–1640: a county's government during the ‘Personal Rule’ (Cambridge, Mass., 1961)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the early Tudors only, Elton, G. R., Politics and police: the enforcement of the reformation in the age of Thomas Cromwell (Cambridge, 1972)Google Scholar, discusses such central-local relations in detail, but his chief emphasis is on the enforcement of the reformation rather than on the full range of the government's activities. Clark's, PeterEnglish provincial society from the reformation to the revolution: religion, politics, and society in Kent 1500–1640 (Hassocks, 1977), pp. 3–107Google Scholar, makes a start, but gives too much importance to party and faction at the expense of the basic solidarity of the gentry elite and the attempts of the administration to control it. For two general but important summaries of local government see Elton's chapter on the topic in The Tudor constitution: documents and commentary (London and New York, 1982 edn), pp. 462–82Google Scholar, and especially note 1; and Williams, Penry, The Tudor regime (Oxford, 1979), pp. 407–67Google Scholar.

2 Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, 1509–1547, ed. Brewer, J. S. et al. (London, 1867–1920), v, 340, XII (2), 804Google Scholar.

3 Letters and papers, XIV (I), 532.

4 Ibid.VI, 394, XII (2), 182, 557. William Dynham of Devon also noted opposition among the clergy, ibid., XI, 954.

5 Ibid., XII (I), 1001, and see Elton, , Policy and police, p. 296Google Scholar, and Dodds, Madeleine Hope and Dodds, Ruth, The pilgrimage of grace 1536–1537 and the Exeter conspiracy 1538 (2 vols., Cambridge, 1915), II, 170–1Google Scholar, 180–1.

6 Letters and papers, XIII (2), 1162, XIII (2) 267 (2)Google Scholar.

7 For Devon's standing see MacCaffrey, Wallace T., Exeter 1540–1640: the growth of an English county town (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), p. 7Google Scholar.

8 For such complaints see, for example, Letters and papers, VI, 55, XI, 978, XII (1), 152. Several parliamentary statutes in the 1530s tried to deal with the problem: 23 Henry VIII, cc. 8, 23, 27 Henry VIII, c. 23, 31 Henry VIII, c. 4.

9 The bishop of Exeter's 1538 injunctions provided for preaching in Cornish in those places where English was not used. Letters and papers, XII (4), 1106Google Scholar. See also Rowse, A. L., Tudor Cornwall: portrait of a society (London, 1941), p. 22Google Scholar.

10 Calendar of state papers and manuscripts relating to English affairs, existing in the archives and collections of Venice (38 vols., in 40, London, 1864–1940 [1947]), 1, 311Google Scholar. I am grateful to Professor R. A. Griffiths for this reference.

11 See Robertson, Mary L., ‘Thomas Cromwell's servants: the ministerial household in early Tudor government and society’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1975), pp. 104–22Google Scholar.

12 Letters and papers, IX, 1148; London, Public Record Office (P.R.O), SP1/105/97–101. The estate was immediately leased out again. Minister's account for Cromwell's confiscated estates, kept after 1540 by crown receivers, show revenues of only 43s.41d. from lands in Devon and Somerset, most likely a relict of the outlying possessions of Lewes, the wealthy Sussex priory he received in 1538. P.R.O., SC6/Henry VIII/5972; Letters and papers, XIII (1), 384 (74).

13 Letters and papers, VI, 1457.

14 Ibid. VII, 1122 (9), X, 4, XIII (1), 384 (74).

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17 Ibid. VIII, 802 (10, 11).

18 For example, ibid. V, 1199, VI, 1376, X, 296.

19 Miller, , Henry VIII, pp. 64–5Google Scholar.

20 Letters and papers, V, 1207 (28)Google Scholar.

21 Ibid. XII (1) 152, XI, 738.

22 Ives, E. W., ‘Faction at the court of Henry VIII: the fall of Anne Boleyn’, History, LVII, 190 (1972), 176Google Scholar. This was not the first time Exeter had been denied the court. Imprudent talk by two of his servants in Cornwall in 1531 resulted in an earlier temporary exile. Dodds, , Pilgrimage of Grace, II, 181, 312Google Scholar.

23 Exeter's chief residence throughout the 1530s was not in Devon but at Horsley in west Surrey. The fullest account of the misnamed ‘Exeter Conspiracy’ is still Dodds, Pilgrimage of Grace.

24 Cromwell himself, the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and the earls of Southampton and Wiltshire.

25 Letters and papers, XIII (2), 732.

26 Miller, , Henry VIII, p. 27Google Scholar; Letters and papers, XIII (2), 141, 606, app. 26, XIV (1), 894, 917, XIV (2), app. 10.

27 Despite Merriman, R. B., Life and letters of Thomas Cromwell (2 vols., Oxford, 1902), 1Google Scholar, 15, it is not likely that Cromwell was formally in the service of the 2nd marquess of Dorset, for he was in Wolsey's household by 1516. Elton, G. R., ‘Thomas Cromwell redivivus’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, LXVIII (1977), 193Google Scholar. Yet Cromwell was helping the dowager Marchioness Cecily in some capacity in the 1520s; the surviving evidence is ambiguous. Letters and papers, III, 2437, IV (2), 3053. For Thomas, Lord, see Letters and papers, XIII (2), 1184Google Scholar, and ‘Excerpts from the manuscript of William Dunche’, ed. Murray, A. G. W. and Bosanquet, Eustace F. in The Genealogist, N.S. XXX (1914), 20–1Google Scholar.

28 Letters and papers, XIII (i), 136; the act is 32 Henry, VIII, c. 79, calendared in Letters and papers, XV, 498 iii, c. 79Google Scholar, but not printed in Statutes of the realm. The bill was introduced in the Lords on 11 May 1540 when Cromwell was still in power. Journals of the House of Lords, 1, 137.

29 Letters and papers, XIV (2) 491; ‘Excerpts from the manuscript of William Dunche’, pp. 20–1.

30 Ibid. V, 1238, VI, 763, 1481 i, VIII, 892, XIII (2), app. 43 (probably misdated by the editors as 1538). Letters and papers, XIV (2), 782, implies that the younger Hungerford was in Cromwell's service before the end of 1537.

31 On Veysey see Heal, Felicity, Of prelates and princes: a study of the economic and social position of the Tudor episcopate (Cambridge, 1980), especially pp. 36–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, Lacy Baldwin, Tudor prelates and politics 1536–1558 (Princeton, 1953), pp. 39–42Google Scholar; DNB.

32 Letters and papers, IX, 211.

33 Ibid. IX, 699, XII (1) 75, 1106; Elton, , Policy and police, pp. 254–5Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., XV, 292.

35 Ibid. IX, 699, XI, 810, 211, XIII (2), 1217, XIV (2), 177.

36 The History of Parliament, The House of Commons 1503–1558, ed. Bindoff, S. T. (3 vols., London, 1982), I, 29–253Google Scholar.

37 Letters and papers, VII, 117, V, 672 ii, VI, 1176, 1457.

38 For Fortescue, , Letters and papers, XIII (4) 1309 (10)Google Scholar, XIV (1) 964; for Ridgeway, John, The House of Commons, III 197–8Google Scholar, Letters and papers, XIII (4) 1309 (10), XIV (2), 236 (p. 72)Google Scholar, XV, 436 (19); for Yeo, Hugh, The House of Commons, III, 682–3Google Scholar; for the Pollards, see below pp. 801–2.

39 A partial list of household, Cromwell's is Letters and papers, XIII (2) 1184Google Scholar. For a more detailed study, see my ‘Thomas Cromwell's Servants’.

40 The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535–1543, ed. Smith, Lucy Toulmin (5 vols., in 11, London, 1907–1910), 1Google Scholar, 191, 193; Rowse, , Tudor Cornwall, pp. 54Google Scholar, 85; The House of Commons, 11, 219–20.

41 Letters and papers, IV, 137 (18), 1136 (12), 2002 (6), 6072 (9), V, 766 (10), 1093, 1168, 1694 ii, VI, 1481 (29), VIII, 1158 (4), X, 1015 (3), XII (1), 384 (17), XIII (2), 967 (26).

42 Ibid. XII (1), 1001, 1227, XIV (1), 87, 598–9, XII (2) 595; Elton, , Policy and police, p. 253Google Scholar.

43 Letters and papers, XIII (2), 1184, X, 597 (15), XII (2), 191 (6), XIV (1) 598.

44 The House of Commons, II, 34–6; Somerville, Robert, History of the duchy of Lancaster (London, 1953), p. 635Google Scholar; for his personal relations with Cromwell see Letters and papers, III (3), 2667, 3504, IV (1), 547. 2331, IV (2), 3216, 3506. IV (3). 6185, V, 621, 1207 (28).

45 Letters and papers, X, 105, XI, 1330, XII (2), 803, XIII (1), 453–4, XIII (2), 267.

46 The House of Commons, II, 34–6; Letters and papers, XI, 1330, XIV (2), 572, XV, 436 (36); for the charges against him and Cromwell's resolution of them to Denys's relief and gratitude, see Letters and papers, XIII (1), 120, 453.

47 Letters and papers, XIII (1), 721, XIII (2), 1184.

48 Fuller, Thomas, Anglorum speculum, or the worthies of England in church and state (London, 1684), p. 1561Google Scholar; Foss, Edward, The judges of England (9 vols., London, 1848–1964), V, 227–8Google Scholar; The House of Commons, III, 119–23; Letters and papers, IX, 914 (22), XII (1) 1150 (18), XIII (2), 1184, XIV (2), 619 (38). For Pollard's, Richard role in Cromwell's service and in the central government see my ‘Thomas Cromwell's servants’, especially chs. III and IV and pp. 542–3Google Scholar.

49 See below, p. 807.

50 For example, Letters and papers, XIII (2), 954, 956, 958–61.

51 The House of Commons, 111, 122–3; Letters and papers, XII (1), 539 (40), XIV (2), 619 (28), XV, 1032, 831 (68), XIII (1), 1520.

52 Rowse, , Tudor Cornwall, pp. 161Google Scholar, 170 ff., 209 ff., 219 ff; The House of Commons, 1, 333–8; Letters and papers, VIII, 359, IX, 555, XII (2), 595, 738, XIV (1), 598.

53 The House of Commons 1, 337–8.

54 Letters and papers, VI, 55, VII, 736, XIII (2), 1134; Elton, , Policy and police, p. 58Google Scholar. In January Lyme received a royal grant of £20 p.a., for ten years, in consideration of the ruinous state of the breakwater, Letters and papers, VIII, 149 (12).

55 Ibid. X, 1221, XI, 1430, XII (1), 4, XIII (1), 1520, XIII (2), 1092.

56 Ibid. V, 1178, VI, 461, 1118.

57 Ibid. VII, app. 37–9, VIII, 359, 558; for a fuller account of the dispute see Rowse, , Tudor Cornwall, pp. 170–2Google Scholar.

58 Letters and papers, VI, 300 (14), VIII, 1158 (4), XII (2), 911, XIII (1), 1520 (pp. 573, 587), XIV(1), 1355 (p. 604), XIV (2) 236, XV, 242 (12).

59 For example, Letters and papers, V, 294, 300, 1001; VI, 442, 837, 1286, VIII, 520, 538, 569.

60 Ibid. VI, 1544, 1362, VIII, 359, 569, IX, 384, 832; and see below, pp. 811–12, for weirs.

61 Ibid. VII, app. 39, IX, 833, X, 821, XIII (1), 1246; The House of Commons, 1, 716–18. It is possible that Cromwell had in his household both Sir William's younger son Peter and his grandson William. The surviving evidence does not always distinguish between them.

62 Cromwell's ward was Lawrence Courtenay, son and heir of Richard Courtenay. P.R.O., WARDS 9/151//12; Letters and papers, V, 1178, VI, 60, VII, 923 (xix).

63 The House of Commons, II, 81–3; Rowse, , Tudor Cornwall, p. 85Google Scholar; Letters and papers, IV, 4445 (23), V, 1207 (28), VII, 1498 (13).

64 Letters and papers, VI, 503 (redated to c. 1534 in Elton's Policy and police, p. 230), 1503, XII (1), 152, XIII (1), 1245, XIV (1), 815.

65 Ibid. VI, 1503, IX, 578, XI, 166, 978, XII (1), 152, XIII (1), 1245.

66 Ibid. X, 551; Devon monastic lands: calendar of particulars for grants, ed. Youings, Joyce A., Devon and Cornwall Record Society, N.S., 1 (1955), 19–20Google Scholar; Letters and papers, XIII (1), 1245.

67 Letters and papers, XIV (1), 743, XIV (2), 371, 455, 494, XV, 18.

68 For a revised view in favour of the sheriff's continued importance see Noonkester, Myron C., ‘Kings of their counties: the shrievalty in England from Elizabeth I to Charles I’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1984)Google Scholar. I am grateful to Professor Mark Kishlansky for this reference, and to Dr Noonkester for making his work available to me.

69 Noonkester, , ‘Kings of their counties’, pp. 9–17Google Scholar.

70 Letters and papers, V, 1553.

71 The House of Commons, 1, 717; Letters and papers, VI, 1286, 1481 (29).

72 Letters and papers, IX, 655, 914 (22).

73 Ibid. IX, 578.

74 P.R.O., STAC 2/vol. II/fos. 183–7; Letters and papers, XII (2), 754, 803, 856, XIII (1), 120. The incident is discussed in Youings, Joyce A., ‘The Council of the West’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., X (1960), 47–8Google Scholar.

75 Letters and papers, XIII (4), 1192Google Scholar.

76 Ibid. XII (2), 856.

77 Ibid. XIII (1), 120.

78 Ibid. XII (2), 1150 (18), 1211.

79 Ibid. XIII (1), 453.

80 Ibid. XIII (2), 21, XII (2), 856, XIV (1), 598, 928.

81 Ibid. XIII (2), 266.

82 Ibid. XV, 292.

83 Ibid. VII, 923, XII, 1315, VIII, 147, XIII (1), 879.

84 For example, Elton, , Policy and police, pp. 230–43Google Scholar.

85 Letters and papers, XIII (1), 384 (63), 1245, XIV (1), 598, 867 (c. 15), XV, 942 (41).

86 Zell, M. L., ‘Early Tudor JPs at work’, Archaeologia Cantiana, XCIII (1977), 126Google Scholar; Smith, Hassell, County and court, pp. 77–86Google Scholar. Only Zell's study for Kent, and MacCulloch, Diarmid, Suffolk and the Tudors: politics and religion in an English county 1500–1600 (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar, are now available for the 1530s. Dr Robert L. Woods's forthcoming book on the justices of the peace in the half-century before the Reformation will help put the 1530s in perspective.

87 All but three of the surviving commissions are calendared in Letters and papers. The remaining three (for Cornwall in 1533 and 1534 and Devon in 1534) do not appear on the patent rolls, but survive in the Exchequer Originalia Rolls, P.R.O. E371/298/51, mb. 2, and E371/299/43, mm. 2, 3. (See Bevan, A. S., ‘Justices of the peace, 1509–47: an additional source’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, LVIII, 138 (1985), 242–8.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar I am grateful to Mr Norman Evans at the P.R.O. and to Professor Robert Woods for making these Exchequer documents available to me. 2,3.(See Bevan, A. S., ‘Justices of the peace, 1509–47: an additional source’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, LVIII, 1381 (1985), 242–8.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar I am grateful to Mr Norman Evans at the P.R.O. and to Professor Robert Woods for making these Exchequer documents available to me.

88 See above, p. 799.

89 See my ‘Thomas Cromwell's servants’, especially pp. 330–3 and 340–8, for indications that Cornwall and Devon were not atypical in this respect.

90 The House of Commons, III, 475–6; Letters and papers, XI, 1490, VIII, 676, XII (2), 759, XV, 426.

91 Letters and papers, XII (1), 277, 497.

92 For a discussion of such reports on religious matters see Elton, Policy and police; for the social and economic comments see, for example, Letters and papers, VI, 55, 1362, XI, 978, IX, 384.

93 Letters and papers, VI, 299 (p. 139), VII, 923 (iii, viii, xxi), IX, 299, X, 254 (bis), 871, 929, XIV (2) 494.

94 See Elton, , Reform and renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the common weal (Cambridge, 1973), and especially ch. 4Google Scholar.

95 23 Henry VIII, c. 8, and 27 Henry VIII, c. 23.

96 23 Henry VIII, c. 23, 32 Henry VIII, c. 19, and see Elton, , Reform and renewal, p. 108Google Scholar.

97 23 Henry VIII, c. 5; Letters and papers, IX, 126, 140, 166, 383–4, 498, 833.

98 For one such long-running battle, see The Lisle letters, ed. Byrne, Muriel St Clare (6 vols., Chicago, 1981), 11 622–3 and passimGoogle Scholar.

99 For example, Letters and papers, IX, 384, X, 105, XIII (1), 454; the 1539 act is 31 Henry VIII, c. 4

100 Elton, , Reform and renewal, p. 80Google Scholar, citing the original draft of 23 Henry VIII, c. 8, in P.R.O. SP2/L, fos. 106–11.

101 Letters and papers, XI, 978 (spelling modernized), XII (1), 152. The exact nature of the bill mentioned is not clear; it was probably not the actual parliamentary legislation for normally the king would have signed that only for bills touching individuals, and in any event parliament did not meet until April 1539.

102 Letters and papers, VIII, 291 (30), XII (2), 617 (7), 1017. The annuity of £xs4 was paid at least from 1537 to 1539, Letters and papers, XIV (2), 782. Cromwell's detailed accounts do not survive for 1536 or earlier. For the city's draft of the charter see Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the records of the city of Exeter (London, 1916), p. 5Google Scholar. The standard account for Exeter is MacCaffrey, Wallace, Exeter, 1540–1640: the growth of an English county town (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), and see p. 19Google Scholar, but the work is disappointingly brief on the 1537 reform.

103 Letters and papers, XII (2), 1017Google Scholar. Other justices were William Hurst, Jo. Blackaller, Henry Hamlyn and Jo. Bricknoll. The first three of these were mayors or former mayors.

104 Report on the records of the city of Exeter, p. 304; Letters and papers, XV, 436 (46), 831 (71). Denys sold the property to William Islam the following month. For the Russell rivalry see MacCaffrey, , Exeter, p. 21Google Scholar.

105 Elton, , Tudor constitution, p. 203Google Scholar. The standard account of this brief experiment is Youings, Joyce, ‘The Council of the West’, supplemented by Willen, Diane, John Russell, first earl of Bedford: one of the king's men, Royal Historical Society Studies in History, no. 23 (London, 1981)Google Scholar.

106 Letters and papers, XIV (1), 743. The Council also included the bishops of Exeter and Bath, the dean of Exeter, two other lawyers, and the leading gentlemen of Dorset and Somerset. Cromwell's relations with these last are remarkably similar to those with their Cornish and Devon fellows. See my‘Thomas Cromwell's servants’, pp. 340–7.

107 Letters and papers, XIV (1), 685–6, XIV (2), 190, 267, 371, 455, XV, 426.

108 Russell continued to neglect the west after Cromwell's fall until 1549, when growing local discontent erupted into open rebellion; thereafter he seems to have realized his mistakes and began to build better connections with the region. See Willen, , John Russell, pp. 32Google Scholar, 40, 73, 78–80, and Youings, , ‘Council of the West’, p. 58Google Scholar.

109 For example, Letters and papers, XIV (1), 928, XV, 292, 426.

110 The basic account remains Elton's, G. R.Tudor revolution in government: administrative changes in the reign of Henry VIII (Cambridge, 1953), pp. 317ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Tudor government: the points of contact. II. The council’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., XXV (1975), 195–211Google Scholar, supplemented by Guy, J. A., ‘The privy council: revolution or evolution?’ in Revolution reassessed: revisions in the history of Tudor government and administration, ed. Coleman, Christopher and Slarkcy, David (Oxford, 1986), pp. 59–85Google Scholar.

111 Letters and papers, XI, 166. This may be a distortion due in part to the accident of survival, for the main body of material for the 1530s consists of Cromwell's own papers; yet as principal secretary he would also have kept the privy council's correspondence at this stage, and it is sparse.

112 Elton, , Tudor constitution, p. 105Google Scholar.