Divided Loyalties: May 11, 1532

Chronicler Edward Hall describes the events of May 11, 1532, when Henry VIII told Thomas Audley, Speaker of the House of Commons, that the Catholic clergy of England were not true subjects of their king unless they renounced their loyalty to the Pope:

"The. xi. daie of Maie, the kyng sent for the Speker again, and. xii. of the common house, hauvng with hym eight Lordes, and saied to theim, welbeloued subiectes, we thought that y clergie of our realme, had been our subiectes wholy, but now wee haue well perceiued, that they bee but halfe our subiectes, yea, and scace our subiectes: for all the Prelates at their consecracion, make an othe to the Pope, clene contrary to the othe that they make to vs, so that they seme to be his subiectes, and not ours, the copie of bothe the othes I deliuer here to you, requiryng you to inuent some ordre, that we bee not thus deluded, of our Spirituall subiectes. The Spekar departed and caused the othes to be redde in the comon house, the very tenor whereof ensueth.

"I Ihon bishop or Abbot of A. from this houre forward, shalbe faithefull and obedient to sainct Peter, and to the holy Churche of Rome, and to my lorde the Pope, and his successors Canonically enteryng, I shall not be of counsaill nor concent, that they shall lese either life or member, or shall bee taken, or suffre any violence, or any wrong by any meanes, their Counsaill to me credited, by theim their messyngers or letters, I shall not willyngly discouer to any person : the Papacie of Rome, the rules of the holy fathers, and the Regalie of sainct Peter, I shall help and retain, and defende against all men : the Legate of the Sea Apostolicke, goyng and commyng I shall honourably entreate, the rightes, honors, priuileges, authorities of the Churche of Rome, and of the Pope and his successors, I shall cause to be conserued, defended, augmented and promoted, I shall not bee in counsaill, treatie, or any acte, in the whiche any thyng shalbe imagined against hym, or the Churche of Rome, there rightes, states, honors, or powers. And if I knowe any suche to bee moued or compassed, I shall resist it to my power, and as sone as I can, I shall aduertise hym or suche as maie geue hym knowlege. The rules of the holy fathers, the Decrees, Ordinaunces, Sentences, Disposicions, Reseruacions, Prouisions, and Commaundementes Apostolicke, to my power I shall kepe and cause to be kept of other : Heretickes, Sismatikes and rebelles to our holy father and his successors, I shal resist and persecute to my power, I shall come to the Sinode, when I am called, except I be letted by a Canonicall impediment, the lightes of the Apostles I shall visite yerely personally, or by my deputie, I shall not alien nor sell my possessions, without the Popes Counsuill: so God me helpe and the holy Euangelistes."

Henry VIII wanted the clergy to forswear that oath and make another:

"I Ihon Bishop of. A. vtterly renounce and clerely forsake all suche clauses, woordes, sentences and grauntes, whiche I haue or shall haue here alter, of the Popes holines, of and for the Bishopricke of A. that in any wise hath been, is or hereafter maie bee hurtefull or preiudiciall to your highnes, your heires, successors, dignitie, priuilege, or estate royall : and also I dooe swere, that I shalbe faithfull and true, and faithe and truth I shall beare to you my souereigne lorde, and to your heires kynges of thesame, of life and lymme, & yearthly worship aboue all creatures, for to liue and dye with you and yours, against all people, and diligently I shalbe attendant, to all your nedes and busines, after my witt and power, and your counsaill I shall kepe and holde, knowlegyng my self to hold my bishopricke of you onely, besechyng you of restitucion of the temporalties of thesame, promisyng as before, that I shalbe faithefull, true, and obedient subiect to your saied highnes heires, and successors duryng my life, and the seruices and other thynges dewe to youre highnes, for the restitucion of the Temporalties, of thesame Bishoprike I shall truly dooe and obediently perfourme, so God me helpe and all sainctes."

This was part of the pressure on the clergy to submit to the king and acknowledge not only his temporal but his spiritual authority over England. The Submission of the Clergy would lead Sir Thomas More, the Chancellor, to resign. He had preceded Thomas Audley as Speaker of the House of Commons and Audley would succeed More as Chancellor too. 

One of Henry VIII's Loyal Servants: Thomas Audley

Thomas Audley, lst Baron Audley of Warren died on April 30, 1544--he managed to die safely in his bed with his head intact by serving Henry VIII very well. A lawyer by training, Audley served Cardinal Wolsey and served in Parliament, representing Essex and he continued to rise in office throughout Henry VIII's reign.

Audley participated in the trials and executions of not only Thomas More and John Fisher, but also of Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell, and he sentenced the rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace to death. For these and other services (the annulment of Henry VIII's marriage to Anne of Cleves, for instance), he was not only knighted but became a member of the Order of the Garter. Audley was Lord Keeper of the Great Seal from 1532, when he succeeded Thomas More, to 1544, when he resigned it on April 21. He also succeeded Thomas More as Speaker of the House of Commons in 1529 and as Lord Chancellor in 1533. According to this parliamentary history website, there has been some controversy about his activity at these trials and about his religious positions:

If his knightly status exempted Audley from the trial of Anne Boleyn in 1536 (it was not he but John, 8th Lord Audley, who took part in this), he was involved in all the other state trials of these years. His conduct in these trials, and especially in More’s, has been much criticized but it deserves to be judged in the light of Audley’s own beliefs concerning the rights of the sovereign and the duties of the subject. No such criticism, despite occasional and clearly prejudiced charges of favouritism and corruption, can be levelled against his conduct as an equity judge, and even in cases of treason his attitude is illustrated by his advice in 1536 that the Duke of Suffolk should be armed against the Lincolnshire rebels with a commission to try cases of treason, showing that he took for granted, even in such circumstances, the necessity of a trial at common law.

Audley’s religious position is difficult to assess. A correspondent of Melanchthon named him with Cromwell and Cranmer as friends to Protestantism but, if he was, the friendship was always qualified by his allegiance to the King whose policies he faithfully carried out, a course which in general gives an impression of conservatism. Thus an anonymous enthusiast for the Act of Six Articles (31 Hen. VIII, c.14) again linked Audley with Cromwell as two men who, this time in contrast to Cranmer and to other bishops, had been ‘as good as we can desire’ in the furtherance of the measure. Audley was equally content to follow Cromwell’s lead and what few clashes there were between them arose largely out of minor questions of patronage.

Audley also benefitted from the Dissolution of the Monasteries, receiving grants of Holy Trinity Priory in Aldgate, London (which had been founded by Queen Matilda or Maud, Henry I's wife) and Walden Abbey, where his grandson, Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk built Audley End, which is now part of the English Heritage program. He founded Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge in 1542, after the Benedictine's Buckingham College was closed.

Audley's title as lst Baron Audley of Warren died with him. One of his daughters, Margaret, married Thomas Howard, the 4th Duke of Norfolk (who was executed by Elizabeth I).

The Trial of St.Thomas More

St. Thomas More was brought to Westminster Hall for trial on July 1, 1535. Those set to try him were: Sir Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor, Sir Richard Leicester, Thomas Duke of Norfolk, Sir John Port, Sir John Fitz-James, Sir John Spelman, Lord Chief Justice, Sir John Baldwin Sir Walter Luke, and Sir Anthony Fitz-Herbert. Like St. John Fisher, he was very weak after his long imprisonment in the Tower of London and was allowed to sit at his trial. Those set to judge him as his jury were: Sir Thomas Palmer, KNT., Falper Leake, Gent., Sir Thomas Peirt, Knt. William Browne, Gent., George Lovell, Esq; Thomas Billington, Gent.,Thomas Burbage, Esq; John Parnel, Gent., Geoffry Chamber, Gent. Richard Bellame, Gent., Edward Stockmore, Gent. George Stoakes, Gent.--and after hearing the evidence against More, which was mostly Sir Richard Rich's perjury, they found him guilty within 15 minutes!

Perhaps the most interesting part of the trial--and certainly one of most amazingly convoluted sentences ever spoken--came when Audley started to pronounce sentence and More had to remind him of proper procedure, that he should have an opportunity to state why Judgement should not be declared against him. Audley wanted to get this trial over, I'm sure, because the former Chancellor had already presented an excellent defense against Richard Rich's perjury (and Rich's other witnesses would not back him up), but More presented another dilemma to the justice of this court:

For as much as, my Lords, this Indictment is grounded upon an Act of Parliament, directly repugnant ,to the Laws of God and his Holy Church, the Supreme Government of which, or of any part thereof, no Temporal Person may by any Law presume to take upon him, being what right belongs to the See of Rome, which by special Prerogative was granted by the Mouth of our Savior Christ himself to St. Peter, and the Bishops of Rome his Successors only, whilst he lived, and was personally present here on Earth: it is therefore, amongst Catholic Christians, insufficient in Law, to charge any Christian to obey it. And in order to the proof of his Assertion, he declared among other things, that whereas this Kingdom alone being but one Member, and a small part of the Church, was not to make a particular Law disagreeing with the general Law of Christ's universal Catholic Church, no more than the City of London, being but one Member in respect to the whole Kingdom, might enact a Law against an Act of Parliament, to be binding to the whole Realm: so he shewed farther, That Law was, even contrary to the Laws and Statutes of the Kingdom yet unrepealed, as might evidently be seen by Magna Charta, wherein are these Words; Ecclesia Anglicana libera sit, & habet omnia jura integra, & libertates suas illcesas: And it is contrary also to that sacred Oath which the King's Majesty himself, and every other Christian Prince, always take with great Solemnity, at their Coronations. So great was Sir Thomas's Zeal, that he further alleged, that it was worse in the Kingdom of England to rest1se Obedience to the See of Rome, than for any Child to do to his natural Parent: for, as St. Paul said to the Corinthians, I have regenerated you, my Children, in Christ; so might that worthy Pope of Rome, St. Gregory the Great, say of us Englishmen, Ye are my Children, because I have given you everlasting Salvation: for by St. Augustine and his followers, his immediate Messengers, England first received the Christian faith, which is a far higher and better Inheritance than any carnal Sather can leave to his Children; for a. Son is only by generation, we are by Regeneration made the spiritual Children of Christ and the Pope.

Here the Lord Chancellor took him up and said; that seeing all the Bishops, Universities, and the most learned Men in the Kingdom had agreed to that Act, it was much wondered that he alone should so stiffly stickle, and so vehemently argue there against it.

HIS Answer was, That If the Number of Bishops and Universities were so material as his Lordship seemed to make it; then, my Lord, I see no reason why that thing should make any Change in my Conscience: for I doubt not, but of the learned and virtuous Men now alive, I do not speak only of this Realm, but of all Christendom, there are ten to one of my mind in this matter;  if I should take notice of those learned Doctors and virtuous Fathers that are already dead, many of whom are Saints in Heaven, I am sure there are far more, who all the while they lived thought in this Café as I do now. And therefore, my Lord, I do not think my self bound to conform my Conscience to the Counsel of one Kingdom, against the general Consent of all Christendom.

Here it seems the Lord Chancellor, not willing to take the whole Load of this Condemnation up­on himself, asked In open Court the Advice of Sir John Fitz-James, the Lord Chief Justice of England, Whether the Indictment was valid, or no? Who wisely answered thus: My Lords all, By St. Gillian (for that was always his Oath) I must needs confess, that if the Act of Parliament be not unlawful, then the indictment is not in my Conscience invalid. Some have wrote, That the Lord Chancellor should hereupon say, Quid adhuc desideramus testimonium, reus est mortis, and then presently proceeded to give Sentence to this effect:

That he should be carried back to the Tower of Lon­don, by the Help of William Kingston, Sheriff, and from thence drawn on a Hurdle through the City of London to Tyburn, there to be hanged till he should be half dead; that then he should be cut down alive, his Privy Parts cut off, his Belly ripped, his Bowels burnt, his four Quarters sit up over four Gates of the City: and his Head upon London-Bridge.

"I must needs confess, that if the Act of Parliament be not unlawful, then the indictment is not in my Conscience invalid." -- the grammatical convolutions of this sentence, with the double negatives, all center on that word "if" which Audley dared not investigate further. Thomas More left Westminster Hall to return to the Tower of London: his son John and daughter Margaret were there to see his progress. Margaret pushed past the guards twice to embrace her father, actions he would later commend her for with great affection.