Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-tn8tq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-29T06:25:07.510Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Diet for Henry VIII: The Failure of Reginald Pole's 1537 Legation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Thomas F. Mayer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The triennium 1536–38 marks the crisis of Henry VIII's reign. The palace coup that toppled Anne Boleyn in May and June 1536 and apparently left Thomas Cromwell more firmly in control instead ushered in a series of further threats to both Cromwell and Henry. The upheaval of the Pilgrimage of Grace convulsed the north in late 1536 and early 1537 and looked for a time as if it would shake Henry's throne. The Pilgrims' calls for the upstart Cromwell's removal forced the chief minister to withdraw behind the scenes for a time, always a tricky maneuver. The battle of wits and wills between the king and his cousin and sometime protégé Reginald Pole runs as counterpoint throughout these dislocations. Pole's intemperate attack on Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon, De unitate, arrived at the extremely sensitive moment of June 1536 and announced the beginning of an eighteen-month struggle that finally led to an irreparable breach between Henry and Pole. De unitate has often been taken to signal Pole's crossing of the Rubicon. It should certainly have discomfited Pole's potential allies just as many of his partisans thought they had jockeyed themselves into power by engineering Anne's downfall. In fact, the work had a minimal effect, mainly because the committee entrusted with reading it was heavily stacked with Pole's friends. Henry probably never saw De unitate. Despite its violent language, neither Pole nor his supporters were then quite ready to give up on Henry. Early the next year the situation changed. Paul III created the new cardinal Pole a legate and dispatched him to Flanders, traditional locus of plots against England.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , July 1987 , pp. 305 - 331
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Brewer, J. S., Gairdner, J., and Brodie, R. H., eds., Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 21 vols. (London, 1862–1932), vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 779, March 31, 1537Google Scholar.

2 Mattingly's, GarrettRenaissance Diplomacy (Boston, 1955)Google Scholar is a classic. R. L. Pollitt has recently begun serious study of Elizabethan intelligence operations; see, e.g., his “The Abduction of Doctor John Story and the Evolution of Elizabethan Intelligence Operations,” Sixteenth Century Journal 14, no. 2 (1983): 131–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “From Ambassa-dor to Prison Spy,” Studies in Intelligence 29, no. 2 (1985): 69–78Google Scholar.

3 von Pastor's, Ludwig standard History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages (ed. Kerr, R. F. [St. Louis, 1914], vol. 11Google Scholar) contains nothing; and Capasso's, CarloPaolo III (1534–1549) ([Messina and Rome, 1924], 1: 387 ff.Google Scholar) has little more.

4 Lestocquoy, J., ed., Correspondance des nonces en France Carpi et Ferrerio, 1535–1540 (Rome, 1961), p. xxivGoogle Scholar.

5 Ibid., no. 39, July 4, 1535.

6 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 8, no. 986, July 4, 1535. This probably summarizes the letter cited in n. 5 above, but Brewer et al. usually present much fuller versions of Pio's letters than the often brief resumes in Lestocquoy, ed.

7 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vaticanus Latinus (Vat. Lat.) 12909, fol. 16r, August 21, 1535 (a register of Pio's correspondence). I am grateful to the Vatican Film Library of St. Louis University for a Mellon Fellowship, which allowed me to consult this document.

8 Lestocquoy, ed., no. 158, Lyon, June 26, 1536 (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 10, no. 1212).

9 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 11, no. 1173; and Lestocquoy, ed., no. 181 (an innocuous summary).

10 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 34.

11 Lestocquoy, ed., no. 194, Paris, January 18–19, 1537; Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 165.

12 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. Lat. 12909, fols. 141r–141v, February 28, 1537.

13 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 34. Throckmorton's identity confirmed by Lestocquoy, ed., no. 192, p. 228.

14 Lestocquoy, ed., no. 197, Paris, February 2, [1537].

15 Ibid., no. 158, Lyon, June 26, 1536.

16 Ibid., nos. 200, 210; Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 705.

17 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 705.

18 Ibid., vol. 11, no. 1250; Lestocquoy, ed., no. 184, December 4, 1536.

19 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, nos. 463, 665.

20 Ibid., no. 923.

21 Ibid., no. 908.

22 Lestocquoy, ed., no. 215; Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 931, Amiens, April 13, [1537].

23 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 949.

24 Quirini, A. M., ed., Epistolarum Reginaldi Poli (Brescia, 1744–1757), 2: 35–37Google Scholar; place and date corrected from Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. Lat. 12909, fol. 139r, as Cambrai, February 19, [1537].

25 Thomas Cranmer to the earl of Wiltshire, British Library (BL), Lansdowne MS 115, fol. 2v, June 13, [1531].

26 BL, Nero MS B. VI, fols. 125r, 138r. Theobald may have been an agent of the Boleyn faction. He signed another nearly contemporary letter to Wiltshire “godson” (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 337). Cranmer received a full intelligence report from him in August 1538, together with a request for funds (ibid., no. 117).

27 Mayer, T. F., “Reginald Pole and Paolo Giovio's Descriptio: A Strategy for Reconversion,” Sixteenth Century Journal 16, no. 4 (1985): 431–50, 435–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Quirini, ed., vol. 2, no. 18, Cambrai, April 27, [1537].

29 Christopher Longolius, a friend from Pole's first visit to Padua, called the Englishman “prodigiously taciturn” (Gasquet, F. A., Cardinal Pole and His Early Friends [London, 1927], pp. 29–30)Google Scholar.

30 For example, Quirini, ed., vol. 2, nos. 24, 14.

31 Ibid., no. 15. This letter preserves the place of writing. The vice-legate of Piacenza reported to the pope on March 4 that Pole had arrived there the day before, intending to leave the next morning. He reached Asti by March 8 (Archivio di Stato, Parma, Carteggio Farnesiane Interno, busta 3, January–June 1537 [unfoliated]).

32 Quirini, ed., 2: cclxxvii–viii.

33 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 779.

34 Quirini, ed., 2, no. 19: 51–54.

35 Gasparo Contarini to Alvise Priuli (Pole's right-hand man), May 22, 1537, warning him that Pole could make his own decision about how long to stay, but not at the expense of his dignity (Dittrich, Franz, ed., Regesten und Briefen des Cardinals Gasparo Contarini [1483–1542] [Braunsberg, 1881], Inedita, no. 17, p. 267)Google Scholar.

36 Reginald Pole to Contarini, Liège, July 21, 1537, Quirini, ed., vol. 2, no. 28.

37 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 1053.

38 Pole to Cuthbert Tunstall, August 1, 1536, BL, Cleopatra (Cleop.) MS E. VI, fol. 351r.

39 Dunn, Thomas F., “The Development of the Text of Pole's De Unitate Ecclesiae,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 70 (1976): 458–68, 463CrossRefGoogle Scholar. BL, Cleop. MS E. VI, fols. 347v–348r.

40 Quirini, ed., 1: 173. For Pole's new persona, see Donaldson, Peter S., “Machiavelli, Antichrist, and the Reformation: Prophetie Typology in Reginald Pole's De Unitate and Apologia ad Carolum Quintum,” in Leaders of the Reformation, ed. DeMolen, Richard L. (London, 1985), pp. 211–47Google Scholar.

41 Quirini, ed., vol. 2, no. 24.

42 John Hutton to Thomas Cromwell, April 1537, Public Record Office (PRO), State Papers (SP) 1/119/46v–47r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 1061).

43 PRO, SP 1/114/34v–36r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 429).

44 PRO, SP 1/124/76r–77v.

45 PRO, SP 1/124/144 (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 2, no. 619).

46 BL, Nero MS B. VI, fol. 138v.

47 Jerome Ragland's examination, October [28?], 1538, PRO, SP 1/138/40v (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 702.3); confirmed by John Collins's interrogation, November 14, PRO, SP 1/139/31v (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 829.2).

48 Two examinations of Jerome Ragland, PRO, SP 1/138/35r, 40v (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, nos. 702.1, 702.3).

49 At least a John Walker was appointed messenger in 1509 (Mitchell, W. T., ed., Epistolae Academicae, Oxford Historical Society, n.s., vol. 26 [Oxford, 1980], p. 8Google Scholar. Sandro called Walker “nostro” (BL, Nero MS B. VII, fol. 118r) and reported a gift of money from him, “un servitio d'amico” (BL, Nero MS B. VII, fol. IIIv). In early 1538 Walker still held the keys to John Colet's house at Sheen, which contained some of Pole's “stuff” (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 1, no. 422).

50 PRO, SP 1/139/23r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 828.2).

51 Ibid.; and Jerome Ragland's examination, PRO, SP 1/138/33r–34r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 702.1).

52 The charge of piracy is recorded in Brewer et al., eds., vol. 7, no. 316. The attempt failed when Holland fell asleep and his victims captured him.

53 PRO, SP 1/138/192v (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 797).

54 PRO, SP 1/138/191r.

55 de Vocht, Henry, History of the Foundation and the Rise of the Collegium Trilingue Lovaniense, 1517–1550 (Louvain, 1951–1955), 3: 423Google Scholar.

56 Hallé, Marie [Haile, Martin], Life of Reginald Pole (London, 1911), p. 224Google Scholar.

57 Dudon, Paul, St. Ignatius of Loyola (Milwaukee, 1949), p. 213nGoogle Scholar; de Vocht, p. 424.

58 de Vocht, p. 425.

59 Gee, John Archer, The Life and Works of Thomas Lupset (New Haven, Conn., 1928), p. 172Google Scholar.

60 PRO, SP 1/139/23r; confirmed by John Collins's examination, PRO, SP 1/139/30v.

61 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 2. See n. 131 below.

62 For Crofts's Oxford career between 1513 and 1519, see Bishop Sherburne's register, vol. 2, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester, Ep MS 1/1/4/51 v; and Dictionary of National Biography (DNB).

63 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 123.

64 BL, Additional (Add.) MS 28,589, fol. 217v (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 1141).

65 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 625.

66 PRO, SP 1/113/3r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 11, no. 1353.2).

67 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 123.

68 For a brief sketch of some of Pole's intrigues with the emperor dating back at least to August 1534, see Mayer, T. F., “The Life and Thought of Thomas Starkey” (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1983), pp. 114–17Google Scholar.

69 BL, Add. MS 28, 589, fol. 248r, March 21, 1537 (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 696).

70 Ibid.

71 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 1053; Quirini, ed. (n. 24 above), 2, no. 24: 64.

72 Quirini, ed., 2, no. 21: 59, Liège, June 10, 1537.

73 Ibid., no. 24, p. 66.

74 PRO, SP 1/120/209r, 235 (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, nos. 1293 [May 26], 1306 [May 30]).

75 Ralph Sadler's report to Cromwell, PRO, SP 49/5/12r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 760).

76 Henry VIII to Stephen Gardiner and Sir Francis Bryan, April 4, [1537] (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 865). Pio reported Pole's entrance on April 13 (Lestocquoy, ed. [n. 4 above], no. 215, p. 252).

77 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 817, April 3, 1537.

78 BL, Add. MS 25,114, fol. 257, April 15, [1537].

79 This plan crops up on numerous occasions in the records of the Exeter conspiracy investigation—e.g., in Holland's interrogation, PRO, SP 1/138/192v (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 797). Mewtas reported on Bryan and Gardiner sometime before April 25, [1537] (BL, Add. MS 25,114, fol. 262r [Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 1032]).

80 BL, Add. MS 25,114, fol. 258r, April 15, [1537].

81 BL, Add. MS 25,114, fol. 263r, April 25, [1537].

82 Quirini, ed., vol. 2, no. 18, April 26, [1537].

83 Sir Thomas Palmer to Cromwell, [May 6?, 1537], PRO, SP 1/120/276r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, app. 4).

84 Hutton to Cromwell, Brussels, May 9, [1537], Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 1168.

85 BL, Add. MS 25,114, fol. 265r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 1235).

86 PRO, SP 1/118/177r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 940), a minute of a letter to Hutton, perhaps sent April 15, [1537].

87 PRO, SP 1/121/136r, June 17, 1537 (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 2, no. 107).

88 Hutton to Cromwell, May 26, [1537], PRO, SP 1/120/210v–211r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 1293). It may be significant that Hutton was concerned to corroborate the testimony of one of Palmer's servants; see below.

89 PRO, SP 1/120/210.

90 Thomas Wriothesley later had the same problem in his attempts to capture Harry Phillips and two other traitors, but this incident would bear investigation (see Brewer et al., eds., vol. 14, pt. 1, nos. 233, 246–48, 264, 438, etc.).

91 Hutton to Cromwell, June 17, [1537], PRO, SP 1/120/136v; and Pole to Contarini, June 10, [1537], Quirini, ed., 2, no. 24: 66–67. Harry Phillips wrote Hutton that Vaughan, after originally cooperating, had found Hutton's later instructions “ayenst ys conscyence” (Louvain, June 22, 1537, PRO, SP 1/121/152r).

92 Phillips betrayed virtually everyone with whom he came in contact, beginning with his mother. See the sheaf of pleading letters in PRO, SP 1/100/95r–102v.

93 Throckmorton was, of course, captured once; and Pole had to wait for some time for a safe-conduct to move from Cambrai into imperial territory. While he was holed up in Cambrai, any stranger was subject to arrest; and when Vaughan took a stab at killing Pole, he was betrayed by the leaky mail (Quirini, ed., 2, no. 24: 67).

94 Hutton to Cromwell, June 17, [1537], PRO, SP 1/121/137r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 2, no. 107). The Welsh chronicle of Calais corroborates this story; it makes Palmer responsible both for the attempt to trap Pole by stealth and for the assassination plot (Byrne, Muriel St. Clair, ed., The Lisle Letters, 6 vols. [Chicago, 1981], 4: 223)Google Scholar.

95 PRO, SP 1/120/276r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, app. 4).

96 For Wingfield's relations, see Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 440. John Hussey frequently referred to the hostility between Lisle and Wingfield (e.g., Ibid., nos. 555 [August 21, 1537], 625 [September 1, 1537]).

97 By Elizabeth Darrell, among others, according to Geoffrey Pole in 1538 (PRO, SP 1/138/217v–218r [Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 804]).

98 Lestocquoy, ed. (n. 4 above), no. 215 (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 931).

99 Ibid.

100 Lestocquoy, ed., no. 217.

101 Ives, E. W., “Faction at the Court of Henry VIII: The Fall of Anne Boleyn,” History 57 (1972): 169–88, 180CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 PRO, SP 1/138/174r. For Darrell and Wyatt, see Muir, Kenneth, Life and Letters of Sir Thomas Wyatt (Liverpool, 1963), pp. 82–83Google Scholar.

103 Wyatt passed through Paris in early April on his way to Valladolid. He is known to have talked to Gardiner but may well have seen Bryan as well. Patricia Thomson interprets the difficult evidence to indicate friendly relations between Wyatt and Bryan (Rebholz, E. A., ed., Sir Thomas Wyatt: The Complete Poems [Harmondsworth, 1978], p. 25Google Scholar; and Thomson, Patricia, Sir Thomas Wyatt and His Background [Stanford, Calif., 1964], pp. 62, 64, and app. C)Google Scholar.

104 PRO, SP 1/138/160r (confirmed by 138/215r), and 139/221r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 955).

105 PRO, SP 1/138/158v, November 12, 1538 (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 765).

106 PRO, SP 1/138/192v.

107 BL, Add. MS 25,114, fol. 247v, February 17, [1537].

108 Lestocquoy ed., no. 194, pp. 232–33, January 18–19, 1537 (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 165).

109 BL, Caligula MS E. 2, fol. 233r.

110 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 960, Southampton, April 17, 1537.

111 Muller, J. A., ed., The Letters of Stephen Gardiner (Cambridge, 1937)Google Scholar, no. 50, July 26, 1535. In 1538 Holland recalled taking Helyar to Paris about “the beginning of somer was iij or iiij yeres” ago (PRO, SP 1/138/191r).

112 PRO, SP 1/138/191v–192r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 797).

113 Ives (n. 101 above), p. 177; and Elton, G. R., “Politics and the Pilgrimage of Grace,” in After the Reformation: Essays in Honor of J. H. Hexter, ed. Malament, Barbara C. (Philadelphia, 1980), pp. 215–46, pp. 213–14Google Scholar.

114 Duke of Norfolk to the Council, February 19, 1537, Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 468.

115 John Helyar wrote Sir Antony Windsor on June 10, (probably) 1537, thanking him for handling his parochial affairs (PRO, SP 1/121/91r). Sir Antony had a longstanding interest in the parish. William Edwards, vicar from 1502 to 1522, left his white horse to Windsor in gratitude. My thanks to Frederick Standfield, East Meon's village historian, for this information.

116 Byrne, ed. (n. 94 above), 1: 277–79; and Youings, Joyce, Sixteenth Century England (Harmondsworth, 1984), p. 213Google Scholar.

117 Byrne worked out more of Palmer's tangled career, which may be traced through her indices (see Byrne, ed.). Much of his life remains shrouded in deepest obscurity.

118 Cited in Hallé (n. 56 above), p. 88.

119 Ives, p. 176.

120 The earl of Southampton to Cromwell, September 20, 1538, PRO, SP 1/136/205r.

121 Pole made this request in his instructions to Throckmorton when he sent his servant to deliver De unitate (BL, Cleop. MS E. VI, fol. 348v). The committee's makeup is reconstructed from Geoffrey Pole's recollection of a conversation with Starkey about Sampson's and Tunstall's opinions of the book and from Starkey's own letter to Pole (BL, Cleop. MS E. VI, fol. 379v).

122 J. J. Scarisbrick has recently documented Shrewsbury's religious views in The Reformation and the English People (Oxford, 1984), p. 8Google Scholar; and G. W. Bernard amplifies Scarisbrick's evidence and explains why Shrewsbury remained loyal, despite numerous grievances (The Power of the Early Tudor Nobility: A Study of the Fourth and Fifth Earls of Shrewsbury [Brighton, 1985], pp. 50–52)Google Scholar.

123 Guy, J. A., The Public Career of Sir Thomas More (New Haven, Conn., 1980), pp. 106–7Google Scholar. Many thanks to S. J. Gunn for advice on Suffolk's politics.

124 Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, MS Marciana Ital. X. 24 (6527), fol. 7v, a draft letter to Protector Somerset, probably from 1549 (Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, vol. 5, no. 575). Diane Willen makes Russell a close ally of Cromwell's (John Russell, First Earl of Bedford: One of the King's Men [London, 1981])Google Scholar.

125 BL, Nero MS B. VI, fol. 107r, June 15, 1535.

126 Richard Manchester, undated, PRO, SP 1/113/194v (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 11, no. 1470); Ives, p. 176; and Willen, p. 23.

127 Willen, pp. 22, 24, 25, 26–28.

128 The transcript reads, “Mr. wryothesley said thatt this examinatt [Geoffrey Pole] and other of his famylie must nott be made Cok[ney]es and after the sayd sterkey sayd further, that the lord pr[ivy] seal if the king was nott of a good nature for one Poles sake wold destroy ail Poles” (PRO, SP 1/138/215). The syntax is obscure; it could be that Starkey was echoing Wriothesley.

129 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 318.

130 Ibid., no. 1120.

131 Cranmer to Cromwell, November 14, 1538, Ibid., no. 832.

132 For the Fiennes pedigree, see Ibid., vol. 14, pt. 2, nos. 481, 436 (72); Sussex Archaeological Collections, vol. 58 (London, 1915), pp. 64–65Google Scholar. I am grateful to A. J. Slavin for help on this point and on Sussex politics in general.

133 For Francis Hastings, see PRO, SP 1/139/23r; and DNB.

134 Morison, Richard, An invective … ayenst treason (London, 1539), fol. EivGoogle Scholar.

135 Byrne, ed. (n. 94 above), 4: 224–25, 6: 221–23. Dodds, Madeleine H. and Dodds, Ruth, The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Exeter Conspiracy (Cambridge, 1915), 2: 277–78Google Scholar.

136 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 753.

137 BL, Cleop. MS E. VI, fol. 341r.

138 BL, Cleop. MS E. VI, fol. 374r.

139 Ives (n. 101 above), p. 176.

140 Dowling, Maria, “Anne Boleyn and Reform,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 35 (1984): 32, 38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. My thanks to Dowling for much assistance with Baynton's religion.

141 PRO, SP 1/139/154r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 875).

142 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 1109.

143 For just one example, even if secondhand, see PRO, SP 1/138/192v. Holland reported that Pole had told him “wold the lord pryvey seall so fayn kyll me, well I trust it shall nott lye in his powur, the king is not contentyd to bear me malice.”

144 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 6, no. 1093.

145 BL, Harleian MS 6148, fol. 43r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 7, no. 568).

146 Brewer et al., eds., vol. 13, pt. 2, no. 25.

147 Ives, passim.

148 BL, Caligula MS E. 2, fol. 233r, April 16, 1537.

149 PRO, SP 49/5/12'r (Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 1, no. 760).

150 There is very little evidence of an open breach between Pole and Henry before the conclusion of this legation. Pole later tried to date their rupture back to 1529–30, claiming his mission to the Paris theologians in search of a favorable opinion on Henry's divorce had been thrust on him. This can no longer be maintained. Pole tried to serve Henry with every appearance of real enthusiasm.

151 Hutton reported that Throckmorton thought Nicholas Wilson the best man for the conference, and he was duly commissioned (PRO, SP 1/124/167r, September 2, [1537], [Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 2, no. 635]; see also instructions for Wilson and Nicholas Heath, PRO, SP 1/124/145r–152v [Brewer et al., eds., vol. 12, pt. 2, no. 620]). In this memorandum Cromwell claimed to have consulted Tunstall and John Stokesley, bishop of London, about how best to approach Pole (PRO, SP 1/124/147v–148r).