Revival and reform in Mary Tudor's Church: a question of money

R. H. Pogson

doi:10.1017/S002204690004793X

Revival and reform in Mary Tudor's Church: a question of money

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011

R. H. Pogson

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R. H. Pogson: Affiliation:
Perse School, Cambridge

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In explaining the failure of Mary Tudor's plans for Catholic revival during her reign, it is customary to dwell on her manifold errors of judgment. No one can deny her ardent desire to restore the love for Rome among her subjects—she declared that her people's souls meant more to her than ten kingdoms; but she is remembered for burning heretics and thus providing English Protestantism with much-needed martyrs and respectability, rather than for inspiring Counter-Reformation zeal. The most obvious reason for this failure was Mary's early death, which left her little time for long-term policies; but in addition emphasis must be placed on her misunderstanding of her subjects' prejudices and confusion after the schism. She disgusted the strong Henrician national feeling by marrying a foreigner and delighting openly in her Spanish blood; she showed no sympathy for the financial worries of influential subjects who had obtained monastic property and had no wish to surrender it; she instigated a persecution which aroused distaste even in minds accustomed to sixteenth century suffering and punishment; and she embarked on an unpopular war and lost Calais disastrously. Moreover, she reposed greatest trust in Reginald Pole, the papal legate, another leader who failed to comprehend the bitterness of English xenophobia and the strength of anticlericalism and heresy. Pole assumed that anti-Roman sentiments were the shortlived results of schismatic sin and would fade with the orderly restoration of Roman rule; and so he did not even begin to build a militant organisation which could have tried to resist Elizabethan Protestantism. It is an impressive catalogue of mistakes.

Type: Articles
Information: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , July 1974 , pp. 249 - 265

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S002204690004793X [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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^{page 249 note 1} Foxe, J., Actes and Monuments, ed. Cattley, S. R., London 1837–1841, vii. 34.Google Scholar

^{page 249 note 2} For Mary's policies, see Dickens, A. G., The English Reformation, London 1964Google Scholar; Loades, D. M., The Oxford Martyrs, London 1970.Google Scholar Pole's assessment of his task in England is the main theme of Pogson, R. H., ‘Cardinal Pole—papal legate to England in Mary Tudor's reign’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cambridge, 1972)Google Scholar; cf. Schenk, W., Reginald Pole: cardinal of England, London 1950.Google Scholar

^{page 250 note 1} P.R.O., S.P. 14/190 (20 fols. from end); B.M., Cotton, Titus B ii, fol. 160, for a meeting of 29 August 1555.

^{page 250 note 2} The decrees were printed in Rome in 1562 and reprinted in facsimile: De Concilio Liber and Reformatio Angliae, London 1962.Google Scholar

^{page 250 note 3} Pole brought some of his most trusted friends from Italy, notably Nicolo Ormanetto who, to judge from marginal notes, seems to have supervised the writing of Pole's legatine register; he used his namesake, David Pole, with Nicholas Harpsfield, Thomas Stemp and Henry Cole as legal advisers in legatine and archiepiscopal courts (Pole's legatine register, Douai Municipal Library (Lambeth Palace Library on microfilm), i. fols. 60–1; Pole's archiepiscopal register, Lambeth Palace Library, fols. 15–6, 27–31). These registers will hereafter be referred to as Leg. Reg. and Arch Reg. For the use made of these lawyers, see R. H. Pogson, ‘Cardinal Pole—papal legate to England in Mary Tudor's reign’, 224–9.

^{page 250 note 4} Cf. Hughes, Philip, ‘A hierarchy that fought’, Clergy Review, XVIII (1940), 25–39.Google Scholar

^{page 250 note 5} Dickens, English Reformation, 147–8.

^{page 251 note 1} Hill, C., Economic problems of the Church, from Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament, Oxford 1956, 4Google Scholar; cf. Bowker, M., The Secular Clergy in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1495–1520, Cambridge 1968, 129Google Scholar, where one third of the parishes in Lincoln diocese before the breach with Rome are seen to be impropriated; D. Wilkins (ed), Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, London 1737, iv.95, for the bitter complaints of the lower house of the 1554 Convocation about lay impropriators.

^{page 251 note 2} C. Hill, Economic Problems of the Church, 3; Hill estimates the gain from plate and valuables to have been millions, and the first-fruits and tenths to have brought in perhaps £40,000 each year; cf. Dietz, F. C., English Government Finance, 1485–1558, London 1964, 212Google Scholar: he puts that last figure as low as £25,000.

^{page 251 note 3} Pole's letters are edited by A. M. Quirini, Epistolae Reginaldi Poli, Brescia 1744–57, in five volumes, including in the fifth volume the biography of Pole by his secretary Beccatelli. See 249 n.2 for references to Pole's English aims.

^{page 252 note 1} The problems discussed in this paragraph are dealt with fully in Bowker, Secular Clergy in Lincoln, esp. 142–3 on the effects of inflation, and Heath, P., English Parish Clergy on the Eve of the Reformation, London 1969Google Scholar, esp. 166 on the necessity of pluralism.

^{page 252 note 2} Michiel, the Venetian ambassador, reported that Pole often spent hours in consultation with Mary and was her chief advisor: Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, London 1864–1954Google Scholar, vi. 1056, 1070, 1071.

^{page 252 note 3} MSS. from Bibliotheca Vaticana, Rome, housed in the Bodleian Library Oxford (hereafter Bodleian, Biblio. Vat.): Vat. Lat. 5968, fol. 99—Pole told Parliament that when they thought of their sin, a ‘horryble feare’ should come over them; Archivio Vaticano, Rome (hereafter Arch. Vat.): Nunziatore Diversae, 145, fol. 211—Pole accused Englishmen of fearing that they should ever have to part with one farthing; Bodleian, MS. Smith 67, p. 36—Pole told Mary in August 1554 that Englishmen must ‘have confidence in the person of the legate’ on the issue of lands.

^{page 252 note 4} Dodd, Charles (ed. Tierney, M.), The Church History of England from 1500 to the Year 1688, London 1839–1843Google Scholar, ii cx-cxvii: a number of bulls issued on 5 August 1553 are printed. Arch. Vat: Arm. 41: 70, fols. 223–6: the confirmation in March 1554 of the bull of extraordinary legatine faculties of 5 August 1553.

^{page 253 note 1} Arch. Vat: Arm. 41:70), fol. 224.

^{page 253 note 2} Dodd/Tierney, Church History, ii. cxv.

^{page 253 note 3} Bodleian, Biblio. Vat: Vat. Lat. 5968, fol. 83: ‘fragment towching disposition of the goods of the church’.

^{page 253 note 4} B.M. Add. MS. 25425, fol. 241.

^{page 253 note 5} Quirini, iv. 434: Julius III to Pole, 28 June 1554; Dodd/Tierney, Church History, ii. cxix, for the new papal ideas.

^{page 253 note 6} B.M., Add. MS. 25425, fols. 285–6.

^{page 253 note 7} Mary had long conversations with Penning, one of Pole's agents, in September 1554 (Arch. Vat: Nunziatore Diversae, 145, fol. 125); Charles v's ambassadors pointed out to the emperor the inadequacy of Pole's powers (Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, London 1862–1954, xiii. 28)Google Scholar; Ormanetto and Mary's Councillors, from their very different viewpoints, made the same urgent demands for changes in Pole's faculties (Arch. Vat.: Nunziatore Diversae, 145, fols. 99, 117).

^{page 254 note 1} Pole described his interview with Granvelle to the pope in Arch. Vat: Nunziatore Diversae, 145, fols. 90–6.

^{page 254 note 2} Ibid., fols. 90–6, 107, 108–11, 113–6; B.M., Add. MS. 25425, fols. 325–30: letters to Julius III, Philip and Mary, Morone, Penning and Holland.

^{page 254 note 3} Quirini, iv. 171. It is clear from Pole's letters that Morone took every chance to explain English affairs to the pope, and it was after Paul IV turned against Morone in Rome that Pole's relations with the pope became particularly difficult. Cf. Fenlon, Dermot, Heresy and Obedience in Tridentine Italy—Cardinal Pole and the Counter Reformation, Cambridge 1972, 269–71.Google Scholar

^{page 254 note 4} B.M., Add. MS. 41577, fols. 161 ff.: Priuli's account of the meeting. Cf. Crehan, J. H., ‘The return to obedience: new judgement on Cardinal Pole’, Month, N.S. 14 (1955), 221–9.Google Scholar

^{page 254 note 5} Crehan, op. cit., 228; Bodleian, Biblio. Vat: Vat. Lat. 5968, fol. 205: Pole to Philip and Mary on the reconciliation.

^{page 255 note 1} Bodleian, Biblio. Vat: Vat. Lat. 5968, fol. 82: a ‘fragment towching disposition of the goods of the church’.

^{page 255 note 2} P.R.O., S.P. 11/1, fob. 3–4: arrears of tenths.

^{page 255 note 3} P.R.O., S.P. 11/6, fol. 131; 11/4, fols. 62–7.

^{page 255 note 4} P.R.O., E 337/1, nos. 20, 21; E 337/2, fol. 252.

^{page 255 note 5} Acts of the Privy Council of England, ed. Dasent, J., London 1890–1907, v. 111.Google Scholar

^{page 255 note 6} P.R.O., E 117/14: a series of documents on their inquiries. We also have a number of royal authorisations to these three men to examine previous commissions—the quantity of bell-metal and lead due to the crown since 1536, or how much silver from chantries since 1547: Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Philip, and Mary, , London 1936–9, iii. 114–5.Google Scholar

^{page 255 note 7} P.R.O..E 315/167.

^{page 256 note 1} P.R.O., E 117/14, 48(2), 20 April 1556.

^{page 256 note 2} P.R.O., E 117/14. 33, 11 May 1556.

^{page 256 note 3} E.g. the search for suspected commissioners in P.R.O., E 117/14, 64.

^{page 256 note 4} P.R.O., E 117/14, 158.

^{page 256 note 5} P.R.O., E 117/14, 13 and 19.

^{page 256 note 6} P.R.O., E 117/14, 192; E 117/13. 17.

^{page 256 note 7} Somerset County Record Office, Taunton, D/D/Ca 18, 27: visitations of Bath and Wells in 1554 and 1557; Victoria County History, Wiltshire, iii, 31, with reference to the visitation of Salisbury in 1556; Lambeth Palace, VC III/1/2: Pole's visitation of Canterbury, 1556.

^{page 256 note 8} Frere, W. H. and Kennedy, W. P. M. (eds.): Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Period of the Reformation, Alcuin Club Collections, xiv-xvi, London 1908, ii. 412.Google Scholar

^{page 257 note 1} B.M., Cotton, Titus B ii, fol. 160.

^{page 257 note 2} Statutes of the Realm, London 1810–1828, iv. 275–9Google Scholar, 2/3 Philip and Mary, c.4.

^{page 257 note 3} Kent Archives Office, Maidstone: Rochester Register 1546–1639, fol. 82, with Pole's authorisation of Petre's endowing of pensions; Leg. Reg., vi, fol. 171, for Lord Barkeley's gesture.

^{page 257 note 4} Oxley, J. E., The Reformation in Essex to the death of Mary, Manchester 1965, 253.Google Scholar

^{page 257 note 5} E.g. B.M., Cotton MS. Titus B. xi, fol. 434: Mary to Sussex, 6 August 1558, agreeing to a compromise between two claimants for the temporal estates of a monastery.

^{page 257 note 6} In May 1557, the Venetian ambassador mentioned seven restored houses of strict observance: Knowles, D., The Religious Orders in England, Cambridge, 1959, iii. 438.Google Scholar

^{page 258 note 1} Dickens, A. G., ‘Edwardian arrears in augmentations payments and the problem of the ex-religious’, English Historical Review, LV (1940), 384–418CrossRef Google Scholar; Hodgett, G. A. J., The Slate of the Ex-religious and former Chantry Priests in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1547–74 Lincoln Record Society, liii (Hereford 1959), 26–74Google Scholar, 75–126; Baskerville, G., ‘Married Clergy and Pensioned Religious in Norwich Diocese, 1555’, English Historical Review, XLVIII (1933), 199–228CrossRef Google Scholar; Baskerville, , ‘The Dispossessed Religious in Surrey’, Surrey Archaeological Collections, XLVII, Guildford 1941, 12–28Google Scholar, especially 13 for reference to abuses of the system.

^{page 258 note 2} Dietz, English Government Finance, 213; Dickens, , ‘Edwardian Arrears’, EHR, LV (1940), 386.Google Scholar Cf. Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 97, where the lower house of Canterbury Convocation in 1554 is recorded as petitioning for the efficient payment of pensions.

^{page 258 note 3} P.R.O., E 164/31: the Exchequer copy of Pole's certificate of pensions; the list for Lincolnshire from that list is printed by C. W. Foster in Associated Architectural Societies’ Reports and Papers, xxxvii. ii.

^{page 258 note 4} P.R.O., E 164/31, fol. 77: the sum recorded in the book is £36,808 os. 10½d., but the sum of the totals for each county is the figure in the text above.

^{page 258 note 5} Dietz, English Government Finance, 213. In 1552 there were 216 pensioners in Nottinghamshire, whereas Pole had 195 in 1556: Dickens, , ‘Edwardian Arrears’, EHR (1940), 398Google Scholar, and P.R.O., E 164/31, fols. 62–3, to take just one example.

^{page 258 note 6} Hodgett, Ex-religious in Lincoln, xviii, 28–30, 116; P.R.O., E 164/31, fol. 9.

^{page 258 note 7} Cf. Dickens, , ‘Edwardian Arrears’, EHR (1940), 390.Google Scholar

^{page 259 note 1} P.R.O., E 164/31, fol. 1, and Arch. Reg., fols. 5–6, for the indenture between Pole and Mary clinching their arrangement.

^{page 259 note 2} Guildhall Library, London (Bonner's register), MS. 9531/12, fol. 399; Maxwell-Lyte, H. (ed.), The registers of … G. Bourne, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Somerset Record Society Publication, 55, Frome 1940, 143.Google Scholar

^{page 259 note 3} Worcester Diocesan Record Office, Register 2648: 716.093, 9(iv), 47 (Pate's register).

^{page 259 note 4} Guildhall, MS. 9531/12, fol. 399.

^{page 259 note 5} Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 149–50.

^{page 260 note 1} Leg. Reg. vi, fol. 134: ‘prorogatio synodi’.

^{page 260 note 2} Cal. S.P. Venetian, vi.500; Leg. Reg. vi, fol. 134.

^{page 260 note 3} Ibid., fol. 134; v, fob. 96–7.

^{page 260 note 4} Ibid., v, fols. 7–8, 98–9. The commission appears twice in the register in identical form; this may have been a confirmation or a response to a query or request for clarification. The instructions sent by Pole to collectors in 1557 ordered them to send their audited books to this committee (Leg. Reg. v, fols. 96, gg, 181).

^{page 260 note 5} P.R.O., E 164/31, fol. 1.

^{page 260 note 6} Leg. Reg. v, fol. 99.

^{page 260 note 7} Guildhall, MS. 953 1/12, fol. 439; Pole to Bonner, 1 April 1558.

^{page 261 note 1} B.M. Lansdowne MS., 980, fol. 239 (from Exeter episcopal registers); Guildhall, MS. 953 1/12, fol. 439.

^{page 261 note 2} B.M. Additional Charters, 24705.

^{page 261 note 3} P.R.O., S.P. 11/13, fol. 114; Tunstall to Pole, 16 August 1558.

^{page 262 note 1} Victoria County History, Cumberland, ii. 60.

^{page 262 note 2} Pole imposed new oaths of loyalty to the pope on ex-abbots who had become Henrician bishops (Leg. Reg. i, fols. 65–72); the absolutions to Tunstall and Bonner were Leg. Reg. i, fols. 43–4, 113–5.

^{page 262 note 3} Frere and Kennedy, Injunctions, ii. 412.

^{page 262 note 4} Arch. Vat: Instr. Misc. 4008, an inquiry into the ‘true value’ of English sees, undertaken by Pole for the pope.

^{page 262 note 5} Leg. Reg. i, fols. 100–1; ii, fols. 77–8; iv, fols. 50–1, 106; v, fol. 176. The bishops were Stanley, Griffith, Turberville, Brooks and Oglethorpe.

^{page 262 note 6} Arch. Vat: Arm. 42:6, fol. 130. The pope received a very grateful letter from Pate of Worcester thanking him for the concession (Arch. Vat: AA Arm XVIII 6540, fol. 170).

^{page 262 note 7} Arch. Vat: Arm. 42:6, fol. 99.

^{page 263 note 1} Arch. Vat: Instr. Misc. 4008. This is the record of the inquiry into the wealth of Winchester, in response to Paul IV's orders; Pole gave the pope the details of his plan for finding the ‘true value’ in Instr. Misc. 4010 in the same collection of documents.

^{page 263 note 2} Arch. Vat: Arm. 42:6, fols. 265–6.

^{page 263 note 3} Arch. Vat: Arm. 64:28, fols. 319–27. Ormanetto's inquiries into Winchester and Chester.

^{page 263 note 4} Arch. Vat: Instr. Misc. 4008. A large and elaborate record for Rome's benefit; at times Pole's administration was meticulously efficient.

^{page 263 note 5} Leg. Reg. vi, fols. 123–4.

^{page 264 note 1} B.M. Add. MS. 41577, fols. 216–9: 20 November, 18 December, 27 November 1555 and 25 January 1556. Four important letters on the subject of peace while the synod was in session.

^{page 264 note 2} Cf. Fenlon, Heresy and Obedience, 243–50, for Pole's long and difficult relationship with Caraffa.

^{page 264 note 3} This confrontation occurred in the Council meeting of 21 December 1554: B.M. Add. MS. 41577, fols. 161 ff. Cf. note 25. For the bitterness which the question of land aroused in Mary's parliaments, see Neale, J. E., Elizabeth I and her Parliaments, London 1965, i.22.Google Scholar

^{page 264 note 4} For two separate reports of clerical resentment of Pole's efforts, see P.R.O., S.P. 11/7, fol. 15; S.P. 69/11, fol. 119. Gardiner is reported to have never wanted Pole in England in the first place: Cal. S.P. Spanish, xi. 202.

^{page 265 note 1} Pole's visitations: of Canterbury, 1556—Lambeth Palace Library, VC III/1/2; of Lincoln—Strype, J., Ecclesiastical Memorials, London 1822, iii (pt. ii). 389.Google Scholar Harpsfield's visitation of Canterbury, 1556–7, in Catholic Record Society xlv-i, ed. Whatmorc, L., London 1950–1.Google Scholar The episcopal visitations of Bath and Wells, 1554 and 1557—Somerset County Record Office, Taunton, D/D/Ca 18, 27. All these records tell the story of dilapidation; Pole visited 146 churches in 1556, and 90 were in urgent need of basic structural repair.

^{page 265 note 2} E.g. the cases in P.R.O., Sta. Cha. 4, 5/36, with disputed tithes in the parish of Therfield, and past and present vicars quarrelling over them.

^{page 265 note 3} Foxe, op. cit., vii. 351.

^{page 265 note 4} Chedsey at the Essex heresy trials said that the heretic Hawkes was ‘against the ceremonies of the church’ and so ‘denieth the order of the catholic church': Foxe, vii. 107; Cheke of the Protestant side saw ‘superstition’ as one of the Roman strengths: Original Letters, relative to the English Reformation, ed. Robinson, H., Parker Society, 1856, 141Google Scholar; Pole was expert in explaining the spiritual significance of ceremonies: e.g. Quirini, v. 37 and Bodleian MS. Biblio. Vat.: Vat. Lat. 5968, fol. 384.

^{page 265 note 5} B.M. MS. Lansdowne 989, fol. 57: Pole on taxation and tenths, 1 April 1558.

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