#aid them both after wolsey's death

[cosmic-walkers]

It's clear Thomas has a lot of personal trauma, and that is what I enjoy about his character. He always reacts due to trauma and sometimes, often times, projects that onto others.

You also bring up great points about the possibility of a marriage between Dorthea and Thomas - how far would he allow her to actually be herself? From what we realize, she is a very headstrong woman, and extremely solid in her beliefs. Now we know that Thomas is friends with people who are still Catholic, like Mary.

But there would be such a difference between Mary and a woman who was his wife, who would be a very staunch Catholic in a time where being Catholic could get one killed. When he met Dorthea, he was already arguing against her, against her religion, etc. Part of the reason he was in her home, was because it was going to be dissolved. I mean, even the part about 'I'm a rich man, soon to be richer'; that was a burn, because yes, his wealth is going to increase after that monetary is sacked.

That's kinda what i was making in this post, and my other posts, in how he sees Dorthea. There is an entitlement, the lack of seeing her as a person, and because of his own views on Catholicism, the idea that she actually takes it seriously is just something that never crossed his mind until she called him out on it. And then we have that savior complex with him, and it's reflected twice with Dorthea.

First in the whole 'you are a bastard forced into this life, you don't want it, so let me save you!" And then the second, "your monetary is going to be destroyed, be my wife, and let me save you, you are Wolsey's daughter after all".

I think the issue with Thomas, is the amount of trauma he faces as a person, and his attachment toward Wolsey. And then there is the religious trauma; in the book, he saw that woman getting burned, and that solidified his relationship to Catholicism. We also see, in the way he spoke to Gregory that he is a fanatic. His feelings toward Catholicism and his hatred for it again bleed into how he perceives people - like Stephen and Dorthea - who were forced into it. And on one hand, i can understand why he think they'd hate it, but on the other hand both are adults and clearly enjoy the life/privileges it got them.

And like again, he genuinely does believe he is saving people too.

PHEW. anyway, thanks for your addition, i really enjoyed reading it!! Clearly i love stephen and he and dorthea having parallels was not something I expected; it makes me wonder if those two knew each other, and if those two bonded over the fact that they were handed to the religious life by their fathers who more or less, were shamed by their presence or didn't know what to do. I mean, historically toward the end of Wolsey's life, Stephen was one of the last people he contacted so it would surprise me if maybe, those two met. And if Thomas knew Dorthea as a child, Stephen probably also knew her as well , and those two would've had a lot in common. I know she wasn't a Winchester nun but that would've been something.

Thomas and his view of bastards placed into religious vows/holy orders is very interesting. Because his first thought is to assume that now, as adults who choose to stay in said orders, they hate it, or that they don't take it seriously. Which at first, is an understandable misconception. But sometimes, he lets his own personal view of religion overshadow the fact that maybe, just maybe, they are happy in positions that have given them power, status and family. This is about both Dorthea and Stephen, and his relationship to them.

Thomas can count a total of two bastards on his fingers forced into the religious life that he's pissed off. and i put the rest under the cut.

He did it first to Stephen, where in the book he mentions that Stephen was basically forced into being a priest even though he didn't want to. He talks about how Stephen loathes being a priest, how it’s this shameful, things that he is embarrassed by (in addition to being well, a bastard). However, being a priest gave Stephen immense amount of power, and he ends up becoming the Bishop of Winchester. There is nothing that states, at his big age, Stephen actually hates being a priest/Bishop. 

He also brings up sex with Stephen, basically asking if Stephen has been sleeping with women. Aside from being gay, Stephen takes his vows of celibacy very seriously, and that was something that shocked Thomas. UNDERSTANDABLY, because aside from Stephen, almost all the clergymen Thomas knows are fucking and have kids running around the place. Stephen however, doesn't, and there is that cognitive dissonance from Thomas because he is probably thinking, "why do you take a position you were forced into so seriously, especially when no one else does?" and it's because yes, he was forced into it, but that was the only place he was accepted. he is a family embarrassment, but the clergy became his family.

Next is Dorthea, whom like Stephen also had no choice in taking religious vows, but as we see in both the show and the book, she doesn’t hate it. In the show she states she wasn’t there by choice, and she might be forced to leave, not by her own choice. She brings up her sisters, and worries for them, especially when Thomas doesn’t. Thomas comes to her thinking that she hates her life, that she wants to leave, that she detests being a nun - but that simply isn’t true. He offers marriage to her as an escape, but doesn’t even realize that is a cage. At that time, nuns had far more freedom to live their lives than married women. They didn’t listen to a man, they were not governed by a husband, they could make their own money, they could teach, etc. Because Thomas assumed that Dorthea hated her life, he never actually asked her if she liked being a nun. She loves her sisters, and even though she had little, to no choice, the life she as given is the life she accepted. She found a family, she found happiness even if she was shunned. And again, she has far more freedom that many women around her. 

The lack of awareness is also quite interesting to me. because Thomas doesn’t realize that the *only* reason she’d be attempting to “escape” being a nun, is because her monastery is going to be destroyed. It’s not so much ‘ I hate this life, I wanna marry you’ as much as it is ‘because of YOU, this life that I have learned to love is over - so I am going to either go to the street or be forced into a marriage.”

ANYWAY back to the concept of bastards and religions. Back then, being in holy orders or religious vows was one of the few things that saved bastards and gave them family, status, power, etc. Especially when their own families were either ashamed of them, or didn’t want them. Which is the case of the two bastards in question. Thomas does a lot of projection on his own view of Catholicism, holy orders, and religious vows. And with that, there is also this idea of entitlement, which I already talked about in another post.

Anywayz...

tl: dr - Dorthea is a fully-fledged lesbian, and if they were on better terms, Stephen would have let Thomas fuck him if he asked. He would have absolutely bent over for that man.

[dwellordream]

“Henry's marriage to Catherine had long since grown cold. Though his wife remained, and would remain, loyal and devoted, Henry was in very different case. The raptures of the early days had faded and the consequent demands upon him for self-discipline and generosity had found him wanting. Catherine was five years his senior. In I527 he was still in his prime, in his mid-thirties, she over forty. As king he could satisfy desire all too easily, for who would refuse a king easily, especially a king such as he? Fidelity was rare among monarchs and the temptation besetting him, in particular, strong.

At first Henry had been a gallant husband. Catherine had accompanied him to every feast and triumph, he had worn her initials on his sleeve in the jousts and called himself 'Sir Loyal Heart'. He had shown her off to visitors, confided in her, run to her with news. Though there had been talk of a lady to whom he showed favour while campaigning in France, he had slipped home ahead of his army and galloped to Catherine at Richmond in order to lay the keys of the two cities he had captured at her feet.

We cannot know when he first succumbed to the temptation of adultery, but it must have been within five years of his marriage, when there appeared on the scene one Elizabeth Blount, a lady-in-waiting of Queen Catherine and a cousin of Lord Mountjoy - and she may not have been the first. She caught the king's eye during the New Year festivities in I5I4, that is, shortly after he had returned from the first campaign in France. Bessie Blount eventually bore him a son, in I519. Subsequently she married into a gentle family, the Talboys of Lancashire, with a dower of lands in that county and Yorkshire assigned by act ofParliament. Hers, then, was a fate less than death; and her son, the duke of Richmond, was occasionally to acquire considerable political and diplomatic significance.

Next there was Mary Boleyn, since 1521 wife of William Carey, daughter of a royal councillor and diplomat, and sister of Anne. That Mary was at one time Henry's mistress, and this presumably after her marriage, is beyond doubt. Years later there was a strong rumour that she too had born Henry a son, but we cannot be sure. Anyway we may guess that the liaison was over by l526, and when her younger sister climbed on to the English throne, with perhaps pardonable pique, she dismissed Mary from the court. The latter was to do well enough, with her family at the centre of affairs during the reign of her niece, Elizabeth I - which was more than could be said of Bessie Blount. And finally there was Anne, Thomas Boleyn's younger daughter.

Following in the wake of her sister, who had been in the entourage that accompanied Mary Tudor to France in 1514, Anne had crossed the Channel about 1519 to enter the household of Queen Claude, wife of Francis I, an amiable lady who had several young girls in her care and supervised their education. The newcomer to the royal school must have been about twelve years old. She stayed in France until the out- break of war in 1522 and then came home, by which time she was on the way to becoming an accomplished and mature girl. She does not seem to have been remarkably beautiful, but she had wonderful dark hair in abundance and fine eyes, the legacy of Irish ancestors, together with a firm mouth and a head well set on a long neck that gave her authority and grace.

On her return, if not before, her future had apparently been settled, ironically by Henry and Wolsey. She would marry Sir James Butler, an Irish chieftain and claimant to the earldom of Ormond, to which the Boleyns, rivals of the Butlers, had long aspired. Anne was therefore to mend the feud by uniting families and claims. Had this familiar kind of device been executed, and had this been the sum total ofher experience ofhow marriage and politics could interweave, things might have been very different for England, if not for Ireland. But Butler's price was too high and Anne remained in England.

Her father, aided perhaps by her grandfather, the second duke of Norfolk, had meanwhile brought her to Court, as he had her sister before her. There she eventually attracted attention, first from Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet, a cousin of hers; then from Henry Percy, son of the earl of Northumberland and one of the large number of young men of quality resident in Wolsey's household. Alas, Percy was already betrothed. At the king's behest, Wolsey refused to allow him to break his engagement and, summoning him to his presence, rated him for falling for a foolish girl at Court. When words failed, the cardinal told the father to remove his son and knock some sense into him. Percy was carried off forthwith- and thus began that antipathy for Wolsey that Anne never lost.

But it may well be that, when Henry ordered Wolsey to stamp on Percy's suit, it was because he was already an interested party himself and a rival for the girl's affection of perhaps several gay courtiers, including Thomas Wyatt. The latter's grandson later told a story ofhow Wyatt, while flirting once with Anne, snatched a locket hanging from her pocket which he refused to return. At the same time, Henry had been paying her attention and taken a ring from her which he thereafter wore on his little finger. A few days later, Henry was playing bowls with the duke of Suffolk, Francis Bryan and Wyatt, when a dispute arose about who had won the last throw.

Pointing with the finger which bore the pilfered ring, Henry cried out that it was his point, saying to Wyatt with a smile, 'I tell thee it is mine.' Wyatt saw the ring and understood the king's meaning. But he could return the point. 'And if it may like your majesty,' he replied, 'to give me leave that I may measure it, I hope it will be mine.' Whereupon he took out the locket which hung about his neck and started measuring the distance between the bowls and the jack. Henry recognized the trophy and, muttering something about being deceived, strode away.

But the chronology ofAnne's rise is impossible to discover exactly. All that can be said is that by I525-6 what had probably hitherto been light dalliance with an eighteen or nineteen year-old girl had begun to grow into something deeper and more dangerous. In the normal course of events, Anne would have mattered only to Henry's conscience, not to the history of England. She would have been used and discarded - along with those others whom Henry may have taken and who are now forgotten. But, either because of virtue or ambition, Anne refused to become his mistress and thus follow the conventional, inconspicuous path of her sister; and the more she resisted, the more, apparently, did Henry prize her.

Had Catherine's position been more secure she would doubtless have ridden this threat. Indeed, had it been so, Anne might never have dared to raise it. But Catherine had still produced no heir to the throne. The royal marriage had failed in its first duty, namely, to secure the succession. Instead, it had yielded several miscarriages, three infants who were either still-born or died immediately after birth (two of them males), two infants who had died within a few weeks ofbirth (one ofthem a boy) and one girl, Princess Mary, now some ten years old. His failure to produce a son was a disappointment to Henry, and as the years went by and no heir appeared, ambassadors and foreign princes began to remark the fact, and English diplomacy eventually to accommodate it, provisionally at least, in its reckoning.

Had Henry been able to glimpse into the second halfofthe century he would have had to change his mind on queens regnant, for his two daughters were to show quality that equalled or outmeasured their father's; and even during his reign, across the Channel, there were two women who rendered the Habsburgs admirable service as regents ofthe Netherlands. Indeed, the sixteenth century would perhaps produce more remarkable women in Church and State than any predecessor - more than enough to account for John Knox's celebrated anti-feminism and more than enough to make Henry's patriarchal convictions look misplaced. But English experience of the queen regnant was remote and unhappy, and Henry's conventional mind, which no doubt accorded with his subjects', demanded a son as a political necessity.

When his only surviving legitimate child, Mary, was born in February 1516, Henry declared buoyantly to the Venetian ambassador, 'We are both young; if it was a daughter this time, by the grace of God sons will follow.' But they did not. Catherine seems to have miscarried in the autumn of 1517 and in the November of the following year was delivered of another still-born. This was her last pregnancy, despite the efforts of physicians brought from Spain; and by 1525 she was almost past child-bearing age. There was, therefore, a real fear of a dynastic failure, of another bout of civil war, perhaps, or, if Mary were paired off as the treaty of 1525 provided, of England's union with a continental power.

Catherine, for the blame was always attached to her and not to Henry, was a dynastic misfortune. She was also a diplomatic one. Charles's blunt refusal to exploit the astonishing opportunity provided by his victory at Pavia and to leap into the saddle to invade and partition France had been an inexplicable disappointment. Of course, had Henry really been cast in the heroic mould he would have invaded single- handed. But established strategy required a continental ally. Eleven years before, in 1514., Ferdinand of Spain had treated him with contempt and Henry had cast around for means of revenge, and there had been a rumour then that he wanted to get rid of his Spanish wife and marry a French princess.

Whether Henry really contemplated a divorce then has been the subject of controversy, which surely went in favour of the contention that he did not - especially when a document listed in an eighteenth-century catalogue of the Vatican Archives, and thought to relate to the dissolution of the king's marriage - a document which has since disappeared - was convincingly pushed aside with the suggestion that it was concerned with Mary Tudor's matrimonial affairs, not Henry's. Undoubtedly, this must dispose of the matter even more decisively than does the objection that, in the summer of 1514, Catherine was pregnant. In 1525, however, the situation was different. Charles had rebuffed Henry's military plans and, by rejecting Mary's hand, had thrown plans for the succession into disarray.

For a moment the king evidently thought of advancing his illegitimate son - who, in June 1525, was created duke of Richmond. But this solution was to be overtaken by another which Henry may have been contemplating for some time, namely, to disown his Spanish wife. Catherine, therefore, was soon in an extremely embarrassing position. Tyndale asserted, on first-hand evidence, that \Volsey had placed informants in her entourage and told of one 'that departed the Court for no other reason than that she would no longer betray her mistress'.' When Mendoza arrived in England in December 1526, he was prevented for months from seeing the queen and, when he did, had to endure the presence of Wolsey who made it virtually impossible to communicate with her. It was the ambassador's opinion that 'the principal cause of [her] misfortune is that she identifies herselfentirely with the emperor's interests'; an exaggeration, but only an exaggeration.

The king, then, had tired of his wife and fallen in love with one who would give herself entirely to him only if he would give himself entirely to her; his wife had not borne the heir for which he and the nation longed, and it was now getting too late to hope; he had been disappointed by Catherine's nephew, Charles V, and now sought vengeance in a diplomatic revolution which would make the position of a Spanish queen awkward to say the least. Any one of these facts would not have seriously endangered the marriage, but their coincidence was fatal. If Henry's relations with Catherine momentarily improved in the autumn of 1525 so that they read a book together and appeared to be very friendly, soon after, probably, Henry never slept with her again.

The divorce, which came into the open in early 1527 was therefore due to more than a man's lust for a woman. It was diplomatically expedient and, so some judged, dynastically urgent. As well as this, it was soon to be publicly asserted, it was theologically necessary, for two famous texts from the book of Leviticus apparently forbade the very marriage that Henry had entered. His marriage, therefore, was not and never had been, lawful. The miscarriages, the still-births, the denial of a son were clearly divine punishment for, and proof of, transgression of divine law. Henry had married Catherine by virtue of a papal dispensation of the impediment of affinity which her former marriage to Arthur had set up between them.

But Leviticus proclaimed such a marriage to be against divine law - which no pope can dispense. So he will begin to say. And thus what will become a complicated argument took shape. Henry had laid his hand on a crucial weapon - the only weapon, it seemed, with which he could have hoped to achieve legitimately what he now desired above all else. How sincere he was is impossible to determine. More than most, he found it difficult to distinguish between what was right and what he desired. Certainly, before long he had talked, thought and read himself into a faith in the justice of his cause so firm that it would tolerate no counter-argument and no opposition, and convinced himself that it was not only his right to throw aside his alleged wife, but also his duty - to himself, to Catherine, to his people, to God.

At the time, and later, others would be accused of planting the great scruple, the levitical scruple, in Henry's mind. Tyndale, Polydore Vergil and Nicholas Harpsfield (in his life of Sir Thomas More) charged Wolsey with having used John Longland, bishop of Lincoln and royal confessor, to perform the deed. But this was contradicted by Henry, Longland and Wolsey. In 1529, when the divorce case was being heard before the legatine court at Blackfriars, Wolsey publicly asked Henry to declare before the court 'whether I have been the chiefinventor or first mover of this matter unto your Majesty; for I am greatly suspected of all men herein'; to which Henry replied, 'My lord cardinal, I can well excuse you herein. Marry, you have been rather against me in attempt- ing or setting forth thereof' - an explicit statement for which no obvious motive for misrepresentation can be found and which is corroborated by later suggestions that Wolsey had been sluggish in pushing the divorce forwards.

Longland too spoke on the subject, saying that it was the king who first broached the subject to him 'and never left urging him until he had won him to give his consent'. On another occasion Henry put out a different story: that his conscience had first been 'pricked upon divers words that were spoken at a certain time by the bishop of Tarbes, the French king's ambassador, who had been here long upon the debating for the conclusion of the marriage between the princess our daughter, Mary, and the duke of Orleans, the French king's second son'. It is incredible that an ambassador would have dared to trespass upon so delicate a subject as a monarch's marriage, least of all when he had come to negotiate a treaty with that monarch.

Nor was it likely that he should have sug- gested that Mary was illegitimate when her hand would have been very useful to French diplomacy. Besides, the bishop of Tarbes only arrived in England in April 1527, that is, a few weeks before Henry's marriage was being tried by a secret court at Westminster. The bishop could not have precipitated events as swiftly as that. No less significantly, another account ofthe beginnings of the story, given by Henry in 1528, says that doubts about Mary's legitimacy were first put by the French to English ambassadors in France - not by the bishop of Tarbes to his English hosts.

He and his compatriots may have been told about the scruple or deliberately encouraged by someone to allude to it in the course of negotiations, but did not invent it; nor, probably, did Anne Boleyn - as Pole asserted. It is very likely that Henry himselfwas the author ofhis doubts. After all, he would not have needed telling about Leviticus. Though he might not have read them, the two texts would probably have been familiar to him if he had ever explored the reasons for the papal dispensation for his marriage, and he was enough of a theologian to be able to turn to them now, to brood over them and erect upon them at least the beginnings of the argument that they forbade absolutely the marriage which he had entered.

Wolsey said later that Henry’s doubts had sprung partly from his own study and partly from discussion with 'many theologians'; but since it is difficult to imagine that anyone would have dared to question the validity of the royal marriage without being prompted by the king, this must mean that the latter's own 'assiduous study and erudition' first gave birth to the 'great scruple' and that subsequent conference with others encouraged it. Moreover, Henry may have begun to entertain serious doubts about his marriage as early as 1522 or 1523, and have broached his ideas to Longland then - for, in 1532, the latter was said to have heard the first mutterings of the divorce 'nine or ten years ago'.'

By the time that Anne Boleyn captured the king, therefore, the scruple may already have acquired firm roots, though probably not until early 1527 was it mentioned to Wolsey who, so he said, when he heard about it, knelt before the king 'in his Privy Chamber the space of an hour or two, to persuade him from his will and appetite; but I could never bring to pass to dissuade him therefrom'. What had begun as a perhaps hesitant doubt had by now matured into aggressive conviction.”

- J.J. Scarisbrick, “The Repudiation of the Hapsburgs.” in Henry VIII

[isadomna]

JUAN LUIS VIVES AND CATHERINE OF ARAGON

Juan Luis Vives was a Spanish humanist born in Valencia, the capital of one of the patrimonial states of the Crown of Aragon. He came from a family that had been persecuted by the Inquisition and which may have practised crypto-Judaism. Vives, who had attended the city’s newly founded university, left Spain in 1509. He did not return. He settled first in Paris and continued his studies with scholastic logic, but five years later he moved to Bruges, where he remained until 1516. It was at the court of Brussels that he met Erasmus for the first time and where the ensuing deep and enduring friendship, which became such a central feature in Vives’s life, began. Vives had taken up a position as tutor to Guillaume de Croy, bishop of Cambrai. Vives lived in Louvain, teaching at the Collegium Trilingue, until Croy’s death. By 1521 Vives was already benefitting from a small pension from Queen Catherine of Aragon, Charles V's aunt. At the insistence of his friend Erasmus, Vives prepared an elaborate commentary on Augustine's De Civitate Dei, which was published in 1522 with a dedication to Henry VIII of England.

Apparently impressed, Henry VIII invited him to come to England in 1523 and make it his “scholarly home”. Vives went on to become a popular lecturer at Oxford, “where the King and Queen went to hear him.”  When it came time to decide how Princess Mary should be educated, it was Juan Luis Vives to whom Catherine turned for help in designing a course of study. Later she would also seek the aid of Erasmus. Others humanist scholars also contributed to Mary’s education in various ways. Catherine of Aragon commissioned Vives to write De Institutione Feminae Christianae in 1523, shortly before his arrival in England. A book he dedicated to the English queen. 

Moved by the holiness of your life and your ardent zeal for sacred studies, I have endeavoured to write something for your Majesty on the education of the Christian Woman … your daughter Mary will read these recommendations and will reproduce them as she models herself on the example of your goodness and wisdom to be found within your home. She will do this assuredly, and unless she alone belies all human expectations, must of necessity be virtuous and holy as the offspring of you and Henry VIII, such a noble and honoured pair.

Queen Catherine produced money for a translation of The Education of a Christian Woman from Latin into English. The English version was reprinted eight times during the sixteenth century. Once Catherine took up the theory of female education, she did not limit herself to its reference to her daughter. She began to form around Mary a school for the daughters of noblemen, on the pattern of that for noblemen’s sons once formed around her brother Juan, and she even persuaded a number of the older ladies of the court, notably her sister-in-law, the Duchess of Suffolk, to resume the study of Latin and take up a course of serious reading. She turned over a copy of Vives’s treatise to Thomas More, whose own daughters were probably the best educated young women of their class in England, and urged him to translate it into English, or to get it translated, so that its ideas might be available to everybody who could take advantage of them.

For the next five years, Vives spent some part of every year in England, lecturing eloquently at Oxford, spending much time at court, and writing joyously on such a variety of subjects that Thomas More professed himself quite abashed before the performance of the younger man. In October 1524, Catherine commissioned Luis Vives to write a more specifc curriculum of study for her seven-year-old daughter. The resulting De Ratione Studii Puerilis (On a Plan of Study for Children) was dedicated to the young princess herself. As Mary got older, Vives advised that Catherine revise her educational program more precisely: “Time will admonish her as to more exact details, and thy singular wisdom will discover for her what they should be.”  

Additionally, Vives also often accompanied the Queen to the abbey at Syon on the west side of London of the river Thames. Syon Abbey was renowned as a place of spiritual learning and a regular meeting place of scholars, much favored by the pious Queen. Catherine found in Vives a prudent adviser, a brilliant teacher, a personal friend, and the ideal partner in long, nostalgic, confidential and spirited conversations in their native language. One of those conversations impressed Vives in some particular, mysterious way. From Oxford , on January 25, 1524, Vives wrote to Cranevelt:

At times I was able to have some philosophical talks with the Queen, one of the purest and most Christian souls I have ever seen. Thus, a couple of days ago,  on our way by barge to a certain monastery of nuns, we came to talk about adversity and prosperity in this life. The Queen said: “If I could chose between the two, I would prefer an equal share of both, neither complete adversity nor total success. And If I had to choose between extreme sorrow and extreme well-being, I think I would prefer the former to the latter, for people in disgrace need only some consolation while those who are too successful frequently lose their minds.”

In 1528 he forfeited Henry’s favour by opposing the royal divorce from Catherine of Aragon, assisting her with spoken and written advice. The king retaliated by placing Vives and a servant of Catherine under house arrest for six weeks. Both men were interrogated by Wolsey, and Vives was ordered to state his communication with the queen: after a lengthy, idealistic preamble on the sacredness of confidences between individuals, he reluctantly complied. The object of the confinement was to keep Catherine’s advisers away from court, and both she and Vives judged it prudent that he leave the country on his release. Vives returned to Bruges.

He returned to England late in 1528 with two Flemish jurists sent at Catherine’s request from her sister-in-law, Margaret of Austria. However, Vives found himself unpopular with the queen as well as the king: he offered the unpalatable advice that, since it was useless to defend her in the court at Blackfriars, it would be better if she were condemned unheard, since Henry would have difficulty justifying this. Catherine, though ultimately adopting this policy, interpreted his answer as a treacherous refusal to commit himself to her cause. As the king had done, she too stopped the pension she had granted him, and Vives left England for ever. He continued, however, to follow the proceedings, and he gave Catherine a generous encomium in his book named De Oflcio Mariti published in 1529. In the chapter dedicated to choosing a wife he referred to Queen Catherine on the following manner:

“Not in all women all imperfections are present, and in those who have them are not present to the same degree. There were in fact, and there are not in little number, some with a stronger and manlier heart than many men. Abundant amongst the gentile: Cleobulina, Hipparchia, Diotima, Lucretia, Cornelia, Porcia, Cloelia, Sulpicia. But also amongst our martyrs are many women that have bigger eloquence that Athena and more courage than Rome. And Christ wanted that in our time there was an example that will expand through posterity: the example of Catherine of Spain, Queen of England, wife of Henry VIII, about her you can say with greater truth that Valerius said about Lucretia: by an error of Nature, a woman’s body was grace with a male spirit”.

Sources:

María Dowling,  Humanist Support for Katherine of Aragon

Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon

Carlos O. Noreña, Juan Luis Vives

Anna Whitelock, Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen

Charles Fantazzi,  A Companion to Juan Luis Vives

Leanne Croon Hickman, Katherine of Aragon: A “Pioneer of Women’s Education”? Humanism and Women’s Education in Early Sixteenth Century England.

Giles Tremlett,  CATHERINE OF ARAGON Henry’s Spanish Queen 

http://emlo-portal.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections/?catalogue=juan-luis-vives

[sciencespies]

Gardeners Unearth Coins Inscribed With Initials of Henry VIII's First Three Wives

https://sciencespies.com/history/gardeners-unearth-coins-inscribed-with-initials-of-henry-viiis-first-three-wives/

Gardeners Unearth Coins Inscribed With Initials of Henry VIII's First Three Wives

In 1526, Henry VIII and his chief advisor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, reformed England’s coinage in hopes of regulating the kingdom’s economy. As part of the project, the Tudor king introduced new denominations—gold crowns—with an unexpected feature: the initials of his queen consort, Catherine of Aragon.

Seven years later, when Henry divorced Catherine to marry Anne Boleyn, the Royal Mint issued a new set of crowns inscribed with the letter “A.” Three years after that, when Henry had Anne beheaded on trumped-up charges of adultery, incest, witchcraft and conspiring to kill him, the Mint produced yet another gold coin, this time dedicated to the monarch’s latest queen, Jane Seymour.

Though Henry married three more times, his later wives (Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr) never appeared on the kingdom’s currency—perhaps a wise decision considering the difficulty of keeping up with an ever-shifting cast of queens.

This spring, four such rare Tudor tokens turned up in the New Forest area of southern England, where a British family weeding its garden during Covid-19 lockdown unearthed a trove of 64 medieval coins. Per a statement from the British Museum’s Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), which is responsible for tracking the English and Welsh public’s archaeological finds, the collection includes 63 gold coins and one silver coin dated to between the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

From L to R: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour

(Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

“They were out turning up the soil and all of a sudden these coins popped out of the ground … miraculously,” Ian Richardson, the museum’s treasure registrar, tells the Guardian’s Mark Brown. “It is quite a shocking find for them and very interesting for us.”

In total, the trove spans the reigns of five British monarchs: Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, Henry VII and Henry VIII. At the time of their burial around 1540, the coins were worth £24, or £14,000 (almost $18,500 USD) today—a “great deal of money, certainly more than the annual wages of the average person,” says Barrie Cook, a curator of medieval and early modern coins at the museum, to the Guardian.

The majority of the coins are “angels” depicting Saint Michael slaying a dragon. The gold crowns bearing the royals’ initials, meanwhile, feature the Tudor rose and shield of arms.

Researchers are unsure whether the coins’ owner buried them all at once or made regular deposits over time. John Naylor, a coin expert at the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, posits that a wealthy merchant or clergy member buried the hoard in response to Henry’s Dissolution of the Monasteries.

“[S]ome churches did try to hide their wealth, hoping they would be able to keep it in the long term,” Naylor tells the Guardian.

One of the gold crowns found in southern England

(© The Trustees of the British Museum)

A medieval mount with the personal emblem of Richard III

(© The Trustees of the British Museum)

1970s South African gold coins

(© The Trustees of the British Museum)

As Ben Johnson explains for Historic U.K., Henry, who’d broken from the Catholic Church in 1534 to wed Anne, ruthlessly dissolved the kingdom’s monasteries as part of England’s Protestant Reformation. Aided by advisor Thomas Cromwell, the king spent the late 1530s and ’40s shutting down houses of worship, seizing their land and wealth, and engaging in iconoclastic destruction. In doing so, he both eliminated symbols of the papacy and filled his dwindling coffers with funds from the Church’s treasures.

Writing for COINage magazine in 2018, R.W. Julian noted that the 1526 currency overhaul marked Henry’s first experiment with debasement, or the practice of lowering coins’ worth but maintaining their face value by increasing the percentage of everyday metals mixed in with precious metals like gold or silver. Officials used the extra gold and silver to mint additional coins, theoretically making more funds available but, in practice, sparking widespread inflation.

Toward the end of his reign, Henry embarked on a similar economic venture, replacing coins’ precious metal content with cheaper base metals to such an extent that the policy was later dubbed the Great Debasement. Per a 2011 journal article by scholar Stephen Deng, the king, who “had already exhausted the bounteous resources he had acquired from the dissolution of the monasteries,” hoped to exploit England’s coinage to fund military campaigns in France, Scotland and Ireland. Following Henry’s death in 1547, his son Edward VI continued the practice, which only came to an end in 1551.

The Tudor coins are among more than 47,000 archaeological finds made in England and Wales this year, the British Museum said on Wednesday. Other key discoveries included a collection of 50 apartheid-era South African gold coins; a medieval mount featuring a white boar, the personal emblem of Richard III; and a copper Roman furniture fitting. Officials reported that Covid-19 lockdowns led to an uptick in finds, with many pandemic-worn Brits seeking respite in their gardens.

#History

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Susannah Hornebolt-was the first known female artist in England and the Tudor dynasty

William FitzWilliam, 1st Earl of Southampton-English courtier, was the third son of Sir Thomas FitzWilliam of Aldwark and Lady Lucy Neville Sir Ralph Sadler,-was an English statesman, who served Henry VIII as Privy Councillor, Secretary of State and ambassador to Scotland. Sadler went on to serve Edward VI, although having signed the device settling the crown on Jane Grey, was obliged to retire to his estates during the reign of Mary I William Paget-was an English statesman and accountant who held prominent positions in the service of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham-was an aristocrat during the early Tudor dynasty in England. A soldier and magnate, he participated in the English wars of his days and in the political turmoil following the death of Henry VIII. Charles Blount, 5th Baron Mountjoy-  was an English courtier and patron of learning. He was one of the peers summoned for the trial of lords Darcy and Hussey and he was also on the panel of 3 December 1538 for the trial of Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu, and Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter, his own brother-in-law. William Coffin- was a courtier at the court of King Henry VIII of England. He was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to King Henry VIII and Master of the Horse to Queen Jane Seymour Anne Locke- was an English poet, translator and Calvinist religious figure. Victor Turner- Servant at English court. He is a fictional character, his story is all yours to make. George Throckmorton- was an English politician and a member of Parliament during the reign of Henry VIII. Ralph Ellerker - was an English soldier, knight and Member of Parliament. John Constable- was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection Henry Montagu, 1st Earl of Manchester- was an English judge, politician and peer Rick Grimes- solider at English court. He is a fictional character, his story is all yours to make. Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex- was a prominent courtier and soldier during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Blanche Shore-Maid to Emilia Grace Lanier,  Duchess of Gloucester. A fictional character, hers story is all yours to make. Vasilisa Rosalinda-Schoolgirl at Lambeth, a fictional character, hers story is all yours to make. Thomas AUDLEY (1st. Baron Audley of Walden)- was Lord chancellor of England  under Henry VIII. He was made speaker of the House of Commons in 1529 and lord keeper of the great seal in 1532. A loyal servant of Henry VIII, he supported the King's divorce  from Catalina de Aragón and as chancellor presided  over the trials of Sir Thomas More and John Fisher. He also aided in the prosecution of Anne Boleyn , Sir Thomas Cromwell , and other notables; being instrumental with laws concerning the dissolution of the monasteries and the king's marital difficulties. Sir Thomas ARUNDELL-was a gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Cardinal Wolsey and served as Sheriff of Dorsetshire in 1531-32. He was knighted at the coronation of Anne Boleyn in 1533. Sir Edward BAYNTUN- Stood high in favour with King Henry VIII, where he enjoyed considerable influence and was Vice-Chamberlain to five of his Queens (Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr). Edward was Queen Anne's Vice-Chamberlain – replacing Sir Thomas Bryan after he was appointed the Queen's Chancellor. He is said to have shared some of Anne's religious stance, but was a career courtier, hence serving the remainder of Henry's wives in the same capacity. Francis BIGOD of Settrington, Knight- was in the service of Cardinal Wolsey, and under Thomas Cromwell, Wolsey's successor in the favour of Henry VIII, was engaged in advancing in Yorkshire the King's reforms in church matters. John DYNHAM- He quickly won the trust of Henry VII, who retained Dynham on the council and named him Lord Treasurer. Dynham became one of Henry VII's most active councilors, serving on many royal boards and commissions, including a commission charged with reforming the administration of Crown lands. Dynham also received numerous other offices and honors. Thomas ELYOT -English diplomatist and scholar  In 1531 he produced the Boke named the Governour, dedicated to King Henry VIII. The work advanced him in the King favor, and in the close of the year he received instructions to proceed to the court of the Emperor Carlos V to induce him to take a more favorable view of Henry projected divorce from Catalina of Aragon. Richard LONG- Politician and courtier, for many years a member of the privy chamber of Henry VIII Henry MANNERS-His first marriage was celebrated with the royal presence of the King Henry VIII and the new Queen, Jane Seymour, on 3 Jul 1536. He married Margaret, fourth daughter of Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, a great northern magnate. The same day his sister, Anne, married Henry, Westmoreland's heir.He succeeded as second Earl of Rutland on his father death, 20 Sep 1543; was knighted by Henry VIII in 1544 and was one of the mourners at the King's funeral. Thomas MANNERS-He was appointe Knight of the Garter on 24 Apr 1525, the same that Henry Fitzroy, the King illegitimate son with Bessie Blount, and on 18 Jun of that year, Fitzroy was made Duke of Richmond and Manners Earl of Rutland.He was appointed chamberlain for the coronation of Queen Jane Seymour, and Eleanor, his wife, had a place between her ladies. John MORDAUNT-As a young man, Mordaunt had been introduced by his father into Henry VIII's court, created a knight of the Bath at the coronation of Anne Boleyn, and been among the courtiers present at the arrival of Anne of Cleves at Blackheath. During the closing years of Henry VIII's reign, and increasingly under Edward VI, however, both he and his father forfeited royal favour through their opposition to religious change.[/b] Thomas WHARTON- he was appointed steward of he household of Princess Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII.He became a Roman Catholic and strongly supported Mary. Ralph SADLER-While still young, Ralph was taken into the household of Thomas Cromwell, later Henry VIII's great minister and Earl of Essex. Probably in 1536 Sadler was made a gentleman of the King's privy chamber, and he at once made so good an impression on the King that Henry VIII sent him in 1537 on a most delicate and important mission to Scotland, to try to find out how much truth there was in the complaints made by bis sister, Margaret, the Queen-Dowager, against her third husband, Lord Methven, and to investigate the relations between the King of Scotland and the French. Margaret Skipwith- was the daughter of Sir William Skipwith of Kettleby and South Ormsby, Lincolnshire, and his second wife, Alice Dymoke. In 1538, when Henry VIII was a widower looking for a foreign bride, Margaret Skipwith was rumored to be his mistress.

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Gilbert Burnet, A History of the Reformation of the Church of England, 1829

Page 186: The judicious and diligent Sechendorf, in his History of Lutheranism, gives an account of a negotiation of Paget’s, two years before this. Cranmer, who was then the king’s ambassador at the emperor’s court, met with John Frederick, elector of Saxony, at Nuremberg, who had secretly left the diet of Ratisbon; and there he delivered letters from the king, both to the elector, to the duke of Lunenberg, and to the prince of Anhalt; which contained only a general offer of friendship. Cranmer came the next day to the elector, who had two of his ministers about him, and asked him many questions concerning their agreement with the state of religion, the Turkish war, and the church lands, which (as they heard) they had seized on. He said great things of the king, and of the aid he had offered the emperor against the Turk, in conjunction with the French king. He asked where Paget was, whose the king had sent to the elector. General answers were made to all his questions; and for Paget, he had been with the elector the former year. This passed on to the 15th of July 1532. Four days after this, he came privately to Spalatin, one of the elector’s secretaries, and assured him, that both the king and the French king would assist the elector and his allies in the matter of religion. In August after that, Paget came to the elector, who proposed many things to him concerning religion: but the princes had then come to an agreement with the emperor; so they could enter into no treaty at that time. Only John Frederick did, in a writing under his own hand, offer the scheme of that which was afterwards proposed in their name to the king.

Page 215: His ambassadors, at that time, gave these princes an advertisement of great importance to them, that was written over to the king by Wiat, then his ambassador in Spain; that the emperor had, in a passionate discourse with him, called both the elector and the landgrave his enemies, and rebels. The truth was, the elector did not entirely depend on all that Fox said to him. He thought the king had only a political design in all this negotiation; intending to bring them into a dependence on himself, without any sincere intentions with relation to religion. So he being resolved to adhere firmly to the Augsburg Confession, and seeing no appearance of the king’s agreeing to it, he was very cold in the prosecution of this negotiation. But the princes and states of that Confession met at this time at Smalcald, and settled the famous Smalcaldic league; of which the king’s ambassadors sent him an authentic copy, with a translation of it in English; which the reader will find in the Collection.

Page 216: By it, John Frederick, elector of Saxony, with his brother Ernest; Philip, Ernest, and Francis, dukes of Brunswick; Ulric, duke of Wirtemberg; Philip, landgrave of Hesse; the dukes of Pomeren; four brothers, princes of Anhalt; two brothers, counts of Mansfield; the deputies of twenty-one free towns;” which are not named in any order, for Hamburg and Lubeck are the last save one; but, to avoid disputes, they were named in the order in which they came, and produced their powers.

Page 224: It is true, the king used them with a particular civility, and spoke to them before all his court in a most obliging manner; and often wished that Melanchthon might be sent over to him. Cranmer and Cromwell used them with all possible kindness. Cranmer wrote often by them to the elector, exhorting him to continue firm and zealous for the truth and purity of the gospel; but under all the shows of the king’s favor, they understood that his heart was turned from them. He wrote, when he dismissed them, to the elector, in terms full of esteem for their ambassadors; “not doubting but good effects would follow on this beginning of conferences with them: but the matter being of the greatest importance, it ought to be very maturely considered. He again desired that Melanchthon might be sent over to him, that he might treat with him; promising that he would apply himself wholly to what became a Christian prince to pursue.’

Page 276: He [Cromwell] had many offices in his person; for besides that he was lord vicegerent in ecclesiastical matters, and lord privy-seal, he was lord chamberlain, and chancellor of the exchequer. Rymer has published the grants that the king made of those offices, in which it is said, that they were void upon his attainder; but, which was more, he was the chief minister, and had the king’s confidence, for ten years together, almost as entirely as cardinal Wolsey had it formerly. Mount had ben sent to Germany to press a closer league defensive against the pope, and any council that he might summon. When the princes did object the act of the six articles, and the severities upon it; he confessed to one of the elector’s ministers, that the king was not sincere in the point of religion: he had therefore proposed a double marriage of the king with Anne of Cleve, and of the duke of Cleve, with the lady Mary; for he said, the king was much governed by his wives. The elector of Saxony, who had married the other sister of Cleve, had conceived so bad an opinion of the king, that he expressed no heartiness, neither in the marriage, nor in any alliance with England: but he yielded to the importunities of others, who thought the prospect of the advantage from such an alliance was great.

Page 296: Upon her disgrace, there was a new negotiation proposed with the protestant princes of Germany. Mount was again sent over to excuse as well as he could, the divorce with Anne of Cleves. He said she was treated nobly and kindly in all respects by the king. He renewed the proposition for a league, with relation to their common interests: but they still stood upon this, that they could enter into no alliance with him, unless the agreed in religion, insisting particularly on private masses, the denying the chalice, and the celibate of the clergy. Upon which a conference was proposed in Gelderland or at Hamburg or Breme. The king in answer to this wrote, that he would carefully examine all that they laid before him. He expressed great regard to the elector, but complained that some of his learned men had written virulently against him, and misrepresented his proceedings. Cranmer likewise wrote to the elector, and set forth the great things the king had already done in abolishing the pope’s authority, the monastic state, and the idolatrous worship of images: he desired they would not be uneasy, though the king in some things differed still from them. He was very learned himself, and had learned men about him: he was quick of apprehension, had a sound judgment, and was firm in what he once resolved on: and he hoped the propositions they had sent over would be well considered.

Page 312: This did not move the elector: he looked on the king as an enemy to their doctrine. His whole design in what he had done was, to make himself the head of the church, to which he was not called of God. His government was tyrannical, and his life flagitious; so he looked for no good from him. The king of France moved him to undertake a mediation between him and the king; but the elector referred that to a general meeting of those who were engaged in the common Smalcaldic league. The princes in Germany having their chief dependence on the kings of France and England, saw how much they were weakened, and exposed to the emperor, by the war which was going on between those two kings; so they sent some empowered by them, to try if it was possible to prevent that war and to mediate a reconciliation between them. To those, when the delivered their message to the king, he complained of the injustice and willfulness of the French King: he thought their interposition could have no effect, and he used these words in an answer to their memorial; ‘We give them well to understand, that we do both repose an ampler and a fuller confidence in them than the French king either doth or will do.

Page 420: I shall conclude this book with one reflection, that may make us hope, that the reformation was under a particular and watchful care of Providence: when the light seemed almost extinguished in one place, it broke out in another; by which, as it was still kept shining somewhere, so there was a sanctuary opened, to which those who were forced to fly from one place, might in their flight find a covert in another from the storm. In the beginning of this reign, by the breaking of the Smalcaldic league, by the taking of the elector of Saxony, and the landgrave of Hesse, and by the Interim, the reformation seemed to be near extinguished in Germany. In this church it was at that time advanced; and we kindly then received those who were forced to fly hither for shelter. And now, in the year before the death of this good king, there was not only a revival, but a lasting settlement procured in Germany to the reformation there: so that those who fled from hence found a safe and kind harbor in all the places of the empire, to which they were driven by the storm and tempest that arose here. Of which I go next to gather up such gleanings as have come in my way.

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William Whitfield  -  Duke of Whitfield

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Thomas Wriothesley 1st Earl of Southampton

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Melina Othonos  -  gypsy; ficitonal; her story is yours to make Daisy Wharton  -  artist; fictiona; her story is yours to make Peter Davenport -  courtier; fictional; his story is yours to make Jennifer Leodegrance  -  nurse Elizabeth Browne - Countess of Worcester; partner of Martin of Navarre Robin Locksley - Duke of Locksley Mary Herbert Gamage- housewife Katherina Prue wife to Thomas Cranmer John de Vere-  Earl of Oxford Marian Dubois Locksley - Duchess of Locksley Peter Locksley -  Duke of Locksley Richard Locksley  -  Duke of Locksley John Wallop-English soldier and diplomatist John Dudley - 1st duke of Northumberland, married to Jane Guildford Lyanna Grey-  schoolgirl at Lambeth Tobias Braddock-Duke of Moray. Brother to Rebecca Braddock David Bolton - brother to Ramsay Bolton William Paulet - 3rd Marquess of Winchester. Historical Anne Bostock - courtier; sister of Margaret Bostock Thomas Lee - courtier; brother of Anthony, Francis and Jane William Blithe Pitt[/b] - English courtier Quamu Romani - gypsy Tommy George Herbert - son of Margaret Cradock and Richard Herbert Sir Robert Tavistock - fiance of Ursula Misseldon Cecilia Weston-Neville - Countess of Westmorland Eleanor Swynford-was descend from Katherine Swynford (mother of the Tudor dynasty). John Swynford- Baron of FitzHugh, was descend from Katherine Swynford (mother of the Tudor dynasty). He is a shrewd and very ambitious man and will most likely try to gain a better position at court or a better title and wishes to secure a good marriage (or position) for his daughter. Susannah Hornebolt-was the first known female artist in England and the Tudor dynasty John Parker-husband to Susannah Hornebolt William FitzWilliam, 1st Earl of Southampton-English courtier, was the third son of Sir Thomas FitzWilliam of Aldwark and Lady Lucy Neville Edmund Bedingfield - was entrusted with the care of Katherine of Aragon, at Kimbolton Castle, following the proceedings of 18 June 1529, concerning King Henry VIII's Great Matter (divorce). 9]]Sir Ralph Sadler,-was an English statesman, who served Henry VIII as Privy Councillor, Secretary of State and ambassador to Scotland. Sadler went on to serve Edward VI, although having signed the device settling the crown on Jane Grey, was obliged to retire to his estates during the reign of Mary I Lucas Hornebolt - brother to Susannah Hornebolt William Paget-was an English statesman and accountant who held prominent positions in the service of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. ]b]George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham[/b]-was an aristocrat during the early Tudor dynasty in England. A soldier and magnate, he participated in the English wars of his days and in the political turmoil following the death of Henry VIII. Charles Blount, 5th Baron Mountjoy-  was an English courtier and patron of learning. He was one of the peers summoned for the trial of lords Darcy and Hussey and he was also on the panel of 3 December 1538 for the trial of Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu, and Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter, his own brother-in-law. William Coffin- was a courtier at the court of King Henry VIII of England. He was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to King Henry VIII and Master of the Horse to Queen Jane Seymour Anne Locke- was an English poet, translator and Calvinist religious figure. Camille Van Houten- Nurse at English court Edward Burgh-was an English peer Victor Turner- Servant at English court. He is a fictional character, his story is all yours to make. George Throckmorton- was an English politician and a member of Parliament during the reign of Henry VIII. Ralph Ellerker - was an English soldier, knight and Member of Parliament. John Constable- was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection Henry Montagu, 1st Earl of Manchester- was an English judge, politician and peer Hans Holbein- was artist and printmaker at the English court.  He worked under the patronage of Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell. By 1535, he was King's Painter to King Henry VIII. In this role, he produced not only portraits and festive decorations but designs for jewellery, plate and other precious objects. His portraits of the royal family and nobles are a record of the court in the years when Henry was asserting his supremacy over the English church. Rick Grimes- solider at English court. He is a fictional character, his story is all yours to make. Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex- was a prominent courtier and soldier during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Blanche Shore-[/b] Maid to Emilia Grace Lanier,  Duchess of Gloucester. A fictional character, hers story is all yours to make. Vasilisa Rosalinda-Schoolgirl at Lambeth, a fictional character, hers story is all yours to make. William Norris[/b]-son to Madge Norris and Henry Norris [b]Elizabeth Brooke- wife of Thomas Wyatt[/b] Lucy Neville - mother of Elizabeth Browne Countess of Worcester Sir Anthony Browne - father of Elizabeth Browne Thomas AUDLEY (1st. Baron Audley of Walden)- was Lord chancellor of England  under Henry VIII. He was made speaker of the House of Commons in 1529 and lord keeper of the great seal in 1532. A loyal servant of Henry VIII, he supported the King's divorce  from Catalina de Aragón and as chancellor presided  over the trials of Sir Thomas More and John Fisher. He also aided in the prosecution of Anne Boleyn , Sir Thomas Cromwell , and other notables; being instrumental with laws concerning the dissolution of the monasteries and the king's marital difficulties. Sir Thomas ARUNDELL-was a gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Cardinal Wolsey and served as Sheriff of Dorsetshire in 1531-32. He was knighted at the coronation of Anne Boleyn in 1533. Sir Edward BAYNTUN- Stood high in favour with King Henry VIII, where he enjoyed considerable influence and was Vice-Chamberlain to five of his Queens (Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr). Edward was Queen Anne's Vice-Chamberlain – replacing Sir Thomas Bryan after he was appointed the Queen's Chancellor. He is said to have shared some of Anne's religious stance, but was a career courtier, hence serving the remainder of Henry's wives in the same capacity. Francis BIGOD of Settrington, Knight- was in the service of Cardinal Wolsey, and under Thomas Cromwell, Wolsey's successor in the favour of Henry VIII, was engaged in advancing in Yorkshire the King's reforms in church matters. John DYNHAM- He quickly won the trust of Henry VII, who retained Dynham on the council and named him Lord Treasurer. Dynham became one of Henry VII's most active councilors, serving on many royal boards and commissions, including a commission charged with reforming the administration of Crown lands. Dynham also received numerous other offices and honors. Thomas ELYOT -English diplomatist and scholar  In 1531 he produced the Boke named the Governour, dedicated to King Henry VIII. The work advanced him in the King favor, and in the close of the year he received instructions to proceed to the court of the Emperor Carlos V to induce him to take a more favorable view of Henry projected divorce from Catalina of Aragon. Richard LONG- Politician and courtier, for many years a member of the privy chamber of Henry VIII Henry MANNERS-His first marriage was celebrated with the royal presence of the King Henry VIII and the new Queen, Jane Seymour, on 3 Jul 1536. He married Margaret, fourth daughter of Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, a great northern magnate. The same day his sister, Anne, married Henry, Westmoreland's heir. He succeeded as second Earl of Rutland on his father death, 20 Sep 1543; was knighted by Henry VIII in 1544 and was one of the mourners at the King's funeral. Thomas MANNERS-He was appointe Knight of the Garter on 24 Apr 1525, the same that Henry Fitzroy, the King illegitimate son with Bessie Blount, and on 18 Jun of that year, Fitzroy was made Duke of Richmond and Manners Earl of Rutland.He was appointed chamberlain for the coronation of Queen Jane Seymour, and Eleanor, his wife, had a place between her ladies. John MORDAUNT-As a young man, Mordaunt had been introduced by his father into Henry VIII's court, created a knight of the Bath at the coronation of Anne Boleyn, and been among the courtiers present at the arrival of Anne of Cleves at Blackheath. During the closing years of Henry VIII's reign, and increasingly under Edward VI, however, both he and his father forfeited royal favour through their opposition to religious change.[/b] Thomas WHARTON- he was appointed steward of he household of Princess Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII.He became a Roman Catholic and strongly supported Mary. Ralph SADLER-While still young, Ralph was taken into the household of Thomas Cromwell, later Henry VIII's great minister and Earl of Essex. Probably in 1536 Sadler was made a gentleman of the King's privy chamber, and he at once made so good an impression on the King that Henry VIII sent him in 1537 on a most delicate and important mission to Scotland, to try to find out how much truth there was in the complaints made by bis sister, Margaret, the Queen-Dowager, against her third husband, Lord Methven, and to investigate the relations between the King of Scotland and the French. Margaret Skipwith- was the daughter of Sir William Skipwith of Kettleby and South Ormsby, Lincolnshire, and his second wife, Alice Dymoke. In 1538, when Henry VIII was a widower looking for a foreign bride, Margaret Skipwith was rumored to be his mistress. Margaret Mundy- Margaret Mundy of Markeaton, who married firstly Nicholas Jennings, a member of the Worshipful Company of Skinners and a Sheriff and Alderman of the City of London; secondly, as his third wife, Edmund Howard, Lord Deputy of Calais, younger son of the Duke of Norfolk and therefore became stepmother to Queen Katherine Howard, fifth wife of King Henry VIII by whom she had no children; and thirdly Henry Mannox. Steinman conjectured that Margaret Mundy's third husband was the Henry Mannox, executed in 1541, who had been music master to Katherine Howard in her youth, and had been involved in sexual indiscretions with her which later contributed to her downfall