No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
The aim of this essay is to re-examine the government of the southwest of England in the 1530s in the light of Dr M. Robertson's essay in The Historical Journal (December 1989). Drawing on her research on Thomas Cromwell's political affinity, Dr Robertson argued that Cromwell ‘managed’ southwestern government very effectively through a system of patronage of leading local officeholders. In this essay, this thesis is challenged in two ways using research into southwestern government from a provincial perspective. Firstly, by identifying the officeholding elite of the province, examining its recruitment and tracing its activities, the practical limitations on Cromwell's power and freedom to manoeuvre in his dealings with local government are highlighted. The conclusion follows that it was, in practice, beyond Cromwell's competence to ‘manage’ southwestern government. Secondly, it is argued that ‘management’ from the centre was, in any case, potentially at least, inimical to good governance in this period because it denied local governors the scope for pragmatism and flexibility of action which were essential to effective local policing. Thus, the essay also takes issue with Professor Elton's thesis that Cromwell's revolutionary handling of local government was the key to the successful enforcement of the Reformation in the 1530s.
1 Elton, G. R., Policy and police: the enforcement of the Reformation in the age of Thomas Cromwell (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 399–400.Google Scholar
2 Elton, , Policy and police, p. 5.Google Scholar
3 Elton, Policy and police, chapter 1.
4 Elton, , Policy and police, p. 382.Google Scholar
5 Robertson, M. L., ‘“The art of the possible”: Thomas Cromwell's management of west country government’, Historical Journal, XXXII, 4 (1989), 793–816.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 Hoskins, W. G., Devon (Newton Abbott, 1972), p. 14Google Scholar and Carew, R., The survey of Cornwall (London, 1602), fo. 3.Google Scholar
7 Public Record Office (P.R.O.), SPI/124/83–4.
8 Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, pp. 800, 805 and 813.Google Scholar
9 Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, pp. 800–1.Google Scholar
10 Amadas was a J.P. for Devon from 1536, Rowe was a J.P. for Devon throughout the period under review and Densell was a J.P. for Cornwall from 1530 until 1534. See Speight, H. M., ‘Local politics and government in Devon and Cornwall, 1509–49, with special reference to the south-western rebellion of 1549’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Sussex, 1991), appendixes A–D.Google Scholar
11 Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, p. 811.Google Scholar
12 Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, pp. 815–16.Google Scholar
13 Putman, B. H., ‘Early treatises on the practice of the justices of the peace in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries’, in Vinogradoff, P. (ed.), Oxford studies in social and legal history (Oxford, 1924), vol. VII, appendix I, pp. 225–33.Google Scholar
14 Elton, Policy and police, chapter v.
15 Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, p. 809.Google Scholar
16 P.R.O. CI/835/23 and SPI/144/169–70. Examples of J.P.s reinstated after an absence from the commission of the peace include Sir William Godolphin of Cornwall and Sir John Basset and Sir William Courtenay of Devon. See Speight, , ‘Local government and polities’, appendixes A and B. In none of these cases was any disgrace suggested.Google Scholar
17 P.R.O. C66/672 m. 3d, 676 m. 3d, m. gd and m. 12d, 678 m. 6d and m. 7d, 687 m. 10d and 690 m. 7d; E371/298/51 m. 1 and 299/42 m. 3 and m. 4 and SP2/M/28/7 and 10. These figures exclude high dignitaries. For a similar picture described in Kent see Zell, M. L., ‘Early Tudor JPs at work’, Archaeologia Cantiana (1977), p. 128.Google Scholar
18 They were all first appointed between 1494 and 1504.
19 Speight, , ‘Local government and polities’, appendixes A, B and G.Google Scholar
20 P.R.O. C193/12/1.
21 The five are Nicholas Carminowe and William Lower esqs for Cornwall and Sir Edward Pomeroy and Robert Britt and John Gilbert esqs for Devon.
22 P.R.O. SP1/72/35–6 and 79/201. See Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, p. 806.Google Scholar
23 These were Sir John Arundell of Trerice, Sir John Chamond, Sir Peter Edgcumbe, Sir William Godolphin and Sir Hugh Trevanion for Cornwall and Sir John Chamond, Sir William Courtenay and Sir Richard Grenville for Devon. Another, Sir George Carew of Devon, was the eldest son of a previous nominee.
24 Read, C., Mr Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1962), chapter 1.Google Scholar
25 Read, C., Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London, 1960), p. 421. See British Museum (B.M.) Lansdowne 53, fo. 166. For a list of J.P.s for Devon and Cornwall see fo. 170–170 V.Google Scholar
26 Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, p. 813.Google Scholar
27 Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, pp. 799–804.Google Scholar
28 Arundell's lands were valued at £304. 9s. 4½d. per annum by the escheator in 1545. P.R.O. C142/73/18 and 86/11 and SP1/35/1. See also Miller, H., Henry VIII and the English nobility (Oxford, 1986), pp. 21–2.Google Scholar
29 He is described as a servant of Wolsey, in Letters and papers foreign and domestic of the reign of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer, J. S., III (London, 1867), 2,983.Google Scholar
30 Vivian, J. L. (ed.), Visitations of the county of Devon 1531, 1564 and 1620 (Exeter, 1895), p. 246. His lands were valued at £350 per annum in 1536. P.R.O. C142/58/1.Google Scholar
31 There is no inquisition post mortem for either Edgcumbe or Godolphin. The index of the Edgcumbe manuscripts in the Cornwall Record Office lists at least twenty Cornish manors and nineteenth Devon manors in Edgcumbe's ownership in this period. I am grateful to the staff of the Cornwall Record Office for allowing me access to this index in an unfinished form. Godolphin was assessed for tax on landed income of £100 per annum in 1543. Stoate, T. L. (ed.), Cornwall subsidies in the reign of Henry VIII (Bristol, 1985), p. 43Google Scholar. C.R.O. Tin 8/8. See also C. Humphreys, ‘The company of mines royal in Cornwall’ in C.R.O., , Review and accession list, 1988–9 (Truro, 1989).Google Scholar
32 Vivian, , Visitations, Devon, pp. 279–80Google Scholar; Letters and papers, I (London, 1862), 5,431Google Scholar, II (London, 1864), 2,735 and IV (London, 1876), 2,331. For the correct dating of the list given in II, 2,735 see Guy, J., Tudor England (Oxford, 1990), p. 477.Google Scholar
33 Vivian, , Visitations, Devon, p. 598Google Scholar; Foss, E. (ed.), A biographical dictionary of the judges of England from the conquest to the present time, 1066–1870 (London, 1870), II, 522–3.Google Scholar
34 That is, Sir Thomas Arundell, Sir Thomas Denys, Sir Peter Edgcumbe and Richard Pollard.
35 Lewis Pollard, Sir Thomas Denys and Sir Peter Edgcumbe were the top three names (below the high dignitaries and circuit judges) in the Devon commission as early as July 1522. See P.R.O. C66/640 m. Id.
36 Harwood, W. R., ‘The Courtenay family in the politics of region and nation in the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries’ (unpublished M. Litt. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1978), pp. 159–60Google Scholar; Youings, J. A., ‘The disposal of monastic property in land in the county of Devon, with special reference to the period 1536–58’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1950), p. 99Google Scholar; Letters and papers, VII (London, 1883), appendix 37 and IX (London, 1886), 384; P.R.O. SP1/129/230–1.Google Scholar
37 Youings, , ‘The disposal of monastic property’, pp. 86–7; P.R.O. SP1/88/181–3, 91/72–3 and 93/88–9.Google Scholar
38 Byrne, M. St Clare (ed.), The Lisle letters (London, 1981), II, 624.Google Scholar
39 P.R.O. SP3/5/61.
40 B. M. Harleian 5827, fos. 162V–163.
41 P.R.O. SP1/129/230–1. See Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, p. 807.Google Scholar
42 Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, p. 807.Google Scholar
43 P.R.O. SP1/129/230–1.
44 He was nominated in 1507, 1512, 1518, 1522, 1527 and 1531 and also in 1546, 1547, 1548 and 1549.
45 P.R.O. SP1/91/72–3.
46 P.R.O. SP1/93/230–1 and 99/119–20.
47 Cf. Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, p. 803.Google Scholar
48 P.R.O. SP1/104/234.
49 See below, p. 635.
50 Rowse, A. L., Sir Richard Grenville of the ‘Revenge’ (London, 1963), pp. 30–48.Google Scholar
51 Vivian, , Visitations, Devon, p. 135.Google Scholar
52 Letters and papers, XIX (London 1903–1905), i. 275 and ii, 415 and XX (London, 1905–7), i, 1,263.Google Scholar
53 Lists and Indexes. Lists of sheriffs for England and Wales from the earliest times to A.D. 1831 (New York, 1963), pp. 22 and 36Google Scholar. He was sheriff in Cornwalf in 1528–9, 1536–7 and 1543–4 and in Devon in 1529–30 and 1538–9.
54 P.R.O. E372/355–88.
55 John was a J.P. from 1510 to 1547 and Nicholas from 1514 to 1538. For complaints against them see, for example, P.R.O. C1/752/62; STAC2/17/209, 29/55 and 173. I am grateful to Mr J. Chynoweth for providing me with transcripts of the fast two cases. See also Chynoweth, J., ‘Cornish litigation at Star Chamber, 1485–1553’ (unpublished M.Phil, thesis, University of Sussex, 1976), p. 28.Google Scholar
56 Register of admissions to the honourable society of the Middle Temple from the fifteenth century to the year 1944, ed. Sturgess, H. A. C. (London, 1949), pp. 4 and 18.Google Scholar
57 Vivian, , Visitations, Devon, p. 721Google Scholar; Vivian, J. L. (ed.), Visitations of Cornwall comprising the Herald's visitations of 1530, 1573 and 1620 (Exeter, 1887), p. 501; Letters and papers, III, 2,923 (23).Google Scholar
58 Lists of sheriffs, p. 22. Trevanion was sheriff in 1527–8, 1532–3, 1537–8, 1542–3 and 1551–2.
59 Harwood, , ‘The Courtenay family’, chapter VII.Google Scholar
60 Harwood, , ‘The Courtenay family’, pp. 174, 191 and 211.Google Scholar
61 See below, p. 634.
62 Elton, , Policy and police, pp. 345–6.Google Scholar
63 Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, p. 811.Google Scholar
64 P.R.O. SP1/102/33.
65 This possibility is acknowledged by DrRobertson, , see ‘Cromwell's management’, p. 815n.Google Scholar
66 P.R.O. SP1/140/25. Admittedly, Norfolk then wrote to Cromwell!
67 P.R.O. SP1/112/169–72; Moreton, C. E., ‘The Walsingham conspiracy of 1537’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, LXIII (1990), 34.Google Scholar
68 P.R.O. SP1/118/247–8.
69 P.R.O. SP1/118/247–8.
70 B.M. Cotton MSS, appendix L, 75; P.R.O. SP1/124/119 and 224–5.
71 A special commission of gaol delivery was called in Launceston in November 1537. P.R.O. C66/676 m. 18d. Cf. Elton, , Policy and police, p. 296Google Scholar where it is stated thai no evidence has been found that Carpyssacke was ever tried.
72 P.R.O. SP1/121/235–6 and 124/83–4. See also M. H., and Dodds, R., The pilgrimage of grace, 1536–7, and the Exeter conspiracy, 1538 (2 vols. London, 1971), 1, 87–8.Google Scholar
73 P.R.O. SP1/125/36–41.
74 P.R.O. SP1/125/94–5.
75 P.R.O. SP1/125/156–7.
76 Guy, , Tudor England, pp. 141–2Google Scholar; Harwood, , ‘The Courtenay family’, pp. 141–4.Google Scholar
77 Harwood, , ‘The Courtenay family’, p. 150.Google Scholar
78 Sir Peter Edgcumbe's letter (P.R.O. SP1/33/185–6), complaining about Kendall's lack of substance and poor record of conduct, was probably representative of the views of many gentlemen on the commission.
79 B.M. Stowe MSS, 142, fo. 14.
80 P.R.O. SP1/241/110. The letter is incomplete and is catalogued as anonymous, but internal evidence identifies it quite clearly as Arundell's reply to the king's letter. Cf. Elton, , Policy and police, p. 369Google Scholar and n., where it is identified as a reply to the April 1537 circular to J.P.s.
81 P.R.O. STAC2/2/183.
82 P.R.O. SP1/140/3–4. Pollard annotated the list of accusations against the marquis.
83 B.M. Cotton MSS, Titus B1, 381.
84 The details on the Council of the West in this paper are based principally on Youings, J. A., ‘The Council of the West’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, fifth series, X (1960), 41–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Skeel, C. A. J., ‘The Council of the West’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, fourth series, V (1992), 62–80.Google Scholar
85 Robertson, , ‘Cromwell's management’, p. 813.Google Scholar
86 Again, this may be because so many letters to him have survived.
87 Fletcher, A. and Stevenson, J. (eds.), Order and disorder in early modern England (Cambridge, 1987), p. 29.Google Scholar
88 P.R.O. SP1/140/10 and 178.
89 P.R.O. SP1/146/255 and SP3/3/108.
90 Willen, D., John Russell first earl of Bedford. One of the king's men (London, 1981), chapter IV.Google Scholar
91 Youings, , ‘Council of the West’, p. 56.Google Scholar
92 Speight, , ‘Local government and polities’, pp. 78–85.Google Scholar
93 There is no firm evidence that Cromwell created the privy council. For a discussion of the arguments for and against the idea of Cromwell as its creator see Guy, , Tudor England, pp. 159–64.Google Scholar
94 Willen, , John Russell, chapter IV.Google Scholar
95 Fletcher, and Stevenson, , Order and disorder, p. 39Google Scholar; Wrightson, K., ‘Two concepts of order: justices, constables and jurymen in seventeenth-century England’ in Brewer, J. and Styles, J. (eds.), An ungovernable people: the English and their law in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (London, 1980), p. 26Google Scholar. Although Wrightson's research on concepts of order is based on seventeenth-century England, his conclusions apply equally well to the sixteenth century.
96 Elton, G. R., The Tudor constitution: documents and commentary (Cambridge, 1978), p. 455.Google Scholar
97 Gleason, J. H., The justices of the peace in England, 1558 to 1603: a later Eirenarcha (Oxford, 1969)Google Scholar and Lander, J. R., English justices of the peace, 1461–1509 (Gloucester, 1989).Google Scholar
98 See, for example, Archer, I. W., The pursuit of stability (Cambridge, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; MacCulloch, D., Suffolk and the Tudors. Politics and religion in an English county, 1500–1600 (Oxford, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, A. H., County and court: government and politics in Norfolk, 1558–1603 (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar and Williams, P., ‘The crown and the counties’, in Haigh, C. (ed.), The reign of Elizabeth I (London, 1984). I am grateful to Dr Ronald Hutton for bringing some of these works to my attention.Google Scholar