¹ Most scholarship considers this a seventeenth-century development, or at best of little significance before then. The classic study of the later impact of the myth of Venice is Fink, Z. S., The classical republicans: an essay in the recovery of a pattern of thought in seventeenth century England (Evanston, 1945)Google Scholar. J. G. A. Pocock dates the introduction of civic humanism to James Harrington's domestication of Machiavelli. See, e.g. ‘Machiavelli, Harrington and English political ideologies in the eighteenth century’, in his Politics, language and time: essays on political thought and methodology (New York, 1973), pp. 104–48, p. 127Google Scholar. Donald Hanson recognizes the use of such vocabulary by sixteenth-century Englishmen, including Starkey, but considers it of little importance. From kingdom to commonwealth: the development of civic consciousness in English political thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), p. 248Google Scholar. For those who shared Starkey's background see Zeeveld, W. Gordon, Foundations of Tudor policy (Cambridge, Mass., 1948), especially Richard Morison and Henry ColeCrossRefGoogle Scholar. His account often needs to be used with caution.

² Elton, G. R., ‘Reform by statute: Thomas Starkey's Dialogue and Thomas Cromwell's policy’, Proceedings of the British Academy, LIV (1968), 165–88Google Scholar.

³ I am indebted to Professor G. R. Elton for his criticism of an earlier version of this article, and to Professor S. E. Lehmberg's careful reading of it. I should also like to thank Dr David Starkey for some suggestions which led to its second part.

⁴ Quentin Skinner has sketched the useful distinction between motive and intention in ‘“Social meaning” and the explanation of social action’, in Philosophy, politics and society, ser. 4, ed. Laslett, P., Runciman, W. G. and Skinner, Q. (Oxford, 1972), pp. 136–57, especially pp. 144–7Google Scholar. I differ from him, though, in arguing that both need to be taken into account, rather than according priority toa linguistically founded intention. Obviously, any number of motives may coalesce in a particular intention.

⁵ The MS, preserved in the Public Record Office, London, State Papers Henry VIII, 1/90, will be quoted in original spelling and punctuation. Words in square brackets are Starkey's insertions, except where noted.

⁶ Zeeveld was especially fond of calling Starkey a liberal. F. L. Baumer and others who have seen Starkey as a follower of Marsilio of Padua have probably meant to do the same thing. I hope shortly to show the inadequacy of this view.

⁷ Baumer, F. L., ‘Thomas Starkey and Marsilius of Padua’, Politico, 11 (1936), 188–205, p. 189Google Scholar.

⁸ Kathleen Burton produced the first widely read edition, but she failed to make any use ofthe manuscript to date the work, although she did emend an earlier text by some MS readings. From content alone she thought it to have been begun in 1533 and completed before the arrival of De imitate in June 1536. Starkey, Thomas, A dialogue between Reginald Pole and Thomas Lupset (London, 1948)Google Scholar. The original edition is Cowper, J. M., ed., England in the reign of Henry the eighth: A dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset, lecturer in rhetoric at Oxford by Thomas Starkey (London, n.d.) with a biographical introduction by Heritage, S. J. (London, 1878)Google Scholar. Despite his bleak outlook, Baumer would have agreed with Burton. He criticized Heritage for thinking the dedication letter referred to Pole's book; instead it indicated that work was expected shortly. Op. cit. p. 189n. In the year of Burton, 's edition, Zeeveld theorized that the Dialogue was written between 12 1534 and February 1535Google Scholar. Op. cit. p. 145n. He also did not look for clues in the MS, despite delving into some of Starkey's imprinted works.

⁹ Elton, , ‘Dialogue’, pp. 167–8Google Scholar.

¹⁰ What follows is in the nature of a fine tuning of Elton's efforts, which also drawson some of his later work.

¹¹ Elton, op. cit. p. 168.

¹² SP 1/90, fo. 13r–v (Burton, pp. 34–5). ‘For how dyverse so ever they cyvyle lawys be…so long as they observe theyr cyvyle ordynance & statutys devysyd by theyr old fatherys in every secte, dyrectyng them to the law of nature, so long I say ther be men wych ernystely affyrme them to lyve wel & every one in hys secte to be savyd.’ ‘And let us be assuryd that our lawys…schal bryng us to such perfectyon as accordyth to the dygnyte of the nature of man’, because they are ‘agreabul to the law of nature, seyng they are al layd by Chryst hymselfe & by hys holy spryte’ (fos. 13V–14r Burton, p. 35).

¹³ Ibid. fo. 17r. ‘Fyrst therfor to kepe a certayn procese wyth ordur we wyl serche out as nere as we can, what ys the veray & true commyn wele…second, we wyl serche out therby the dekey of our commyn wele…thyrdly we wyl devyse of the cause of thys same dekey, & of the remedy & mean to restore the commyn wele agayne’.

¹⁴ Elton, op. cit. p. 168, also relies heavily on the two different inks in the MS, speaking of the whole of the first section, up to Burton's p. 134 (fo. 92r) being written in a poor quality one. At the present it appears that the quality of the ink varies throughout the MS. It happens to be especially badly faded immediately before the first break, but it is still quite clear in many other passages of that first part. Since Professor Elton tells me that the condition of the MS has deteriorated shockingly in the last eighteen years, this is no longer a point worth debating.

¹⁵ Opus epistolarwn Desiderii Erasmi Roterdami, ed. Allen, P. S. (Oxford, 1906–1958), XI, no. 3036, p. 192Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Letters and papers foreign and domestic of the reign of Henry VIII, ed. Brewer, J. S. et al. (London, 1862–1932), IX, 521, from Paris, 2 OctoberGoogle Scholar. Hereafter LP.

¹⁷ British Library, Cottonian MSS Nero B. VII (hereafter Nero), fo. 107r–v. As Harvel, replied to Starkey, , ‘To write yow plainly therof [the executions] the thinge was notid her of extreame crueltye, and al Venice was in grete murmuracion to her it…I promisse yow faithfully I never sawItalians breke out as [sic] no matter tofor so vehemently as at this thing, it seamid so strange and so moche ayenst ther stomake’. Venice, 15 06 1535Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Allen, op. cit. xi, 189.

¹⁹ Ibid. V, no. 1489, 4 September 1524. For other such promises see Béné, Charles, Érasme et Saint Augustin ou l'influence de Saint Augustin sur l'humanisme d' Érasme (Geneva, 1969), pp. 373–5Google Scholar, and Weiss, James Michael, ‘Ecclesiastes and Erasmus: the mirror and the image’ Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, LXV (1974), pp. 83–108, p. 85 and passim for more on the work's compositionGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ Allen, op. cit., VI, no. 1627; Gee, J. A., The life and works of Thomas Lupset with a critical text of the original treatises and the letters (New Haven, 1928), pp. 53–5Google Scholar.

²¹ Caspari, op. cit. p. 258.

²² Burton, op. cit. p. 188.

²³ Devereux, E.J., A checklist of English translations of Erasmus to 1700 (Oxford, 1968), p. 15Google Scholar. William Tyndale did the translation in about 1522, but the printed version was anonymous. Mozley, J. F., Coverdale and his Bibles (London, 1953), p. 28Google Scholar.

²⁴ Elton, op. cit., pp. 169–70.

²⁵ SP 1/90, fo. 104r (Burton, p. 154). ‘But here you must remembyr mr. lupset as we sayd in our fyrst days communycatyon that albehyt we have now in our days by the provydence of god such a prynce & of such wysedome that he may ryght wel & Iustely be subjecte to no law’, that is not always the case. The reference is to fo. 16v (Burton, p. 28). ‘To us ys certayn that now in our tyme, when we have [so] nobul a prynce, whome we are sure no thyng to haveso prynted in hys brest as the cure of hys commyn wele, both day & nyght remembryng the same…for thys 1 dare aflyrme ther was never prynce reynyng in thys realme, wych had more fervent love to the welth of hys subectys [sic] then hath he [ther was] never kyng in any cuntrey wych bare grettur zele to the admynystratyon of Iustyce & settyng forth of equyte & ryght then doth he, aftur he ys [therof] informyd & surely instructe by hys wyse conseylyrs & polytyke men.’

²⁶ SP 1/90, fos. 112v–113r.

²⁷ For example, Starkey called Henry ‘finis divini et humani accerimum…propugnatorem, ac vere iusticie serenissimum cultorem’ (SP 1/75, fo. 230r), and throughout ‘best prince’, ‘your most sacred majesty’, and ‘your most holy majesty’. He concluded by assuring Henry that if he referred his case to a general council, his fame ‘for religion, piety, and finally all sorts of virtues’ will be confirmed (fo. 234r).

²⁸ E.g. SP 1/90, fo. 17r. ‘And now by cause as you ryght wel & truly have sayd we have so nobul a prynce, wych when he knowyth the best so stedfastly wyl folow hyt, ever desyrouse of hys commyn wele …’ For attacks, see fos. 65v (Burton, p. 99), 68r–v (Burton, p. 102), 70r (p. 104), 70v (ibid.), 109v. (p. 164), arguing that no true prince is possible and IIIV (p. 168), that Englishmen must settle for hereditary succession since they are barbarous.

²⁹ Brucioli thought that monasteries should be replaced by ‘dieci o dodici scuole per i giovani e cinque o sei per le giovane, dove ogni giorno una lettione delle sacre lettere nella materna lingua si legesse et appresso che nella metà di quelle de' giovani le lettere hebraice, grece et latine’. Quoted from one of Brucioli's, Dialoghi (published 1526)Google Scholar by Spini, Giorgio, Tra rinascimmto e riforma: Antonio Brucioli (Florence, 1940), p. 162Google Scholar.

³⁰ Zeeveld, op. cit. p. 145n. SP 1/90, fo. 1r.

³¹ As Harvel, lamented to Starkey, in 06 1531, ‘you have inclosid yourselff in the charter howse wher it semith that you have dedicate al you [sic] worke to perpetual philosophye but whether tendith soche pertinacye? wil yow not comme forthe & teche other’? (Nero B. VI, fo. 169r)Google Scholar. There is no way to tell whether Harvel would have been in a position to know what Starkey was up to in London, whether, that is, his view of Starkey's activities could be evidence against the argument that he was strenuously trying to drag Pole out of retirement.

³² Schenk, Wilhelm, Reginald Pole, cardinal of England (London, 1950), pp. 27–9Google Scholar. Strype, John, Memorials of the most reverend father in God Thomas Cranmer, 11 (new edn) (Oxford, 1812), p. 679Google Scholar.

³³ SP 1/90, fo. 121 r.

³⁴ Sadoleto, apparently completed the work in the summer of 1530 and sent a copy of it to cardinal Ercole Gonzaga in 01 1531Google Scholar. Sadoleto, Jacopo, Epistolae quotquot extant proprio nomine scriptae, ed. , V. A. Costanzi (Rome, 1760–4), 1, 383–7, to Gonzaga, 25 January 1531Google Scholar. Nevertheless, only on 3 September 1532 did he send a copy to his old friend Pietro Bembo, with whom he had worked closely on literary matters while both were papal secretaries in the 1520s. From the covering letter, which asks him to read the work and show it to other learned men for their reactions, it appears that this version was only recently completed. Sadoleto wrote to his almost equally close friend Lazzaro Bonamico in similar terms on the same date. Sadoleto, Jacopo, Opera quae exstant omnia (Verona, 1738Google Scholar; reprinted Ridgewood, NJ., 1964), 1, 34–5 (Epistolae II, no. 6), II, 146 (Epistolae, XXVII, no. 5). Since he gave the work to Pole to take to Venice, it seems more likely that Starkey heard of the work now rather than when Sadoleto first let it out of his hands.

³⁵ The evidence for Starkey's residence in Avignon or Carpentras is not quite so clear-cut as Zeeveld thought, op. cit. pp. 85, 87. His proof, Sadoleto's, letter to Pole, of 3 12 1532, noted that ‘Thomas tuus ad me Avenione scripsisset’ that Pole had suffered a recurrence of an old maladyGoogle Scholar. (Quirini, A. M., ed., Epistolarum Reginaldi Poli 1 [Brescia, 1744], 402.)Google Scholar The editors of Letters and papers, whom Zeeveld usually followed implicìtly, translated thìs as ‘your man Thomas wrote me from Avignon’, but it is possible that ‘Avenione’ is a locative and refers to the place Sadoleto was when he received the letter, in which case it would have come from Starkey in Italy writing on behalf of an indisposed Pole. Nor does Sadoleto's letter to Pole of 15 July 1533 provide the best evidence that Starkey was back in Padua. This comes from Starkey's, draft letter to Jerome Lopis in Avignon on 21 07 1533 (B.L. Harl. MSS 6989, fo. 44r)Google Scholar. The best support for his stay at Carpentras or Avignon (about fifteen miles apart) comes from Sadoleto's letter of thanks and Florence Volusene's to Starkey, cited below, n. 37.

³⁶ Quirini, op. cit. 1, 397–405, 411–13, and Sadoleto, op. cit. 1, 112. No sooner was this disagreement allowed to peter out than Pole and Sadoleto got into a similar one over whether Bonamico should be a theologian.

³⁷ Harl. MSS. 6989, fo. 38r, 22 October 1534; Nero B. VI, fo. 20r, shortly after September 1535.

³⁸ Hartmann, Alfred, ed., Die Amerbach Korrespondenz, IV (Basel, 1943), nos. 1624, 1541 (31 July 1531), and 1766 (c. 1 August 1533)Google Scholar.

³⁹ Douglas, op. cit. p. 82.

⁴⁰ Ibid. pp. 39, 73–5, 81–6.

⁴¹ Elton, op. cit. p. 168.

⁴² SP 1/90, fo. 65v (Burton, p. 99). ‘That cuntrey cannot belong wel governyd nor maynteynyd wyth gud pollycy, where al ys rulyd by the wyl of one not chosen by electyon’ and fo. 80v (Burton, p. 118).

⁴⁸ Ibid. fo. 66v; fos. 118r–v (Burton, pp. 100, 178).

⁴⁴ Elton, G. R., The Tudor constitution: documents and commentary (Cambridge, 1960), pp. 351, 352Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ The argument about Starkey's political perspicuity can be taken too far. For example, whenever the Dialogue may have been written, his assertion that the emperor was the defender of the church, although a commonplace of canon law, could hardly have appeared attractive to Henry and his ministers, at least from 1529. Starkey concluded his argument against the collection of first fruits by maintaining that ‘the defense of the church perteyneth not to the pope [& hys see], but rather to the [emperour & other] chrystun pryncys’. SP 1/90, fo. 83r (Burton, p. 120). It is possible that the revisions in this passage reflect Starkey's legal training. They may also be yet another sign of his factional leanings.

⁴⁶ SP 1/90, fo. 2r.

⁴⁷ Ibid. fo. IV.

⁴⁸ Ibid. fo. 2r. Gee, op. cit. p. 145.

⁴⁹ SP 1/90, fo. 2r.

⁵⁰ Herrtage, op. cit., thought Starkey referred to Pole's book, and thus dated the letter after June 1536. Burton corrected this obviously incorrect impression, op. cit. p. 193, but still put the letter in the midst of these negotiations.

⁵¹ B.L. Cleop. E. VI, fo. 376r.

⁵² SP 1/105, fo. 47r. In the first letter, dated 15 February, Starkey gave a long account of his interview with the king. To his questions, ‘I made such answer as ever I have Iugyd convenyent to be made before the maiesty of a prynce, that ys such thyngs as I knowe manyfest and true, playnly to affyrme, & such wherof I stond in dowte by coniecture only to reherce, and so your mynd hart & desyre to dow hys grace true & faythful servyce wych I knew no other wyse then I know myn owne, I boldly dyd affyrme, but as touching your opynyon in hys gracys late defynyd causys…for as much as you ever have usyd thys prudent sylence never to dysclose your sentence & mynd but in tyme & place, I coude not of your opynyon any thyng therin playnly affyrme.’ Lest the point be missed, Starkey later emphasized that he had no idea what Pole thought ‘by cause syth our last departure out of our cuntrey lytyl communycatyon concernyng thes hathe byn betwyx us had’. B.L. Harl. MSS 283, fos. 131r, 132r.

⁵³ Besides the phrase quoted in the middle of the last note, see, for a random sample, An exhortation to the people instructynge theym to unitie & obedience (London, 1531), fos. a[iv]r, 41 v, 42v, 45 vcGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁴ Beccadelli, Lodovico, Vita Reginaldi Poli, in Quirini, op. cit. v, 360Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ For Starkey's oblique involvement see Zeeveld, op. cit. pp. 69, 118–19.

⁵⁶ Surtz, Edward, Henry VIII's great matter in Italy: an introduction to representative Italians in the king's divorce, mainly 1527–1535 (Ann Arbor, 1978), 1, 24Google Scholar. This is not to say that the University opinions did not remain subject to controversy for some time. In 1538 Albert Pighe, in his scathing Adversus Henricum Octavum, twice called to mind his yet unpublished refutation of those decisions. But an Englishman, writing for a domestic audience, should have at least mentioned the decree of the Archbishop of Canterbury. For Pighe's work, see the edition by Schweitzer, Vinzenz in Concilii Tridentini Tractatuum, pars prior, XII (Freiburg, 1930), 774–810, pp. 782, 787Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ SP 1/75, fo. 230v.

⁵⁸ SP 1/89, fo. 175r; Harl. MSS 283, fo. 129V. He did the same in his Exhortation. See below.

⁵⁹ SP 1/92, fo. 59v. ‘Syr yf hyt schal appere to your wysedome & gudnes toward me to schow the kyng the scrole…I wold be glad for as much as at such tyme that I spake to hys hyghnes touchyng thys ground & fundatyon of my iugement wherby I wold & dyd take away the grete ground of reynoldys folysch & superstycously framyd consyence, hys hyghnes did not gretely approve hyt saying hyt was not drawen out of scrypture.’

⁶⁰ SP 1/90, fo. 1 v.

⁶¹ Ibid. fo. 1 r.

⁶² In his first letter to Pole of 15 February 1535, Starkey announced merely that ‘I was but late by the synguler gentylnes [of] Maystur Secretary…set in the court to the kyngys servyce’, but gives no clue about what his position may have been. Harl. MSS 283, fo. 131r. By 7 April Harvel knew that Starkey had entered the ‘kingis familye’, but did not say in what capacity. Nero B. VII, fo. 116r. Apparently some time not long after his return, Richard Pate addressed a letter to ‘Maister Doctor Starkey, Chaplain to the King's grace’ congratulating him that his return to England had restored his health. LP VIII, no. 785. The title is confirmed by Pole's covering letter for De unitate, dated 27 May 1536. Herrtage, op. cit. p. xxxi.

⁶³ SP 1/90, fo. 2r.

⁶⁴ Ibid. fo. 118v (Burton, p. 178).

⁶⁵ Calendar of letters, despatches and state papers relating to the negotiations between England and Spain, IV, 2, ed. de Gazangos, Pascual (London, 1882Google Scholar; reprinted Neudeln, Lichtenstein, 1969), no. 598, fo. 27. Hereafter Span. Cal.

⁶⁶ SP 1/90, fo. 118v (Burton, p. 178).

⁶⁷ Span. Cal. IV, 2, no. 635, 641, February 1531. Despite Erasmus's great interest in English affairs and his friendship with Chapuys by at least September 1531, there is no sign of either his or any of his correspondents' reactions to the adoption of the headship. For his friendship with Chapuys see Mattingly, Garrett, ‘A humanist ambassador’, Journal of Modern History, IV (1932), 175–85, p. 179Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Wilkins, David, ed., Concilia magnae Britanniae et Hibemiae ab anno 1356 ad annum 1545, III (London, 1737), cc. 745–6Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Ehses, Stephan, ed., Roemische Dokumente zur Geschichte der Ehescheidung Heinrichs VIII von England 1527–1534 mit Erlaeuterungen herausgeben (Paderborn, 1893), p. 178, 1 July 1531Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Burnet, Gilbert, The history of the reformation of the church of England, ed. Pocock, Nicholas (Oxford, 1865), 1, 353, 191Google Scholar.

⁷¹ Phillips, Thomas, The history of the life of Reginald Pole (Oxford, 1764), pp. 71–2Google Scholar.

⁷² Pole's defense of the unity of the church, translated with an introduction by Dwyer, Joseph G. (Westminster, Maryland, 1965), p. 47Google Scholar. The original is Pole, Reginald, Reginaldi Poli, ad Henricum Octavum Britanniae regem, pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione, libri quatuor (Rome, 1539?), 1, fos. 19r–vGoogle Scholar. The date of this work's first edition is disputed. For the most recent consideration see Dunn, Thomas F., ‘The development of the text of Pole's De unitate ecclesiae’, Papers of the Bibliographical Socìety of America, LXX (1976), 455–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷³ There is ample evidence of the unreliability of Pole's memory. That for the interview with Cromwell which revealed the king's upcoming minister as a Machiavellian has been worked over most thoroughly. See especially Van Dyke, Paul, ‘Reginald Pole and Thomas Cromwell: an examination of the Apologia ad Carolum Quintum’, American Historical Review, IX (1904), fos. 696–724CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Elton, G. R., ‘The political creed of Thomas Cromwell’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. VI (1956), 69–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in E. B. Fryde and Edward Miller, eds., Historical studies of the English parliament (Cambridge, 1970), 11, 193–216, pp. 195–8, and The Tudor revolution in government: administrative changes in the reign of Henry VIII (Cambridge, 1953), pp. 73–4Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ Dwyer, op. cit. p. 88; Pole, op. cit., fos. 35v–36r.

⁷⁵ Quirini, op. cit. 1, 429. Pole to Gasparo Contarini, 1 January 1536.

⁷⁶ Strype, op. cit. p. 679.

⁷⁷ Calendar of state papers and manuscripts, relating to English affairs, existing in the archives and collections of Venice, and in other libraries of northern Italy, ed. Brown, Rawdon, V (London, 1873), no. 575, pp. 243–4Google Scholar. Hereafter Ven. Col.

⁷⁸ Pole, Reginald, Apologia ad Carolum Quintum Caesarem, in Quirini, , op. cit. 1, 66–171, pp. 132–3Google Scholar. Pole, dates the interview with Cromwell, immediately, or nearly so, before his flight from England in early 1532Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ The accepted view of the genesis of Pole's opposition to Henry supports that case. By the time of his letter to Charles, Pole had already had to decide to flee England in 1529 (ibid. p. 136). By 1547, in another apologia intended for Edward VI, but probably never sent, this had become the official version, and made much more dramatic. The divorce had become the ‘fens et origo’ of all the ‘tempests’ raging over the realm. Pole himself behaved as ‘beasts are wont to do, wandering in an open field, when they are faced with an approaching storm, they take themselves into a wood or some cave’. Pole, Reginald, ‘Epistola ad Edwardum VI. Angliae Regem’, in Quirini, , op. cit. iv, 306–54, p. 312Google Scholar. Pole alleged this to have been his state of mind even before the legation to the Sorbonne in 1529–30, when he begged Henry to let him go there to study theology; this was, in part, a ruse ‘by which he should more easily dismiss me’. ‘And so immediately I left, hoping to find a place where no part of the impending storm should touch me.’ Ibid. Pole was struck by this image, and apparently fed it to his two biographers, Beccadelli and Andras Dudith, since it reappears in both their accounts of the Parisian episode. Beccadelli, op. cit. p. 360; Dudith, Vita Reginaldi Poli, in Quirini, op. cit. 1, 7. This text is a reprint, with some minor editing, of the first edition, Venice, 1563.

⁸⁰ Elton, G. R., Reform and renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the common weal (Cambridge, 1973), p. 47 n.Google Scholar, criticizes Zeeveld's bizarrely documented notion that the opinion earned Starkey royal employment, before 1534 (op. cit. pp. 87–90). Elton is surely right that this remained a draft exercise, from a commonplace book. It apparently fell into government hands when Cromwell had Starkey's papers seized after his death.

⁸¹ SP 1/75, fo. 230v.

⁸² Strype, op. cit. pp. 678, 676.

⁸³ Ibid. p. 678.

⁸⁴ Ibid. p. 675.

⁸⁵ Ibid. p. 677.

⁸⁶ SP 1/75, fo. 231 r.

⁸⁷ Ibid. fo. 230v.

⁸⁸ Ibid. fo. 231r.

⁸⁹ Ibid.

⁹⁰ Ibid. fo. 232r.

⁹¹ Ibid. fo. 233r.

⁹² Ibid. fo. 232r.

⁹³ Ibid. fos. 233v–234r.

⁹⁴ It probably could not have been written at Padua, since, even if we can only say that Starkey arrived there some time before 11 July 1533, his work would have been nugatory as of 28 May when Cranmer pronounced the marriage void. Zeeveld's attempt, op. cit., to tie Starkey's opinion via its recommendation of appeal to a General Council to his ‘awareness of the trend of current policy’ as reflected in the February 1532 instructions to Carne and Bonner is not very convincing. If there is one consistent strand in Starkey's thought, conciliarism is it. Besides, on Zeeveld's own showing, Starkey already knew of the drift of policy by mid-1530, when he and Foxe were in Paris together. At that time, Foxe heard of one Dr Brunellus' opinion that if the ordinary or the pope sends a woman back to her first husband (under circumstances like Henry's, of course), ‘it will be licit to appeal it either to the pope, if the ordinary ordered it, or to a future council, if the mandate were made by the pope’. Pocock, Nicholas, ed., Records of the reformation: the divorce…, II (Oxford, 1870), 559Google Scholar. According to Graham Nicholson, Foxe may shortly thereafter have begun to collect the materials which would become his Collectanea satis copiosa. Nicholson, , ‘The nature and function of historical argument in the Henrician reformation’ (Cambridge University PhD. dissertation, 1977), p. 76Google Scholar.

⁹⁵ For this see my dissertation, ‘The life and thought of Thomas Starkey’ (University of Minnesota, 1983), c. II, pp. 53–61Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ Ibid., c. II, pp. 95–100.

⁹⁷ For differing assessments of Starkey's familiarity with either Roman or civil law, see Burton, op. cit. pp. 10–12, and Prall, Stuart, ‘The development of equity in Tudor England’, American Journal of Legal History, viii (1964), 1–19, 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹⁸ Harl. MSS 283, fo. 129 V. Starkey's inner struggles may have contributed a great deal to the contradictions and obscurities of the Dialogue. He may have been divided against himself in much the way Bouwsma, W. J. argues many Venetian humanists were. Venice and the defense of republican liberty: renaissance values in the age of the counter-reformation (Berkeley, 1968), pp. 3, 9–11Google Scholar.

⁹⁹ Schenk, op. cit. pp. 36, 43; Ferguson, A. B., The articulate citizen and the English renaissance (Durham, N.C., 1965), p. 182Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁰ For the last point see my ‘Starkey and Melanchthon on adiaphora: a critique of W. Gordon Zeeveld’, Sixteenth Century Journal, xi, 1 (1980), 39–49, p. 44Google Scholar. If this dating is accepted, then Burton got the relation between ‘What ys pollycye’ and the Dialogue correct when she argued that the former was a dressed-up part of the latter and not vice versa as Zeeveld thought. Burton, op. cit. pp. 195–6; Zeeveld, op. cit., p. 143. Caspari, op. cit. p. iii followed him, while Elton, Reform and renewal, op. cit. p. 49, followed Burton.

¹⁰¹ SP 1/90, fo. 2v (?). The foliation at the beginning of the volume does not seem to come out quite right.

¹⁰² Ibid. fo. 103r.

¹⁰³ Ibid. fo. 121v.

¹⁰⁴ Ibid. fo. 112v.

¹⁰⁵ This is not to say this faction was yet in full working order. Cf. Lehmberg's, S. E. cautions about the situation in 1529–32 in The reformation parliament, 1529–1536 (Cambridge, 1970), p. 31Google Scholar. He does, however, think Pole could have been a part of the More circle, pp. 28–31.

¹⁰⁶ Cited in Haile, Martin, Life of Reginald Pole (London, 1911), p. 27Google Scholar, from LP iii, 1, no. 1268, a second-hand report of the incident from Paris. It was confirmed many years later by one of Chapuys' dispatches reporting how disgruntled Lord Abvergavenny still was. LP vi, no. 1164 (27 September 1533).

¹⁰⁷ See her DNB entry. Mattingly's, Garrett judgement that Buckingham was ‘one of Catherine's oldest and closest friends’ is worth recalling. Catherine of Aragon (New York, 1941), p. 205Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁸ I would like to thank Professor Bernard Bachrach for emphasizing this point.

¹⁰⁹ Pocock, op. cit. II, appendix, no. 21; LP IV, no. 6252. Pole's letter of 7 July 1530 is in Pocock, I, no. 194, p. 563. Haile's judgement for once may be supported, op. cit. p. 75.

¹¹⁰ According to Pole's own account, in the letter to Edward. Quirini, op. cit. Iv, 332.

¹¹¹ Ven. Cal. v, no. 575, the letter to Somerset. Diane Willen generalizes from this that by the ‘mid–1530s’ Pole ‘recognized that Russell enjoyed an unusually good relationship with Henry’. John Russell, first earl of Bedford: one of the king's men (London, 1981), pp. 24, 36Google Scholar. While this may seem rather a leap, there is evidence that Russell was taking an interest in Edmund Harvel in 1535. Harvel was close to Pole throughout that year, at least, despite sharing Starkey's approbation of the course of English affairs. See his letter to Starkey of 15 June 1535, in which he asked him to thank Russell profusely, along with Cromwell, and promised to write the former soon. Nero B. vii, fo. 107 r.

¹¹² Pole may not have been quite so innocent of ambition as he later maintained. Not only does Beccadelli make a great deal of Pole's Plantagenet descent, after a detailed discussion of the faction struggles preceding the accession of the Tudors, but Pole himself expatiated at great length on his ancestry in a section of De unitate which Contarini persuaded him to cut out. If that in any way reflects his own attitude, he might have been guilty of the same sort of indiscrete behaviour as Buckingham when he boasted of his descent from Edward III. Beccadelli, op. cit. pp. 358–60; Dwyer, op. cit. pp. 196–8; De unitate, op. cit. fo. 80 v–81 r. See Dunn, op. cit. p. 463 for Contarini's purloining of the offending quires. Both Chapuys and the Spanish consul at Venice, Martin de Çornoça, sent Charles full reports on Pole's pedigree. LP vi, no. 1164; Span. Cal. v, i, nos. 80, 109.

¹¹³ Cited in Haile, op. cit. p. 88.

¹¹⁴ B.L. Cleop. E. vi, fo. 374r. See the DXB for Baynton and E. W. Ives, ‘Faction at the court of Henry VIII: the fall of Anne Boleyn’, History, LVII (1972), 169–88, p. 176Google Scholar.

¹¹⁵ SP 1/105, fo. 121 v. A courtier like John Russell might escape unscathed from supporting Mary; as Willen observed, he had earned the right. A junior chaplain such as Starkey could hardly have expected similar treatment. Willen, op. cit. p. 25.

¹¹⁶ ‘Life and thought’, op. cit. c. III, pp. 139–49.

¹¹⁷ Lehmberg, S. E., ‘English humanists, the reformation and the problem of counsel’, Archiv fin Reformationsgeschicte, III (1961), 74–90, pp. 89–90Google Scholar.

¹¹⁸ This is the major thrust of my dissertation, especially chapter iv. For Pole's views in summary, see Dwyer, op. cit. p. xxii. He repeated the same ideas about popular restraint of tyrants in the letter intended for Protector Somerset, Ven. Col. v, no. 575, pp. 258–9, even if the emphasis there, probably for tactical reasons, falls more heavily on the emperor's role. It is a bit curious that in the midst of current resistance-theory hunting Pole has never attracted much attention. Peter Holmes has recently traced the connexion of Elizabethan Catholic theories to medieval ideas of papal supremacy and popular right, but since this was also the tradition in which Pole stood, in the light of his impact on men such as Nicholas Sander (Burnet did not exaggerate when he said Sander made Pole one of the heroes of De origine ac progressu schismatis Anglicani), it may be wondered if Elizabethan resistance theory was quite the ‘aberration’ Holmes thinks it was. Holmes, Peter, Resistance and compromise: the political thought of the Elizabethan catholics (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 63–5Google Scholar, and chapter XIII, especially pp. 158–60.

¹¹⁹ Elton, ‘Reform’, op. cit. p. 171.

¹²⁰ Mayer, ‘Starkey and Melanchthon’, op. cit. p. 41.

¹²¹ Starkey, Exhortation, op. cit. fo. 44v.

¹²² ‘Life and thought’, op. cit. p. 94.

¹²³ Exhortation, op. cit. fo. 64v.

¹²⁴ Ibid. fo. 44r–v.

¹²⁵ Ibid. fo. 45v.

¹²⁶ Ibid. fo. 44r.

¹²⁷ SP 1/105, fo. 133r.

¹²⁸ ‘The wych thyng I trust schal appere truthe & be evydent to the world, yf the mater ever come to ferther tryal in conseyl general…the wych I pray god schortly may take effect.’ Ibid. fo. 134r. ‘I hope surely to see by authoryte of general conseyl, not only thys usurpyd powar plukkyd up by the rotys & brought to ordur, but also the doctryne of chryst…restored agayne to the old puryte.’ Fo. 138v.

¹²⁹ ‘Then yet I trust to see your hyghnes by your dyvyne wysedome to devyse some mean to induce thes pryncys to peace & unyte. And then yet I trust to see a general counseyl to folow and by your gudnes pryncepally, the world restoryd to the old quyetnes.’ Ibid. fos. 139v–140r.

¹³⁰ ‘For sory I Wold be that your hyghnes…schold be iugyd any thyng to decre, wych myght not be iustyfyd in the face of the hole church openly.’ Ibid. fo. 138v.

¹³¹ For the ‘frency’ see SP 1/90, fos. 55r–v (Burton, p. 86). ‘As to the hede…I resemblyd the offycerys & rularys [in] [every commynalty]…both pryncys, lordys byschoppys & prelatys…every one of them lokyth chefely to theyr owne profyte…in the hede of thys commynalty ther ys [reynyng] a grete dysease, the wych may wel be comparyd to a frency.’ The attacks on music are in Burton, p. 130. [In] is my addition.

¹³² Elton, ‘Reform’, op. cit. p. 172.

¹³³ Elton, G. R., Reform and reformation: England, 1509–1558 (Cambridge, Mass. 1977), p. 167Google Scholar. He earlier made the same point in ‘Reform’, op. cit. p. 171.

¹³⁴ ‘What ys pollycye’ is in SP 1/89, fos. 181v–186v. The closest Starkey came to discussing constitutional specifics was in the section on types of polities, where, however, he concluded that it was pointless to try to choose the best, since each was fitted to the nature of a certain people. So long as all had ‘indifferent’ regard of the weal of all parts of the body politic, all were equally acceptable. Perhaps an echo can be heard, but no more, of the Dialogue's argument that the English were fitted only to monarchy by their rudeness, in Starkey's explanation that ‘some pepul therbe to whome the rule of a prynce more agreth, then of a commyn conseyl, as for the most perte, such as have byn long accustumyd therto, beyng not ambycyouse of hye authoryte but in pryvate lyfe are content to lyve quyatly, to some other contrary the rule of commyn conseyl ys much more convenyent, as to such wych beyng of grete currage & hye stomake can not so wel bere the rule of one, for as much as every one of them brought up in franke lyberty, ys ever desyrouse of hye authoryte, to whome commonly the rule of many ys more agreabul by indifferency’. SP 1/89, fo. 184r.

¹³⁵ Elton, ‘Reform’, op. cit. pp. 167, 174–88.

¹³⁶ Zeeveld, op. cit. pp. 247–61. Hudson, Winthrop S., John Ponet (1516?–1556): advocate of limited monarchy (Chicago, 1942), pp. 175–6Google Scholar.

¹³⁷ Guy, J. A., ‘The Tudor commonwealth: revising Thomas Cromwell’, Historical Journal, XXIII, 3(1980), 681–7, p. 684Google Scholar.

¹³⁸ Zeeveld, op. cit. pp. 45–6, 73–4, 92–5. Morison and Cole were among the members of the English nation at Padua in 1533–4, according to Andrich, G. A., De natione anglica & scota iuristarum universitatis patavinae ab anno 1222 usque ad annum 1738 (Padua, 1892), p. 130Google Scholar.

¹³⁹ Hudson, op. cit. p. 106 of the facsimile reprint of Ponet's Short Treatise. This apparently figured as one of the arguments in Buckingham's suits for the office, according to a late Elizabethan tract which claimed Nevill, apparently one of Buckingham's counsel, had maintained ‘that the constable of England by virtue of his office may arrest the king’. B.L. Titus, C. 1, fo. 41 r. Sharpe, Kevin discusses the provenance of these tracts in Sir Robert Cotton, 1586–1631: history and politics in early modern England (Oxford, 1979), p. 27Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁰ Ferguson, op. cit. p. 9.

¹⁴¹ Kantorowicz, E. H., The king's two bodies: a study in medieval political theology (Princeton, 1957), p. 366Google Scholar.

¹⁴² Brian Tierney has recently defined this period, stretching from the late twelfth to the seventeenth century. ‘“Divided sovereignty” at Constance: a problem of medieval and early modern political theory’, reprinted in Tierney, Church law and constitutional thought in the middle ages (London, 1979), from Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, VII (1975), with same pagination, pp. 238–56, p. 254.

¹⁴³ Elton, , ‘Reform’, op. cit. p. 181Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁴ Elton, G. R., ‘Tudor government: the points of contact. III. The court’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. XXVI (1976), 211–28, 226–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.