Gardiner was born in Bury St Edmunds, but the date of his birth is uncertain. His father could have been a John Gardiner, but also could have been Wyllyam Gardiner, a substantial cloth merchant of the town where he was born,[2] who took care to give him a good education. His mother was said to be Helen Tudor, an illegitimate daughter of Jasper Tudor, 1st Duke of Bedford,[3] but American research from 2011 suggests that this lady was the mother of a different cleric, Thomas Gardiner.[4]
In 1511 Gardiner, aged 28, met Erasmus in Paris.[5] He had probably already begun his studies at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself in the classics, especially in Greek. He then devoted himself to canon and civil law, in which subjects he attained so great a proficiency that no one could dispute his pre-eminence. He received the degree of doctor of civil law in 1520, and of canon law in the following year.[6]
Diplomatic career
Before long his abilities attracted the notice of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who made him his secretary,[7] and in this capacity he is said to have been with him at The More in Hertfordshire, when the conclusion of the celebrated Treaty of the More brought King Henry VIII and the French ambassadors there. This was probably the occasion on which he first came to the king's notice, but he does not appear to have been actively engaged in Henry's service till three years later. He undoubtedly acquired a knowledge of foreign politics in the service of Wolsey.
In 1527 he and Sir Thomas More were named commissioners on the part of England, in arranging a treaty with the French ambassadors for the support of an army in Italy against Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. As a canon lawyer, he was sent to Orvieto in 1527 to secure a decretal commission from Pope Clement VII to allow the king's divorce case to be tried in England.[8] In 1535 he was also appointed ambassador to France,[9] where he remained for three years.[10]
That year he accompanied Wolsey on his important diplomatic mission to France, the splendour and magnificence of which have been graphically described by George Cavendish in his biography of Wolsey.[11] Among the cardinal's retinue – including several noblemen and privy councillors – Gardiner alone seems to have understood the importance of this embassy. Henry was particularly anxious to cement his alliance with King Francis I of France, and gain support for his plans to divorce Catherine of Aragon. In the course of his progress through France, Wolsey received orders from Henry to send back his secretary, Gardiner, for fresh instructions. Wolsey was obliged to reply that he positively could not spare Gardiner as he was the only instrument he had in advancing the king's "Great Matter". The next year, Wolsey sent Gardiner and Edward Foxe, provost of King's College, Cambridge, to Italy to promote the same business with the pope. His dispatched messages have survived, and illustrate the competence with which Gardiner performed his duties.
Gardiner's familiarity with canon law gave him a great advantage. He was instructed to procure a decretal commission from the pope, which was intended to construct principles of law by which Wolsey might render a decision on the validity of the king's marriage without appeal. Though supported by plausible pretexts, the demand was received as unusual and inadmissible.[citation needed]Pope Clement VII, who had been recently imprisoned in Castel Sant'Angelo by mutinous soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire, had managed to escape to Orvieto. Now fearful of offending Charles V, nephew of Queen Catherine, Clement refused to issue a definitive ruling concerning Henry's annulment.[12] The matter was instead referred to his cardinals, with whom Gardiner held long debates.[citation needed]
Gardiner's pleading was unsuccessful. Though the issue had not been specifically resolved, a general commission was granted, enabling Wolsey, along with Papal Legate, Cardinal Campeggio, to try the case in England. While grateful to the pope for the small concession, Wolsey viewed this as inadequate for the purpose in view.[citation needed] He urged Gardiner to press Clement VII further to deliver the desired decretal, even if it were only to be shown to the king and himself and then destroyed.[citation needed] Otherwise Wolsey feared he would lose his credit with Henry, who might be tempted to discard his allegiance to Rome. However, Clement VII made no further concessions at the time and Gardiner returned home. The two legates held their court under the guidelines of the general commission.
Gardiner was a conservative and an opponent of Anne Boleyn, Cranmer, Thomas Cromwell and of any innovation in the Church, although he acquiesced grudgingly in the steadily increasing influence of the Reformation on the royal counsels. A description of his character from George Cavendish declared him "a swarthy complexion, hooked nose, deep-set eyes, a permanent frown, huge hands and a vengeful wit. He was ambitious, sure of himself, irascible, astute, and worldly."[13]
In early August 1529 he was appointed the king's secretary. He had already been archdeacon of Taunton for several years. The archdeaconries of Worcester and of Norfolk were also added to a list of pluralities before November 1529 and in March 1530 respectively; in April 1531 he resigned all three for that of Leicester. In 1530 the King demanded a precedent from Cambridge to procure the decision of the university as to the unlawfulness of marriage with a deceased brother's wife: in accordance with the new plan devised for settling the question without the pope's intervention. In this Gardiner succeeded. In November 1531 the king rewarded him with the bishopric of Winchester, vacant since Wolsey's death. The unexpected promotion was accompanied by expressions from the king which made it still more honourable, showing that if he had been subservient, it was not for the sake of his own advancement. Gardiner had, in fact, argued boldly with the king on some points, and Henry now reminded him of the fact. "I have often squared with you, Gardiner," he said familiarly, "but I love you never the worse, as the bishopric I give will convince you." In 1532, nevertheless, he displeased the king by taking part in the preparation of the "Answer of the Ordinaries" to the complaints brought against them in the House of Commons. On this subject he wrote to the king in his own defence.
Thomas Cranmer became an enemy of Gardiner.
Gardiner was not exactly, as is often said, one of Thomas Cranmer's assessors, but, according to Cranmer's own expression, "assistant" to him as counsel for the king,[clarification needed] when the archbishop, in the absence of Queen Catherine, pronounced her marriage with Henry null and void on 23 May 1533.[citation needed] Immediately afterwards he was sent to Marseille, where an interview between the pope and Francis I took place in September. Henry was deeply suspicious, as Francis, ostensibly his ally, had previously maintained the justice of his cause in the matter of the divorce. It was at this interview that Edmund Bonner intimated the appeal of Henry VIII to a general council in case the pope should venture to proceed to sentence against him. This appeal, and another on behalf of Cranmer presented with it, were drawn up by Gardiner.
In 1535 he and other bishops were called upon to vindicate the king's new title of "Supreme Head of the Church of England." The result was his celebrated treatise De vera obedientia, the ablest of all the vindications of royal supremacy. "Princes ought to be obeyed", wrote Gardiner, "by the commandment of God; yea, and to be obeyed without question". He certainly believed in the semi-divinity of kings, and the divine majesty's right to rule as if the King's law was God's law.[14] In the same year he had a dispute with Cranmer about the visitation of his diocese. He was also employed to answer the pope's brief threatening to deprive Henry of his kingdom.
During the next few years he took part in various embassies to France and Germany. He was often so abroad, having little influence on the king's councils; but in 1539 he took part in the enactment of the Six Articles, which led to the resignation of Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Shaxton and the persecution of the Protestant party. In 1540, on the execution of Thomas Cromwell, he was elected chancellor of the University of Cambridge. A few years later he attempted, in concert with others, to fasten a charge of heresy upon Archbishop Cranmer in connection with the Six Articles and but for the personal intervention of the king he would probably have succeeded.
Despite having supported royal supremacy, he was a thorough opponent of the Reformation from a doctrinal point of view, and is thought to have been a leader of the Prebendaries' Plot against Cranmer. He had not approved of Henry's general treatment of the church, especially during the ascendancy of Cromwell. In 1544 a relation of his, named German Gardiner, whom he employed as his secretary, was executed for treason in reference to the king's supremacy, and his enemies insinuated to the king that he himself was of his secretary's way of thinking. The king had need of him quite as much as he had of Cranmer; for it was Gardiner who, even under royal supremacy, was anxious to prove that England had not fallen away from the faith, while Cranmer's authority as primate was necessary to upholding that supremacy.
Thus Gardiner and the archbishop maintained opposite sides of the king's church policy; and though Gardiner was encouraged by the king to put up articles against the archbishop for heresy, the archbishop could always rely on the king's protection in the end. Protestantism was gaining ground in high places, especially after the king's marriage to Catherine Parr; the Queen herself was nearly committed for it at one time, when Gardiner, with the king's approbation, censured some of her expressions in conversation. Just after her marriage, four men of the Court were condemned at Windsor and three of them were burned. The fourth, who was the theologian and composer John Merbecke, was pardoned by Gardiner's procurement, who said he was "but a musician".
In 1546 Gardiner was the significant person involved in a conservative plot to discredit Maud Lane who was Catherine Parr's cousin, Gentlewoman and confidante. The plan was to find evidence of her heresy but the plot failed and plans to kidnap the queen and two of her ladies were not enacted. Gardiner's position was reduced by this.[15]
Edward VI's reign
Bishop Gardiner's Conference with Lady Jane Grey, from the Victorian Pictorial Tower of London.
Great as Gardiner's influence had been with Henry VIII, his name was omitted from the king's will, though Henry was believed to have intended making him one of his executors. Henry had made provision in his will for a 16-man Council to rule England during his son Edward's minority (Edward VI). Gardiner was excluded from this council. Edward Seymour, a brother of Jane Seymour, seized power as Protector Somerset and he and his Council introduced radical Protestant reforms. Gardiner completely opposed these reforms. Between the time of Henry VIII's death in January 1547 and the end of that year, Gardiner wrote at least 25 indignant letters arguing that the reforms were both theologically wrong and unconstitutional. Most of these letters were addressed to Somerset.[16] He resisted the visitation of his Winchester diocese by the ecclesiastical authorities.[17] His remonstrances resulted in imprisonment in the Fleet, and the visitation of his diocese was held during his incarceration. Although soon released, he was summoned before the council, which demanded an explanation. Refusing to answer satisfactorily on some points, Gardiner was imprisoned in the Tower of London in June 1548.[18] Eventually he was given a lengthy appearance before the Privy Council, beginning in December 1550 and, in February 1551 he was deprived of his bishopric and returned to the Tower where he remained for the rest of the reign (a further two years).[19] During this time he unsuccessfully requested his acknowledged right as one of the Lords Spiritual to appear before the House of Lords. His bishopric was given to John Ponet, a chaplain of Cranmer's, translated from the bishopric of Rochester.
At the accession of Queen Mary I, the Duke of Norfolk and other state prisoners of high rank were in the Tower along with Gardiner; but the Queen, on her first entry into London, set them all free. Gardiner was restored to his Bishopric and appointed Lord Chancellor, and he placed the crown on the Queen's head at her coronation.[20] He also opened her first parliament and for some time was her leading councillor. He was now also called upon, in old age, to undo not a little of the work in which he had been instrumental in his earlier years – to demonstrate the legitimacy of the Queen's birth and the legality of her mother's marriage, to restore the old religion, and to recant his own words touching the royal supremacy.
It is said that he wrote a formal Palinodia or retractation of his book De vera obedientia; but the reference is probably to his sermon at the start of Advent, 1554, after Cardinal (later Archbishop of Canterbury) Reginald Pole had absolved the kingdom from schism. As chancellor he had the onerous task of negotiating the Queen's marriage treaty with Philip II of Spain, for which he shared a general repugnance. In executing it, he took care to make the terms as advantageous for England as possible, with express provision that the Spaniards should in no way be allowed to interfere in the government of the country. After the appointment of Cardinal Pole, and the reconciliation of the realm to the see of Rome, he still remained in high favour. How far he was responsible for the persecutions which afterwards arose is open to debate. He no doubt approved of the act, which passed the House of Lords while he presided there as chancellor, for the revival of the heresy laws.
There is no doubt that he sat in judgment on Bishop John Hooper, and on several other preachers whom he condemned to be degraded from the priesthood. The natural consequence of this was that when they declined, even as laymen, to be reconciled to the Roman Church, they were handed over to the secular power to be burned. In his diocese no victim of the persecution is known to have suffered until after his death; and, much as he was already maligned by opponents, there is much to show that his personality was generous and humane. In May 1555 he went to Calais as one of the English commissioners to promote peace with France; but their efforts were ineffectual. In October 1555 he again opened parliament as Lord Chancellor, but towards the end of the month he fell ill and grew rapidly worse until he died.
Death
Bishop Gardiner died at Westminster on 12 November 1555. He was temporarily buried in a vault at the church of St Mary Overie, and in February 1556 his body was conveyed to Winchester Cathedral, where, after a number of ceremonies, a final funeral service was conducted on 28 February 1556, at which time it was recorded that he had not been buried and that no ground was broken, in the expectation that in due course his executors would build a chapel within the cathedral for his entombment.[21] Some claim that his last words were Erravi cum Petro, sed non flevi cum Petro (Like Peter, I have erred, unlike Peter, I have not wept).[22]
Fictional portrayals
Gardiner plays an important part in Shakespeare and Fletcher’s play Henry VIII.
Gardiner is the villain in Alison MacLeod's 1965 historical novel The Heretic, a biography of the Protestant martyr Anne Askew, of whose execution Gardiner was the main instigator.
Thomas Cranmer was a religious figure who was leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which was one of the causes of the separation of the English Church from union with the Holy See. Along with Thomas Cromwell, he supported the principle of royal supremacy, in which the king was considered sovereign over the Church within his realm.
Thomas Wolsey was an English statesman and Catholic cardinal. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figure in virtually all matters of state. He also held important ecclesiastical appointments. These included the Archbishop of York—the second most important role in the English church—and that of papal legate. His appointment as a cardinal by Pope Leo X in 1515 gave him precedence over all other English clergy.
Reginald Pole was an English cardinal and the last Catholic archbishop of Canterbury, holding the office from 1556 to 1558, during the Counter-Reformation.
William Warham was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1503 to his death in 1532.
Edmund Bonner was Bishop of London from 1539 to 1549 and again from 1553 to 1559. Initially an instrumental figure in the schism of Henry VIII from Rome, he was antagonised by the Protestant reforms introduced by the Duke of Somerset and reconciled himself to Catholicism. He became notorious as "Bloody Bonner" for his role in the persecution of heretics under the Catholic government of Mary I of England, and ended his life as a prisoner under Queen Elizabeth I.
Henry VIII is a collaborative history play, written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher, based on the life of Henry VIII. An alternative title, All Is True, is recorded in contemporary documents, with the title Henry VIII not appearing until the play's publication in the First Folio of 1623. Stylistic evidence indicates that individual scenes were written by either Shakespeare or his collaborator and successor, John Fletcher. It is also somewhat characteristic of the late romances in its structure. It is noted for having more stage directions than any of Shakespeare's other plays.
Richard Cox was an English clergyman, who was Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Ely.
Thomas Thirlby, was the first and only bishop of Westminster (1540–50), and afterwards successively bishop of Norwich (1550–54) and bishop of Ely (1554–59). While he acquiesced in the Henrician schism, with its rejection in principle of the Roman papacy, he remained otherwise loyal to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church during the English Reformation.
Thomas Watson was a Catholic Bishop, notable among Catholics for his descriptions of the Protestant Reformation. Historian Albert Pollard described Watson as "one of the chief Catholic controversialists" of Mary Tudor's reign.
John Clerk was an English bishop. He was educated at Cambridge University, and went on to serve under Cardinal Wolsey in a variety of capacities. He was also useful in a diplomatic capacity to both Wolsey and Henry VIII of England.
Christopher Bainbridge was an English cardinal. Of Westmorland origins, he was a nephew of Bishop Thomas Langton of Winchester, represented the continuation of Langton's influence and teaching and succeeded him in many of his appointments such as provost of The Queen's College in the University of Oxford. Towards the end of the reign of King Henry VII, he was successively Master of the Rolls, a Privy Counsellor, Dean of Windsor and Bishop of Durham. Becoming Archbishop of York and therefore Primate of England in 1508, he was sent as procurator of King Henry VIII to the papal court of Pope Julius II, where he was active in the diplomatic affairs leading to Henry's war against France and took part in the election of Julius's successor, Pope Leo X. He was murdered by poisoning in Italy in 1514 and was succeeded as Archbishop of York by Thomas Wolsey.
Nicholas Shaxton was Bishop of Salisbury. For a time, he had been a Reformer, but recanted this position, returning to the Roman faith. Under Henry VIII, he attempted to persuade other Protestant leaders to also recant. Under Mary I, he took part in several heresy trials of those who became Protestant martyrs.
Richard Sampson was an English clergyman and composer of sacred music. He was an Anglican bishop of Chichester, and subsequently of Coventry and Lichfield.
Events from the 1530s in England.
George Day was the Bishop of Chichester.
The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England was forced by its monarchs and elites to break away from the authority of the Pope and the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Reformation, a religious and political movement that affected the practice of Christianity in Western and Central Europe.
The Cardinal protector of England was an appointed crown-cardinal of England from 1492 until 1539. A cardinal protector is the representative of a Roman Catholic nation or organisation within the College of Cardinals, appointed by the pope. The role was terminated as a result of the English Reformation.
John London, DCL was Warden of New College, Oxford, and a prominent figure in the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII of England.
Anthony Hussey, Esquire, was an English merchant and lawyer who was President Judge of the High Court of Admiralty under Henry VIII, before becoming Principal Registrar to the Archbishops of Canterbury from early in the term of Archbishop Cranmer, through the restored Catholic primacy of Cardinal Pole, and into the first months of Archbishop Parker's incumbency, taking a formal part in the latter's consecration. The official registers of these leading figures of the English Reformation period were compiled by him. While sustaining this role, with that of Proctor of the Court of the Arches and other related ecclesiastical offices as a Notary public, he acted abroad as agent and factor for Nicholas Wotton.
Edmund Steward otherwise Stewart or Stewarde was an English lawyer and clergyman who served as Chancellor and later Dean of Winchester Cathedral until his removal in 1559.
↑ Dale Hoak, 'Coronations and the Transformations of the Tudor Monarchy', Charles S. Knighton, Richard Mortimer, Westminster Abbey Reformed: 1540–1640 (Routledge, 2003), p. 136.
↑ Heralds' Account of Gardiner's Obsequies, College of Arms, cited in The Letters of Stephen Gardiner, op.cit. pp.502-517
↑ Latham, Edward. Famous Sayings and their Authors, 2d ed. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1906, p.240.
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