Thomas More's Successor and Judge

Thomas Audley, 1st 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 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. He succeeded Thomas More in nearly several offices: as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and as Speaker of the House of Commons in 1529, as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in 1532, and as Lord Chancellor in 1533. 

In August of 1534, when Thomas More had been in the Tower of London for four months, Audley visited Alice Alington, More's step-daughter (Lady Alice's daughter by her first marriage). He thought that Thomas More was being stubborn about the Oath of Succession and told Alice two Aesop fables to illustrate the issue. Margaret Roper wrote to her father, and More replied: thus The Dialogue on Conscience was composed.

And at the trial of St. Thomas More, Audley made two mistakes: first, he tried to pass sentence before letting More speak after being found guilty and second, he let More speak:

Interrupting Audley, More calmly stated: “My lord, when I was toward the law, the manner in such a case was to ask the prisoner before judgment why judgment should not be given against him.”

Audley was undoubtedly anxious about the role he was now playing in the condemnation of an old friend and honored colleague. This unease may well explain the departure he had made from established procedure. But that anxiety would have been even greater had he known what More was about to do.

Aware that his words would echo throughout England, throughout Europe, and throughout subsequent history, Sir Thomas More now brought into full play all of the rhetorical power and legal expertise that a lifetime of training had placed at his disposal. . . .

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 benefited 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 1st 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).

Image source and copyright information: anonymous artist.

More Resigns, May 16, 1532

After the Convocation of Bishops offered their Submission of the Clergy to Henry VIII, Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor on May 16, 1532, turning in the Great Seal. Sir Thomas Audley, who had succeeded him as Speaker of the House, was soon named Chancellor. On July 1, 1535, Audley would preside over More's trial.

Less than a month after his resignation, More wrote a letter to Erasmus, explaining why he had resigned:

The thing which I have wished for from a boy, dear Desiderius, which I rejoice in your having ever enjoyed, and myself occasionally,—namely, that being free from public business, I might have some time to devote to God and myself,—that, by the grace of a great and good God, and by the favour of an indulgent prince, I have at last obtained.

I have not, however, obtained it as I wished. For I wished to reach that last stage of my life in a state, which, though suitable to my age, might yet enable me to enjoy my remaining years healthy and unbroken, free from disease and pain. But it remaineth in the hand of God, whether this wish, perhaps unreasonable, shall be accomplished. Meantime a disorder of I know not what nature hath attacked my breast, by which I suffer less in present pain than in fear of the consequence. For when it had plagued me without abatement some months, the physicians whom I consulted gave their opinion, that the long continuance of it was dangerous, and the speedy cure impossible; but that it must be cured by the gradual alterative effects of time, proper diet and medicine. Neither could they fix the period of my recovery, or ensure me a complete cure at last.

Considering this, I saw that I must either lay down my office, or discharge my duty in it incompletely. And since I could not discharge that duty without the hazard of my life, and by so doing should lose both life and office, I determined to lose one of them rather than both. Wherefore, that I might consult the public good as well as my own welfare, I entreated of the kindness of my good and great prince, that from the high office with which (as you know) he honoured me by his incredible favour, far above my pretensions, above my hopes, above my wishes, he should now release me, sinking as I was under the weight of it.

More told Erasmus to ignore reports that he had left his office unwilling. He looked forward to studying, writing, and praying without having to steal hours from sleep. More continued to write apologetic works, according to this list of works from the Center For Thomas More Studies:

Dec., 1532; publ. Dec., 1533 “Letter against Frith”
Spring 1533 Confutation of Tyndale IV-VIII 
April 1533 The Apology of Sir Thomas More 
October 1533 The Debellation of Salem and Bizance
December 1533 The Answer to a Poisoned Book

The Fortnight for Freedom: 480 Years Ago Today: 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.

More detail here. In 2008, First Things posted an article reviewing the issues and the conduct of the trial.

480 Years Ago Today: The Trial of St. John Fisher

On June 17, 1535, John Fisher, former Bishop of Rochester (Henry VIII had stripped him of his title) left the Tower of London to be tried in Westminster Hall. The charge against him was that:

He falsely, maliciously, and traitorously wished, willed, and desired, and by craft imagined, invented, practised, and attempted to deprive the king of the dignity, title, and name of his royal estate, that is of his title and name of supreme head of the church of England, in the Tower, on 7th day of May last, when, contrary to his allegiance, he said and pronounced, in the presence of different true subjects, falsely, maliciously, and traitorously, these words: "The king our sovereign lord is not supreme head on earth of the church of England."

Rich, the Solicitor-General, was the main witness for the prosecution. He admitted to having played the part of an agent provocateur when he had visited the bishop in the Tower with the confidential message from the king, and he gave Fisher's denial of the Royal Supremacy in evidence against him despite the solemn promise given to him in the name of the king that this would not happen. The cardinal protested indignantly at Rich's treacherous conduct[.]

Of course, there was no real, just trial: the purpose of the gathering in Westminster Hall was to sentence to death the man Henry VIII had previously regarded as the holiest bishop in England. Although he argued that when he spoke to Richard Rich there was no malice or falsehood, Thomas Audley as Chancellor told him that any speaking against the King's position as Supreme Head of the Church of England was treason.

My lords, I am here condemned before you of high treason for denial of the King's supremacy over the Church of England, but by what order of justice I leave to God, Who is the searcher both of the king his Majesty's conscience and yours; nevertheless, being found guilty, as it is termed, I am and must be contented with all that God shall send, to whose will I wholly refer and submit myself. And now to tell you plainly my mind, touching this matter of the king's supremacy, I think indeed, and always have thought, and do now lastly affirm, that His Grace cannot justly claim any such supremacy over the Church of God as he now taketh upon him; neither hath (it) been seen or heard of that any temporal prince before his days hath presumed to that dignity; wherefore, if the king will now adventure himself in proceeding in this strange and unwonted case, so no doubt but he shall deeply incur the grievous displeasure of the Almighty, to the great damage of his own soul, and of many others, and to the utter ruin of this realm committed to his charge, wherefore, I pray God his Grace may remember himself in good time, and harken to good counsel for the preservation of himself and his realm and the quietness of all Christendom.

According to this website, the court was moved but not enough to do the right thing:

William Rastell, a lawyer nephew of Sir Thomas More who was present at the Fisher trial, leaves us the following account of the bishop's valedictory statement: "He showed himself excellently and profoundly learned, of great constancy and of a marvellous godly courage, and declared the whole matter so learnedly and therewith so godly, that it made many of those present, and some of their judges also, so inwardly to lament, that their eyes burst out with tears to see such a great famous cleric and virtuous bishop to be condemned to so cruel a death by such impious laws and by such an unlawful and detestable witness (Richard Rich), contrary to all human honesty and fidelity."

From June 17 to June 22, Cardinal Fisher--Pope Paul III had named him a cardinal in the hopes that Henry VIII would show some respect and leniency to a prince of the Church, seriously misjudging Henry--prepared for death. As he had suffered great want and deprivation in the Tower of London, so much so that he was too weak to walk from the Tower to Westminster Hall, Henry commuted his sentence from being hung, drawn and quartered at Tyburn to being beheaded on Tower Hill. Long before his trial, he had begged Cromwell for some clothing and food (on December 22, 1534):

I beseech you to be a good master to me in my necessity. I have neither shirt nor suit, nor yet other clothes, that are necessary for me to wear, but that be ragged and rent shamefully. Notwithstanding I might easily suffer that, if they would keep my body warm. But my diet also, God knoweth how slender it is at many times, and now in mine age my stomach may not away but with a few kinds of meats, which if I want I decay forthwith, and fall into coughs and diseases of my body, and cannot keep myself in health. But as our Lord knoweth, I have nothing left unto me to provide any better, but as my brother of his own purse layeth out to me to his great hindrance.

Wherefore good Master Secretary eftsoons I beseech you to have some pity upon me, and let me have such things as are necessary for me in mine age and especially for my health. And also that it may please you by your high wisdom to move the king's highness to take me unto his gracious favour again, and to restore me unto my liberty out of this cold and painful imprisonment; whereby ye shall find me to be your poor beadman for ever unto Almighty God, who ever have you in his protection and custody.

He had also begged to have a confessor and attend Mass, but to no avail. Henry and Cromwell couldn't even allow Fisher some peace and comfort in his last days:

Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, wrote to Charles V on 30 June 1535: "They gave him (Fisher) as a confessor, a sworn enemy of his, and the staunchest Lutheran in the world as well as the originator of all the devilish acts practiced here; who, however, was so much edified by the bishop's countenance and behavior on the scaffold that he ceases not to say, that one of the best and holiest men in the world has been executed."

Henry VIII would go on to try to destroy all the evidence of Bishop Fisher's good work, even that great work Fisher had done with the support of Henry VIII's own grandmother, Margaret Beaufort, at St. John's College, University of Cambridge. He had preachers denounce Fisher (and More), diplomats denigrate his career, and everything possible done to remove remembrance of this great and holy man. Bishops Gardiner (another blot against his character) and Sampson also attacked Fisher in print after his death. Cromwell blamed the Pope for Fisher's execution, saying that if he had not been named Cardinal, Henry might have . . . what? St. John Fisher had opposed Henry's wishes in the Great Matter from the beginning; he was never going to receive any mercy or even justice.

From One Thomas to Another, to Another

On May 16, 1532, Sir Thomas More resigned as Chancellor of England and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, succeeded by Thomas Audley in those offices--the latter on May 20, 1532 and the former on January 26, 1533. He would also succeed Thomas More as Speaker of the House of Commons when Parliament met again. His biography in the History of Parliament notes the delay in naming a Chancellor after More resigned:

The initial withholding of the office and title of chancellor from Audley, when he was named keeper of the great seal in May 1532, has yet to be explained. On 26 Jan. 1533, however, with the new parliamentary session only ten days away, he was made chancellor, and as soon as it opened he was succeeded as Speaker by Humphrey Wingfield. From then until the end of this Parliament, and at its successor of June 1536, Audley conducted business in the Lords, as More had done before him, without being a peer or having a vote. The most important Acts which passed the Upper House under his presidency also owed not a little to his legal skill: thus in the seventh session, the second to be held in 1534, the Act for first fruits and tenths (26 Hen. VIII, c.3) and that on murder and felonies in Wales (26 Hen. VIII, c.6) may have been largely his, and he polished, if he did not draft, the Treason Act (26 Hen. VIII, c.13). He was, however, not impeccable as is shown by the shortcomings in the bill he drafted for the suspension of Poynings’ Law, which required amendment shortly after its enactment in 1536 by the Irish Parliament; it may also have been through his negligence that the same Parliament had to pass a second subsidy Act. In 1539 he introduced, among others, bills for the law reform which, although rejected or allowed to lapse then, were to pass a year later as the Acts for wills (32 Hen. VIII, c.1), limiting prescriptions (32 Hen. VIII, c.2) and for shortening of the Trinity term (32 Hen. VIII, c.21). He also presented a memorial to the Lords in 1540 outlining several reforms, from which emerged Acts for lessees of lands (32 Hen. VIII, c.28) and against wrongful disseisin (32 Hen. VIII, c.33). After Cromwell’s fall the devising of government legislation became Audley’s undivided responsibility.

The same biography notes his participation in several trials, including that of Thomas More, and some confusion about his religious beliefs (was Audley a Catholic or a Protestant?):

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.11

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.12

Whatever Audley owed to Cromwell for his success, he served Henry VIII to coordinate the Attainder and condemnation of the Earl of Essex in 1542. Audley died in 1544 without a male heir and his baronetcy was extinct at this death. He was buried in the church of St. Mary the Virgin in Saffron Walden. Audley had purchased Walden Abbey and built his home there as Baron Audley of Walden. His Audley End was replaced, however, by the Jacobean manor house built by his grandson, Thomas Howard, the 1st Earl of Suffolk; it is now an English Heritage site.

Audley's daughter Margaret married first Lord Henry Dudley, the youngest son of John Dudley, the Earl of Northumberland who was executed during the reign of Mary I and then Thomas Howard, the 4th Duke of Norfolk who was executed during reign of Elizabeth I (but after Margaret had died in 1564). When she died, their son Thomas Howard inherited Audley End and the other properties at Saffron Walden--and yes, the name does refer to the valuable spice saffron as the saffron crocus was grown in the area, and is again today.