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A Perspective on the Church–State Confrontation of 1515: The Passage of 4 Henry VIII, c. 2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2012

P. R. CAVILL
P. R. CAVILL
Affiliation:
School of History, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT; e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The statute 4 Henry VIII, c. 2 denied benefit of clergy for particular crimes to certain offenders, and also modified due process in handling pleas of sanctuary. The statute's possible renewal in the parliament of 1515 triggered a confrontation between the crown and leading churchmen. The passage of the act through the parliament of 1512 illuminates this important episode. The law that was enacted is shown to have differed substantively from the measure that had been proposed. Extensive amendments reveal in what ways the bill provoked controversy. Positions adopted in 1512 may well have rehearsed those assumed three years later.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 63 , Issue 4 , October 2012 , pp. 655 - 670
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 SR iii. 49.

2 The context is examined in R. N. Swanson, Church and society in late medieval England, rev. edn, Oxford 1993, ch. iv, and John A. F. Thomson, The early Tudor Church and society, 1485–1529, London 1993, ch. iv.

3 Reports of cases by John Caryll, ed. J. H. Baker (Selden Society cxv–cxvi, 1999–2000), ii. 683–92. The reports were first published as Relationes quorundam casuum selectorum ex libris Roberti Keilwey armigeri, ed. John Croke, London 1602 (RSTC 14901). Before Caryll's authorship was established, the reports were called Keilwey.

4 The National Archives, PRO, C 54/382, m. 13d (ink) or 16d (pencil numbering) (LP i/2, no. 3464/2); Parliamentary Archives, Westminster, HL/PO/JO/1/1, pp. 72, 81 (LJ i. 30b, 35b).

5 Henry viii had asked constituencies to return those elected to the previous parliament: York civic records, ed. Angelo Raine (Yorkshire Archaeological Society record series cvi, 1942), 45–6. Of fifty-nine MPs who have been identified, thirty-five are known to have sat in the previous parliament: S. T. Bindoff (ed.), The history of parliament: the House of Commons, 1509–1558, London 1982, i. 5, 29–285 passim.

6 The prelates disputed this version of events: PRO, SP 1/16, fos 18r–21r (LP ii/1, no. 1314), printed in Records of convocation, ed. Gerald Bray, Woodbridge 2005–6, xix. 135–8.

7 For example, A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation, 2nd edn, London 1989, ch. vi; Christopher Haigh, English reformations: religion, politics, and society under the Tudors, Oxford 1993, ch. iv.

8 The following remarks draw on Leona C. Gabel, Benefit of clergy in England in the later Middle Ages (Smith College Studies in History xiv, 1928–9); J. G. Bellamy, Criminal law and society in late medieval and Tudor England, Gloucester 1984, ch. vi; and John Baker, The Oxford history of the laws of England, VI: 1483–1558, Oxford 2003, 531–40.

9 PRO, KB 9/477/34–6.

10 The reports of Sir John Spelman, ed. J. H. Baker (Selden Society xciii–xciv, 1977–8), i. 73; Reports of cases from the time of King Henry VIII, ed. J. H. Baker (Selden Society cxx–cxxi, 2003–4), ii. 378–9.

11 Rotuli parliamentorum, ed. John Strachey and others, London 1767–77, v. 151, 333–4; The parliament rolls of medieval England, ed. Chris Given-Wilson and others, Woodbridge 2005, xii. 62, 444.

12 4 Henry VII, c. 13 (SR ii. 538). This act is correctly dated to 1489 only if the year is taken to have begun on 25 March. If 1 January is used (as in this article), then the act passed in January and February 1490.

13 Spelman's reports, i. 43–4.

14 7 Henry VII, c. 1; 12 Henry VII, c. 7 (SR ii. 549–50, 639).

15 Reports of Henry VIII, i. 95.

16 Caryll's reports, ii. 683–4.

17 Ibid. i, p. xiv.

18 The following remarks draw on Isobel D. Thornley, ‘The destruction of sanctuary’, in R. W. Seton-Watson (ed.), Tudor studies, London 1924, 182–207; E. W. Ives, ‘Crime, sanctuary, and royal authority under Henry viii: the exemplary sufferings of the Savage family’, in Morris S. Arnold and others (eds), On the laws and customs of England, Chapel Hill, NC 1981, 296–320; Kaufman, Peter Iver, ‘Henry vii and sanctuary’, Church History liii (1984), 465–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dorothea M. Sartain, ‘Sanctuary in the reign of Henry vii, with particular reference to Beverley and Durham’, unpubl. PhD diss. Cambridge 2002; and Baker, Oxford history, 540–51.

19 Baker, Oxford history, 292–3, 349, 438–9.

20 The notebook of Sir John Port, ed. J. H. Baker (Selden Society cii, 1986), 126.

21 Reports from the lost notebooks of Sir James Dyer, ed. J. H. Baker (Selden Society cix–cx, 1994), i. 176.

22 Spelman's reports, ii. 338.

23 Ibid. ii. 335.

24 Caryll's reports, i. 111–12; ii. 469.

25 Ibid. ii. 553.

26 P. R. Cavill, The English parliaments of Henry VII, 1485–1504, Oxford 2009, 166–7.

27 Baker, Oxford history, 536; K. J. Kesselring, Mercy and authority in the Tudor state, Cambridge 2003, 47 n. 92.

28 In 1504 the convocation of Canterbury commended the king for relieving clergymen guilty of treason from the secular law: Records of convocation, vi. 426.

29 The Anglica historia of Polydore Vergil, A.D. 1485–1537, ed. Denys Hay (Camden 3rd ser. lxxiv, 1950), 116–17.

30 Denys Hay, Polydore Vergil: renaissance historian and man of letters, Oxford 1952, 125, 137. Vergil misdated the parliament to Henry's second regnal year.

31 Edmund Dudley, The tree of commonwealth, ed. D. M. Brodie, Cambridge 1948, 34.

32 Tudor royal proclamations, ed. Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin, New Haven 1964–9, i. 85.

33 For example, Firth, C. B., ‘Benefit of clergy in the time of Edward iv’, EHR xxxii (1917), 175–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Kesselring, Krista, ‘Abjuration and its demise: the changing face of royal justice in the Tudor period’, Canadian Journal of History xxxiv (1999), 345–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Tudor royal proclamations, iii. 267.

36 Kesselring, Mercy and authority, chs i–iii, esp. pp. 45–55.

37 The clerk is the subject of R. E. Brock, ‘The career of John Tayler, master of the rolls, (d. 1534) as an illustration of early Tudor administrative history’, unpubl. MA diss. London 1950.

38 Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/1/1, p. 12 (LJ i. 7a). The words ‘de noct[e]’ were written after ‘spoliantes’, but then crossed out.

39 Cf. E. R. Adair and F. Evans, M. Greir, ‘Writs of assistance, 1558–1700’, EHR xxxvi (1921), 356–72Google Scholar, esp. pp. 361–7.

40 Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/1/1, p. 13 (LJ i. 7a). Porter and his office are discussed in Pollard, A. F., ‘The clerk of the crown’, EHR lvii (1942), 312–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 317–21.

41 Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/1/1, p. 14 (LJ i. 7b).

42 Ibid. p. 12 (LJ i. 7a).

43 Ibid. p. 26 (LJ i. 12a).

44 Ibid. p. 27 (LJ i. 12b).

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid. p. 30 (LJ i. 13b).

47 Anno regni regis Henrici. viij. tertio statuta, London 1513 (RSTC 9361), sig. Di v.

48 The preposition ‘per’ would have been more usual; here, however, the abbreviation is clearly ‘pro’.

49 Meautis held the post from October 1509 to June 1512: PRO, C 82/341/1/482; C 82/379/4/207; C 66/618, m. 23 (LP i/1, nos 218/44, 1462/26). His surname was also spelled Meautys, Meawtis, Mewtas, Mewtays, Mewtes, Mewtis and Mewtys.

50 Robert C. Palmer, Selling the Church: the English parish in law, commerce, and religion, 1350–1550, Chapel Hill, NC 2002, 6, 25–8, 61–9, 120–1, 133–4, 140–1, 149.

51 In 1515 a special process was adopted whereby bills approved by the Commons in the first session might resume their passage in the second: Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/1/1, pp. 101, 103, 104, 106 (LJ i. 45a, 46a, 47a, 47b).

52 Ibid. p. 42 (LJ i. 17b).

53 The following account summarises Cavill, English parliaments, 149–53.

54 Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/PU/1/1511/3H8, nos 4, 11; HL/PO/PU/1/1512/4H8, nos 3, 15; HL/PO/PU/1/1513/5H8, nos 1, 10.

55 For example, in this session the Commons approved a bill sent from the Lords on condition that a clause was struck out, as it then was on the ‘original act’: HL/PO/PU/1/1512/4H8, no. 15.

56 Ibid. no. 2. In quotations from this document, abbreviations and contractions have been expanded in italic type, and punctuation has been modernised.

57 Dyer's reports, ii. 411–12.

58 The reports of William Dalison, 1552–1558, ed. John Baker (Selden Society cxxiv, 2007), 83.

59 PRO, C 65/133, m. 12; Anno regni regis Henrici viij. tertio statuta, sig. Diir; SR iii. 49n.

60 Payling, S. J., ‘The rise of lawyers in the lower house, 1395–1536’, Parliamentary History xxiii (2004), 103–20Google Scholar.

61 Cavill, English parliaments, 47–8, 147–8, 168–9.

62 Ibid. 30, 69, 155, 158–9.

63 For example, ‘The act was not well drafted, especially in not defining what it meant by holy orders’: G. R. Elton, Reform and reformation: England, 1509–1558, London 1977, 54.

64 23 Henry VIII, c. 1 (SR iii. 362–3).

65 R. Naz (ed.), Dictionnaire de droit canonique, Paris 1935–65, vi. 1145–50.

66 Peter Heath, The English parish clergy on the eve of the Reformation, London 1969, 12–15.

67 4 Henry VII, c. 13 (SR ii. 538).

68 Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/1/1, p. 12 (LJ i. 7a).

69 Foedera, conventiones, literae, ed. Thomas Rymer, 3rd edn, London 1739–45, vi/1, 111.

70 At present, little is known about the statute's interpretation by the courts. A case in 1513 nearly provided a test, until the defendant changed his plea: Port's notebook, 37–41.

71 The journal listed lords present at the parliament's opening: Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/JO/1/1, p. 24 (LJ i. 11). Daily attendance was not recorded before 1515.

72 R. H. Helmholz, The Oxford history of the laws of England, I: The canon law and ecclesiastical jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s, Oxford 2004, 508–20.

73 Caryll's reports, ii. 684.

74 Port's notebook, 37–41.

75 4 Henry VII, c. 13 (SR ii. 538).

76 Spelman's reports, i. 46, 64; Port's notebook, 127–9.

77 A report from 1516 seems intended to illustrate the detrimental consequences of the measure's expiry: Caryll's reports, ii. 662–3.

78 Spelman's reports, i. 72.

79 22 Henry VIII, c. 2 (SR iii. 319).

80 I can find no evidence, however, for the statements in Andrew Allan Chibi, Henry VIII's bishops: diplomats, administrators, scholars and shepherds, Cambridge 2003, 69.

81 J. Duncan M. Derrett, ‘The affairs of Richard Hunne and Friar Standish’, in St Thomas More, The apology, ed. J. B. Trapp (Complete Works ix, 1979), 226.

82 Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/PU/1/1512/4H8, nos 4–5; Cavill, English parliaments, 83, 160, 164–5.

83 6 Henry VIII, c. 1; 7 Henry VIII, cc. 1, 6 (SR iii. 122, 177, 182).

84 Cf. Cavill, P. R., ‘Debate and dissent in Henry vii's parliaments’, Parliamentary History xxv (2006), 171Google Scholar.

85 Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/PU/1/1509/1H8, no. 4. The bill that the king approved had initially carried no time limit; a clause had been added limiting its duration to the next parliament. The bill that the king vetoed had initially carried a clause limiting its duration to the next parliament; this clause had been rewritten making the measure perpetual.

86 Efforts to elevate the stature of the priesthood are discussed in Peter Marshall, The Catholic priesthood and the English Reformation, Oxford 1994, 108–29.

87 Decrees of the ecumenical councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner, London 1990, i. 624; Caryll's reports, ii. 683–4. A recent analysis of the Hunne case is Cooper, W. R., ‘Richard Hunne’, Reformation i (1996), 221–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 A. F. Pollard, Wolsey, London 1929, 31.

89 BL, ms Cotton Vitellius B2, fos 80r–81v, transcribed and translated in Brock, ‘Career of John Tayler’, 302–15. The speech is also reprinted from Atterbury's 1702 work in Records of convocation, vii. 43–6, where it is conflated with another address: this speech ends at ‘profestum est’.

90 Tayler spoke ‘against the brawling and dissolute life of the lower clergy which has given occasion for a recent statute in Parliament’: LP i/2, no. 3033.

91 ms Cotton Vitellius B2, fo. 81r.

92 Cf. clerical and lay attitudes in Swanson, R. N., ‘Problems of the priesthood in pre-Reformation England’, EHR cv (1990), 861–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Steven Gunn, ‘Edmund Dudley and the Church’, this Journal li (2000), 510–18.