Henry VII and the Durham Palatinate
CHAPTER THREE
The Enforcement of the Henrician Reformation in the Durham Palatinate
Geoffrey Elton postulated that the 1536 Franchises Act meant ‘to do away with all
those franchises that prevented an effective dissemination of royal authority’.1 The
obstacles posed by the Durham palatinate could only be resolved by Henry’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, whose ‘revolution in government’ brought about the
complete destruction of all franchisal liberties.2 Revisionists, particularly Steven Ellis
and Tim Thornton, have since advocated an alternative approach to the history of the early Tudor palatinate: the continuance of Durham’s independent courts, coupled with new thinking concerning the nature of sovereignty, represented a form of ‘limited
integration’.3 Significantly, historians have begun to recognise the importance of
patron-client or informal political networks and their integral role throughout the
Tudor polity.4 In spite of a number of recent publications examining the role of
political networks in York and the West Country, no such study has been conducted
for Durham during the Reformation period.5
1 G.R. Elton, England Under the Tudor 3rd edn. (Abingdon, 1991), p. 175.
2 Ibid., pp. 4, 107, 175-76.
3 S.G. Ellis, ‘The Destruction of Liberties: Some Further Evidence’, BIHR (York) 54 (1981),
p. 161; David Loades, ‘Introduction’, in The Last Principality: Politics, Religion and Society
in the Bishopric of Durham, 1494-1660 ed. David Marcombe (Nottingham, 1987), pp. 1-3; Christopher Kitching, ‘The Durham Palatinate and the Courts of Westminster under the
Tudors’, in The Last Principality, ed. Marcombe, pp. 49-70; Tim Thornton, ‘Fifteenth-
Century Durham and the Problem of Provincial Liberties in England and the Wider
Territories of the English Crown’, TRHS 11 (2001), pp. 83-100; Tim Thornton, ‘The
Integration of Cheshire into the Tudor State in the Early Sixteenth Century’, NH 29 (1993),
pp. 40-63.
4 Steven Gunn, ‘New Men and New Monarchy in England, 1485-1523’, in Powerbrokers in
the Late Middle Ages: Les Courtiers Du Pouvoir Au Bas Moyen-Age, ed. Robert Stein (Turnhout, 2001), pp. 153-63; Nadine Lewycky, ‘Serving God and King: Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s Patronage Networks and Early Tudor Government, 1514-29, with special reference to the Archdiocese of York’ (University of York PhD thesis, 2008); idem, ‘Cardinal Thomas
Wolsey and the City of York, 1514-1529’, NH 46 (2009), pp. 43-60; Mary L. Robertson, ‘The
Art of the Possible: Thomas Cromwell’s Management of West Country Government’, HJ 32
(1989), pp. 793-816.
5 Margaret Harvey, Mervyn James, Christopher Kitching, David Marcombe and Tim
Thornton do not discuss political networks in their respective works: Margaret Harvey, Lay
Religious Life in Late Medieval Durham (Woodbridge, 2006); Mervyn James, Mervyn James, Family, Lineage, and Civil Society: A Study of Society, Politics, and Mentality in the Durham Region, 1500-1640 (Oxford, 1974); Kitching, ‘Durham Palatinate and the Courts of
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This chapter will explore Durham’s political, administrative, and religious position relative to Westminster during the English Reformation and examine to what extent the palatinate was regarded as an integral component of the state by parliament. The Reformation Parliament, which sat intermittently from 3 November 1529 to 14 April 1536, passed a series of highly innovative measures during the break with Rome. The contention here is that Durham was not treated differently from other English shires when it came to implementing these seismic changes. Of equal importance are the processes through which Westminster and Durham were able to forge and maintain a practical working relationship with one another. This chapter will explain how this was achieved during the Reformation, from the early 1530s to the mid-1540s, and, in so doing, suggest a third approach to the history of the
integration of the Durham palatinate. This new approach, unlike Elton’s institutional argument or the revisionists’ ‘limited integration’ thesis, sees political and religious imperatives, rather than constitutional idealism, as the driving force behind central government’s management of the palatinate and its leading landowners. In the first instance this chapter will explore how parliament helped to ensure the acceptance of the royal supremacy throughout the realm by not distinguishing medieval franchises from the other English counties. I will then discuss how Reformation policies – the extirpation of papal authority, the reversal of annates, monastic reform, and the suppression of Durham’s religious houses – were implemented within Durham and how this impacted the bishopric’s standing with central government. In so doing, it will be shown that the enforcement of the Reformation in the Durham palatinate was reliant upon Westminster’s effective mobilisation of symbiotic, informal, politico- religious networks.
The Palatinate of Durham and the Reformation Parliament
The absorption of the county palatine of Durham into the national political and administrative fold is commonly thought to have taken place with the passage of the Franchises Act on 1 July 1536. An extension of the Henrician concept of empire enunciated in the 1533 Act of Restraint of Appeals, the Frachises Act – introduced in parliament under the somewhat innocuous title of the ‘Acte for recontynuyng of
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certayne liberties and francheses heretofore taken frome the Crowne’ - was designed to bring about fundamental change to the political and administrative freedoms
enjoyed by England’s remaining liberties, including Durham and the Welsh Marches.6
Henceforth, the bishop of Durham would be unable to grant pardons to felons and outlaws; the king had full discretion to appoint justices of the gaol and peace (though the bishop continued to appoint peace commissioners thoughout the early Tudor period), where previously this had been the preserve of the franchisal lord; writs were to be issued in the king’s name; and the bishop of Durham’s peace, exercised in the palatinate’s largely independent courts, was now the king’s peace. Moreover, the cathedral’s ancient privilege to grant sanctuary – even to those considered felons by
the crown’s court – was removed.7 In spite of Geoffrey Elton’s claim that the act
presaged the fundamental decline of ancient liberties – an argument taken taken up more recently by M.A.R. Graves and Peter Roberts – there remains uncertainty as to
what extent the passage of the bill limited the palatinate’s powers.8 Before the act
received royal assent, the enforcement of criminal law in the county palatine closely mirrored the model implemented across England; the crown was officiailly
responsible for appointing local magistrates in Durham, while the prerogative of the bishop in criminal matters extended little further than issuing warrants for circuit
judges.9 In fact, more immediate and long-lasting change to the crown’s relationship
with Durham occured in the sessions of the Reformation Parliament before the franchises bill was passed.
Durham was not formally represented in England’s national assembly until the mid-seventeenth century. The palatinate was, however, not totally immune from parliamentary legislation. While certain bills did contain exemption clauses for Durham and other ancient liberties, it was, in theory, expected to ahere to the
6SR, iii, p. 555-58; LP, x, 254. 7SR, iii, p. 555-58.
8 Elton, England under the Tudors, p. 175; M.A.R. Graves, The Tudor Parliament: Crown,
Lords and Commons, 1485-1603 (Abington, 2013), p. 78; Peter Roberts, ‘Tudor Wales,
national identity and the British inheritance’, in British consciousness and identity: The
making of Britain, 1533-1707, ed. Brendan Bradshaw and Peter Roberts (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 8-9; Peter Rushton, ‘Law in North-East England: Community, Country and Region, 1550-
1850’, in Regional Identities in North-East England, 1300-2000, ed. A.G. Green and A.J.
Pollard (Woodbridge, 2007), p. 74; Kitching, ‘Durham Palatinate and the Courts of Westminster’, pp. 49-70.
9 Kitching, ‘Durham Palatinate and the Courts of Westminster’, p. 49; Rushton, ‘Law in
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decisions of Westminster’s lawmakers.10 In practice, the degree to which English laws
passed at Westminster were enforced in Durham was largely at the discretion of the bishop. Moreover, while the county palatine remained officially absent from
parliamentary representation in the house of commons, Wales and the other outlying territories, including the West Country and Cheshire, became increasingly involved
with the Westminster legislative process.11 During the early Tudor period there is no
evidence that Durham formally petitioned for representation in parliament. Yet, despite its official absence, Durham nonetheless achieved a degree of parliamentary involvement through those palatinate landowners who sat for neighbouring shires, particularly Northumberland and Yorkshire; Robert Bowes, William Bulmer, Richard Cholmeley, Ralph Eure, Thomas Hilton, and Richard and Thomas Tempest all sat in parliament at one time between 1531 and 1558, representing a host of northern constituencies, including Yorkshire, Newcastle, Westmorland, Northumberland and Scarborough. At the height of his career in central government, Robert Bowes was
elected to serve as an MP as far south as Middlesex.12
Historians have long debated the reasoning behind and impact of the 1533 Act of Restraint of Appeals. While the Henrician government had previously introduced policies to institute the break with Rome, the Act of Restraint of Appeals gave binding force to earlier measures; the act constituted a fundamental break of
England’s formal ties to the papacy.13 In spite of the act’s centrality to the formation
of the Henrician state – now ostensibly free from papal influence and decisions made in the curia, matters of matrimony and financial payments to Rome would henceforth
10SR, iii, pp. 368-72. In the 1531 Act Concerning the Commission of Sewers, the bishop of
Durham was able to appoint two commissioners to serve alongside those selected by Westminster, though this decision to owed as much to political pragmatism as it did to a desire to honour the palatinate’s medieval privileges.
11 Roberts, ‘Tudor Wales’, pp. 8-19; idem, ‘The union with England and the identity of
“Anglican” Wales’ TRHS, 5th Series, 22 (1972), pp. 61-4; idem, ‘The “Henry VIII Clause”:
delegated legislation and the Tudor Principality of Wales’, in Legal Record and Historical
Reality, ed. T.G. Watkin (London, 1989), pp. 37-49; Brendan Bradshaw, ‘The Tudor
Reformation and the Revolution in Wales and Ireland: The Origins of the British Problem’, in The British Problem, c. 1534-1707, ed. Brendan Bradshaw and John Morrill (London, 1996),
p. 47; J.D.P. Cooper, Propaganda and the Tudor State: Political Culture in the Westcountry
(Oxford, 2003), pp. 185-86.
12 ‘Bowes, Robert’, ‘Bulmer, Sir William’, ‘Cholmley, Sir Richard’, ‘Eure (Evers), Sir
Ralph’, ‘Hilton, Sir Thomas’, ‘Tempest, Sir Richard’, ‘Tempest, Sir Thomas’, S.T. Bindoff, ed. The House of Commons, 1509-1558 [online edition:
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/research/members/members-1509-1558] 13SR, iii, p. 427.
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be decided in the king’s courts – historians have not considered how this legislation affected those residing in the county palatine and how Durham’s deliberate inclusion within the terms of the statute signified the bishopric’s integration into the Tudor regime. Indeed, much analysis on the Act of Restraint of Appeals has focused on Thomas Cromwell’s invoking the historic title of empire; spiritual matters could now
legitimately be resolved in the king’s courts.14 Closer examination, however, reveals
much about Westminster’s seemingly pragmatic attitude towards national and local administration at a time of intense political and religious change. According to Cromwell’s preamble, the curia’s distance from London meant that England’s
subjects, not least Henry VIII himself, were often the victims of drawn out and costly
legal proceedings.15 The Restraint of Appeals Act sought to rectify this by declaring
that all matters previously tried in Rome would now be determined in the royal
courts.16 This expansion of royal justice included those residing in Durham and other
medieval peculiarities. The Act stipulated that all matters ‘allredy commensed… or hereafter coming in contencion… within the Realme or within any the Kinges Dominions or Marches… shalbe… det[er]myned within the Kinges Jurisdiccion and
Auctoritie and not elleswhere’.17
The first, definitive, component of the break with Roman Church, then, saw the Durham palatinate treated in the same manner as other English counties. The Reformation Parliament had previously honoured Durham’s historic right to self- determination. Certain matters of local governance were immune from parliamentary influence. The 1531 act concerning the empanelling of sewer commissions, for example, did not encroach on the bishop of Durham’s freedom to appoint local officials. Bishop Tunstall was free to appoint two commissioners to serve on the palatinate’s commissions alongside those selected by Westminster. Though perhaps a confirmation of the bishopric’s ancient privileges the act had just as much to do with
14 Elton, England under the Tudors, pp. 132-34; idem, Reform and Reformation: England,
1509-1558 (London, 1978), p. 169; J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (London, 1968), pp. 272-73;
John Guy, ‘Thomas Cromwell and the intellectual origins of the Henrician revolution’, in The
Tudor Monarchy, ed. John Guy (London, 1997), pp. 213-33.
15 Peter Clarke has challenged the idea of the papal courts exercising an overbearing influence
in England more generally and has commented on the importance of papal dispensations in matters concerning close kin: Peter Clarke, ‘English royal marriages and the papal
penitentiary in the fifteenth century’, EHR 120 (2005), pp. 1014-1029; idem, ‘Canterbury as
the New Rome: Dispensations and Henry VIII’s Reformation’, Journal of Ecclesiastical
History 64 (2013), pp. 20-44. 16 SR, iii, p. 428.
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ensuring a degree of political and governmental pragmatism in a region that had
experienced problems with flooding in previous years.18 On matters concerning
England’s separation from Rome, however, no such flexibility could be permitted. The enforcement of the Act of Restraint of Appeals had to be seen as being adhered to throughout the realm. This should not be regarded as an attempt by Westminster to undermine palatinate authority as a matter of principle. Rather, Durham’s inclusion within and the enforcement of the act should be seen as an essentially pragmatic measure, introduced at a time of seismic political, administrative, and religious change.
The First Succession Act, passed in March 1534, had a similar impact on the palatinate’s position vis-à-vis Westminster. In addition to legitimising Henry’s second marriage and new heir, the bill made provision for the government to introduce a corporal oath, to be sworn by all subjects, recognising Henry’s new marriage and the investiture of the succession on Elizabeth. It went on to stipulate that proclamations of Elizabeth’s new status were to be made on the first day of May, after the bill received royal assent. That the Act took the palatinate to be a component of the national polity can be deduced from the language: ‘And be it further enacted… that on this side the first day of Maij next coming [pro]clamacions shalbe made in all shires within this
Realme’.19 No exception was made for the Durham palatinate and no distinctions
would be made when it came to punishing those who might question the act’s
contents: all subjects, including those in Durham, would be found guilty of treason for slandering any element of the act.
Further evidence that Durham could claim no exemptions on matters concerning religious change can be seen with the passage of the Supremacy and Second Succession Acts in November 1534. A confirmation of convocation’s acceptance of Henry’s titular headship of the English Church, both statutes differed from the March Succession Act in that they required all subjects to swear an oath recognising the king as supreme head of the English Church and the investiture of the
succession on Elizabeth.20 Moreover, the Second Succession Act stipulated that
additional proclamations were to be made throughout England; the Durham clergy
18SR, iii, pp. 368-72.
19 SR, iii, p. 473. 20SR, iii, p. 493.
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were required to promulgate the supremacy and the revised succession in the same
manner as their northern counterparts.21
Bishop Tunstall himself and his episcopal household made a concerted effort to preach the supremacy in the palatinate. Prior to receiving instructions for the setting forth of the supremacy, the bishop wrote to Cromwell in July 1535 to confirm that ‘I not only my self before the recepte of the said lres [letters] had done my dewty
on setting forth his tytle of supreme hede but also raised other to do the same’.22 Upon
receiving Henry’s instructions, Tunstall reported that he had immediately ‘repaired to
duresme and ther preached… agayne… setting further the kings title’.23 Despite his
wavering convictions, Durham’s bishop continued to advocate the royal supremacy throughout the mid- to late-1530s. On Palm Sunday 1539, Tunstall delivered arguably his most famous sermon, denouncing the immense sums previously paid to the see of
Rome and Cardinal Reginald Pole’s treasonous activities on the continent.24
Whereas the Second Succession Act stated that those who refused the oath could be found guilty of treason, the November 1534 Treasons Act made this provision legally binding. Again, the language provides evidence of Westminster’s attitude towards independent franchises: no exceptions were made for the palatinate or any other liberty. The act stipulated that ‘if any [per]sone or [per]sonnes… within this Realme or els where within the Kynges Domynyons’ refused the oath, then they
would have committed treason.25 Not only were all men required to take the oath, the
penalty for refusing to do so was uniform, irrespective of where a subject resided.26
Indeed, Anthony Heron, a Durham landowner, was indicted for treason on 30
September 1535 for refusing the oath. Another local man, Roger Lassells, conducted the initial interrogation of Heron, who maintained: ‘that the king[es] hyhnes is not sup[re]me hede of the churche… but [he] expressely sayeth that the bishoppe of
21 SR, iii, p. 492.
22 BL, Cotton Cleopatra E/VI, f. 252 (LP, viii, 1082).
23 BL, Cotton Cleopatra E/VI, f. 252 (LP, viii, 1082).
24A sermon of Cuthbert Bysshop of Duresme made vpon Palme sondaye laste past, before the maiestie of our souerayne lorde kyng Henry the. VIII. kynge of England [and] of France, defensor of the faith, lorde of Ireland, and in erth next vnder Christ supreme heed of the Churche of England. [Londini: In aedibus Thomae Bertheleti typis impress. Cum priuilegio
ad imprimendum solum, Anno. M.D. XXXiX]; LP, xiv, 628.
25SR, iii, p. 508.
26 It would appear that only lay men were sworn. Stephen Gardiner wrote to Cromwell in
early May 1534 asking the minister to clarify that his commissioners had interpreted the word
‘man’ correctly to apply ‘only for men and not women’. See J.A. Muller, ed. The Letters of
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Rome… is the hede of the churche and so he will take hym of his conscience during
his lyffe’.27 Subsequently questioned by Tunstall, alongside the earls of Westmorland
and Northumberland, Heron remained resolute.28 Concern over the nature of
Northumberland’s authority to hear the case led to the conviction being disputed;
Heron was later released after a stint in York Castle.29
What is of real importance here is that Heron, in spite of the procedural error, was reprimanded for refusing the oath. Moreover, that local men like Lassells and Sir Thomas Wharton (who had examined Heron while in custody at York) were charged with questioning the defendant demonstrates that members of Durham and North- Eastern society took part in the judicial process of enforcing the Reformation. Equally