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Tunstal—Trimmer or Martyr?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Morley Thomas
Affiliation:
Rector of Milverton, Millbank and Atwood, diocese of Huron, Canada

Extract

Was Cuthbert Tunstal a ‘trimmer’—that is, one primarily concerned with his own advantage—rather than a partisan in the religious revolution initiated by Henry VIII? We might have expected the latter contingency after reading the glowing tribute paid to him by Sir Thomas More: ‘… the incomparable Cuthbert Tunstal, who, to everyone's satisfaction, has recently been appointed Master of the Rolls. I will not try to praise him, not simply because the world would discount such praise from a close friend, but because his fine qualities and learning defy description. His fame is so widespread, that praising him would be, as they say, like lighting up the sun with a candle’. Yet the historiographical neglect of Tunstal seems to indicate that historians have preferred the pejorative judgement of Foxe, who says that he ‘dissembled’ in taking the Oath of Supremacy to Henry VIII. All the conservative bishops who took the oath ‘turned cat-in-the-pan’ in Mary's reign, but when they took it in 1535 they were, according to Foxe, ‘right Lutherans’. He, unquestionably, thought Tunstal was a ‘trimmer’.

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

page 337 note 1 ‘One who trims between opposing parties in politics, etc.; hence one who inclines to each of two opposite sides as interest dictates’: The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, ii. 2247, s.v. ‘Trimmer, 4’.

page 337 note 2 The Utopia of Sir Thomas More, ed. Lupton, J. H., Oxford 1895, 22–3.Google Scholar

page 337 note 3 Only one major biography (Sturge, C., Cuthbert Tunstal, London 1938) and a few learned articles have been devoted to him.Google Scholar

page 337 note 4 Actes and Monuments, ed. Pratt, J., London 1877, viii. 79.Google Scholar

page 337 note 5 The full form of the oath is printed in Foxe, op. cit., viii. 71 and 72. Tunstal also explicitly renounced papal authority and acknowledged Henry's title without any qualifying clause (‘terris ecclesiae Anglicanae supremo sub Christo capiti’) in an oath sworn at Auckland in 1535: L. & P., viii. no. 311 (i).

page 337 note 6 Foxe, op. cit., viii. 79.

page 337 note 7 Ibid., 84.

page 337 note 8 His nephew, Marmaduke Tunstal, was made a ‘knight of the sword’ during the previous day's activities: L. & P., viii. no. 601 (iv).

page 338 note 1 Harpsfield, Nicholas, Life of More, London 1932, 148–9.Google Scholar

page 338 note 2 25 Henry VIII, c. 32.

page 338 note 3 Chapuys to Charles V, 19 May 1534: Calendar of State Papers, Spanish (hereafter cited as Sp. Cal.), v. (i).

page 338 note 4 L. & P., iv. no. 3140.

page 338 note 5 Sp. Cal., iii (ii), particularly the section stating that Henry wanted the enquiry to be made by Warham, Wolsey, and Tunstal (obviously so that Tunstal might be outvoted).

page 338 note 6 The Life of Fisher, Early English Text Society, extra series no. 117, London 1921, 58.

page 338 note 7 Sp. Cal., V (i). 157: Chapuys to Charles V, 19 May 1534.

page 338 note 8 B ‘Cuthbert Tunstall had framed and written a verie learned treatise in defence of the queenes marriage, which he delivered before to Cardinal Campeius to be read at the daie: but the king, fearinge him much (as he was a very famous learned man) made such speedie order with him that he was of purpose sent away ambassador into Scotland about a matter of small importance, and appeared not in court the second sittinge, by reason whereof the book was not read at all. Nevertheless Cardinall Campeius called for him, and wished to have him speake’: The Life of Fisher, 64. In fact, Tunstal was sent on special embassy to the Low Countries, not to Scotland: L. & P. iv. nos. 5829, 5830.

page 339 note 1 Sp. Cal., V (i). no. 60: Chapuys to Charles V, 19 May 1534.

page 339 note 2 State Papers, Henry VIII, i (pt. 2). no. 23; summary in L. & P., vii. no. 695.

page 339 note 3 As a legal expert, Tunstal must have realised the general weakness of Henry's case in the eyes of international canon lawyers. See Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, London 1968, 180 ff.Google Scholar

page 339 note 4 As an experienced diplomat, Tunstal was surely aware that the frequent tergiversations of Clement VII were due to his being caught between the anvil of Charles v's army and the hammer of Henry's threat to secede from the papal obedience, not to a genuine change of opinion.

page 339 note 5 Tunstal was now, in effect, calling Catherine a liar in her assertion of the non-consummation of her marriage with Henry's brother, Arthur.

page 339 note 6 Chapuys surmised (letter of 19 May 1534, see above, 338, n. 7) that Tunstal had accepted Durham from mercenary motives. This ignores the strong convention that it was wrong to oppose the king's official policy. It also fails to do justice to Tunstal's real gratitude to Henry; see his letter to More prefixed to his De Arte Supputandi, London 1522—especially the phrase ‘a king who has deserved well from me above all living men’.

page 340 note 1 Tunstal's initial protest against this is contained in Records of the Northern Convocation, Surtees Society, 1907, 218–20. Henry's reply (addressed to archbishop Lee, but answering Tunstal point by point) is at 221–32.

page 340 note 2 From 8 April to 13 June 1533: L. & P., vi. no. 314.

page 340 note 3 L. & P., vii. no. 522.

page 340 note 4 ‘Two days after he quitted his house certain royal commissioners arrived, broke into it, searched every corner, and made an inventory of the property, which they sent to the King, along with all the letters and papers they could find’: Sp. Cal., v. 159.

page 340 note 5 L. & P., v. nos. 986, 987, calendared under 1532 but obviously belonging to 1534. See also L. & P., viii. 364.

page 340 note 6 ‘My lord of Durham made a protestation in the Convocation at York for the marriage of (the) Lady Dowager and the Primacy of the Pope, which when he came to London and my lord of Westmoreland seized his goods at Auckland, then my lord recanted his sayings’: L. & P., xiv (ii). no. 750.

page 340 note 7 Until at least as late as 1531, the date of his protest to the Northern Convocation against both the ‘divorce’ and the Royal Supremacy. It should be noted that a very significant mutilation of the Durham episcopal register was made at some date after Tunstal's protest to Convocation. In December 1539, Chaytor deposed (S.P., 1, clv. fol. 192r, quoted by Hinde, Introduction to the Durham Registers of Tunstal and Pilkington, Surtees Society 1952, XV) that ‘vj or vij yeres past this examinatt being then servant to doctor henmarshe chauncellor to the bisshopp of Duresme, and wryting in the regestor book of Duresme a protestation mad by the sayd bisshopp touching the bisshopp of Romes Authoritie, and dyvorce between the king's highnes and the lady dager wh protestation was after cutt owt of the same book by the sayd doctor henmarshe. …’ Whether Dr. Henmarshe was acting on Tunstal's instructions or not, the protest of 1531 (copied at the time into the episcopal register) had come to be thought dangerous by or before May 1534 when the houses were searched.

page 341 note 1 The sermon was immediately printed by Berthelet of London. See British Museum Catalogue, s.v. Tunstal. Both the sermon and the letter to Pole are printed by Foxe, Actes and Monuments, viii. Foxe (wrongly) dates the sermon as being preached in 1534.

page 341 note 2 There were 16 executors. Full text printed in Miscellaneous Writings of Henry VIII, ed. Macnamara, , London 1924.Google Scholar

page 341 note 3 His ‘little ones’ as he called them in the protest to the Northern Convocation of 1531.

page 341 note 4 L. & P., xii (i). no. 790.

page 341 note 5 A bizarre example of this took place on 30 July 1540 at Smithfield, when Barnes, Jerome and Garrett were burned as Protestants, while, at the same time and place, three priests were hanged, drawn and quartered for denying the Royal Supremacy. Foxe says (Actes and Monuments, V. 438–9) that there was an equal division on the Council which condemned the six, between Protestants and Catholics (Tunstal being one of the latter). So even was the balance that neither side dared try to save its own, since to do so would have incurred Henry's wrath and a charge of partiality.

page 342 note 1 Burnet, History of the Reformation of the Church of England, ed. Pocock, N. L., Oxford 1865, ii. 26 and 31.Google Scholar

page 342 note 2 Wriothesley, A Chronicle of England, Camden Society, N.S. xi, 1875–7, ii. 1.

page 342 note 3 Ibid., 2.

page 342 note 4 Ibid., 3.

page 342 note 5 ‘The faith and determination of Holy Church touching the blissful Sacrament of the Altar is this, that after the sacramental words be said by a priest in his Mass, the material bread that was before is turned into Christ's very body, and the material wine … is turned into Christ's very blood …’; from an oath sworn by Sir John Oldcastle (a Wycliffite) to archbishop Arundel in 1412: Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, ed. D. Wilkins, London 1737, iii. 355.

page 342 note 6 House of Lords Journal, 1.

page 342 note 7 See Appendix IV in Smith, L. B., Tudor Prelates and Politics, Princeton 1953, 305–7.Google Scholar

page 343 note 1 The Letters of Stephen Gardiner, ed. Muller, J. A., Cambridge 1933. The letter of 6 June 1547 regrets that Tunstal ‘a man of renouned fame in learning and gravity should so soon … advise … such matters of alteration’.Google Scholar

page 343 note 2 Literary Remains of King Edward VI, ed. Nichols, J. G., London 1857, ccxciii–ccxcvii.Google Scholar

page 343 note 3 Sp. Cal., ix. 30 and 31.

page 343 note 4 Acts of the Privy Council of England, ed. Dasent, J. R., London 1891, ii. 475 (hereafter referred to as A.P.C.)Google Scholar

page 343 note 5 He was certainly in Durham as late as 12 September 1547: see Durham Register, fol. 39.

page 343 note 6 1 Edward VI, c. 14. See House of Lords Journal, 1547.

page 343 note 7 Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, Oxford 18121824, 1.Google Scholar ii. no. 93—a letter from Sampson to Cromwell describing Tunstal's views at the time of the Bishops' Book. See also Certain Godly and Devout Prayers made in Latin by the Reverend Father in God, Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, and translated into English by Thomas Paynell, clerk, London 1925, 49; this is the last prayer in the collection, entitled ‘A Prayer unto God for the Dead which have no man that prayeth for them’. The small book was published in London in 1558.Google Scholar

page 344 note 1 L. & P., xxi (ii). nos. 212 and 419. Henry Neville had been accused of plotting his father's death in order to pay off his gambling debts.

page 344 note 2 The relationship was distant. It came through his father's first marriage to an illegitimate daughter of George Neville, archbishop of York. Tunstal was the only child of his father's second marriage; thus there was no blood relationship between him and the Nevilles. See appendix in Sturge, Tunstal.

page 344 note 3 House of Lords Journal, i. 416–18.

page 344 note 4 House of Commons Journal, i. 21.

page 344 note 5 The Diary of Henry Machyn, Camden Society 1847, for the year 1550.

page 344 note 6 Strype, Memorials, 11. ii. 208–9; Wriothesley, Chronicle, ii. 65; Literary Remains of King Edward VI, ii. 378, n. The last reference fixes the date of Tunstal's committal to the Tower as 20 December 1551.

page 345 note 1 A.P.C., iii. 277.

page 345 note 2 Wriothesly, Chronicle, ii. 65.

page 345 note 3 Published by Vascosanus of Paris in 1554.

page 345 note 4 The see of Durham was divided into two dioceses (Durham and Newcastle), each with greatly reduced revenues. See the introduction by G. Hinde to The Registers of Cuthbert Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, 1530–59, and James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham, 1561–76, Surtees Society clxi (1952).

page 345 note 5 Ps. CXXX. 1.

page 345 note 6 Particularly in fols. 45–7.

page 345 note 7 I.e.: the choice between the three modes of Christ's real presence in the eucharistic species, as considered by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215—viz.: consubstantiation, total ‘destruction’ of the material elements, and transubstantiation.

page 346 note 1 It must have been at some time between 20 May 1551 (when he was put under house arrest) and 20 December (when he was committed to the Tower) that Tunstal entrusted the MS. of De Veritate to his nephew Bernard Gilpin for publication abroad. Gilpin took it with him to Mechlin (where he visited his brother George), then to Louvain and Bruges and, finally, to Paris. Here he resided at the house of Vascosanus, the printer. After the ‘imprimatur’ of Henry II had been obtained, Gilpin saw the book through the press. The authority for these statements is G. Carleton, The Life of Bernard Gilpin, London 1628 (in Latin) and 1629 (in English). The printing was completed on 6 January 1553, but De Veritate was not publicly issued until 1554 (after Mary's accession); it was quickly followed by a second edition, which differs only by a short list of errata from the first. It has never been reprinted in full, but important passages of the Latin text were reprinted by Dixon, R. W., History of the Church of England from the abolition of the Roman jurisdiction, Oxford 18781902, V. 187n188n.Google Scholar, by Messenger, E. C., The Reformation, the Mass, and the Priesthood, London 1937, ii. 105–6Google Scholar, and, more fully, by Quinn, E., ‘Bishop Tunstall's Treatise on the Holy Eucharist’ in The Downside Review, li (1933), 681–2.Google Scholar For a brief discussion, see Dugmore, C. W., The Mass and the English Reformers, London 1958, 152–4.Google Scholar

page 346 note 2 Mary entered London after the defeat of Northumberland's rebellion on 3 August 1553 (Wriothesley, Chronicle, ii. 93). Tunstal was released from the King's Bench Prison on 5 August (Ibid., 96). From this date onwards he assumed control of his diocese, which was soon re-created in its original form and restored to him. His mild and charitable treatment of heretics during Mary's reign, as throughout his life, can be amply documented and deserves much fuller treatment than is here possible.

page 346 note 3 Very possibly on account of his age; he was 84 or 85.

page 346 note 4 Elizabeth acceded to the throne on 17 November 1558, was crowned 15 January 1559, and held her first parliament on 25 January.

page 346 note 5 S.P., Eliz., xii (i). no. 37.

page 347 note 1 See Bayne, C. G., ‘The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth’, English Historical Review, xxii (1907). The earl of Shrewsbury likewise displaced the bishop of Bath and Wells at the queen's right hand.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 347 note 2 For text of the treaty see Rymer, Foedera, Conventiones, Litterae, etc, The Hague 1741, vi (part iv), 70–2.

page 347 note 3 C.S.P. (Foreign) Eliz., i. nos. 634, 674 and 717.

page 347 note 4 Ibid., Eliz., i. no. 682.

page 347 note 5 It will be remembered that Tunstal had fled here from the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536.

page 347 note 6 The dates of the various events mentioned here and hereafter are of great importance when considered in relation to the government's actions in the religious settlement, especially as they clearly show that Tunstal could not have come to London (to exert an influence upon it) any earlier than, in fact, he did.

page 348 note 1 C.S.P. (F.), Eliz., i. no. 900.

page 348 note 2 Ibid.

page 348 note 3 C.S.P. (F.), Eliz., i. no. 901.

page 348 note 4 C.S.P. (F.), Eliz., i. 13 July 1559.

page 348 note 5 Diary, 204.

page 349 note 1 Neale, J. E., Elizabeth I and her Parliaments, London 1953, i. 3384.Google Scholar

page 349 note 2 He had been one of the reforming divines appointed to consider the draft 45 Articles of 1552 (later reduced to 42).

page 349 note 3 Strype, Memorials, iii (part ii). 536–50.

page 349 note 4 They were Canterbury, Rochester, Norwich, Oxford, Salisbury, Gloucester, Bristol, Hereford and Bangor.

page 349 note 5 They were London, Worcester, Chichester, Chester, Carlisle, Lichfield, Llandaff, Winchester and Lincoln.

page 349 note 6 I Eliz., c.1 and c. 2.

page 349 note 7 Such as the omission of the offensive ‘Black Rubric’ and of the suffrage in the Litany against the ‘detestable enormities of the bishop of Rome’.

page 349 note 8 Even the somewhat denigratory words ‘commonly called the Mass’ (of the 1549 Prayer Book) were dropped from the title.

page 349 note 9 Liturgy and Worship, ed. Lowther-Clarke, W. K., London 1932, 183 and 184.Google Scholar

page 350 note 1 S.P. 12, vi. nos. 22 and 23.

page 350 note 2 I.e.: one who denied the real presence of Christ in the Mass.

page 350 note 3 Tunstal's fears for Durham were well founded. The visitors came there on 8 October 1559. By this time Tunstal was being held lsquo;incommunicado’ in Lambeth Palace, on the Council's orders. He, therefore, knew nothing of what was happening in Durham, unless Parker told him (which seems unlikely in view of the Council's desire to win him to their side). Tunstal's ignorance of events in Durham may have been one of the few mercies vouchsafed to him at this time, though an unintentional one, for one of the visitors was none other than his nephew, Bernard Gilpin. Tunstal had advanced Gilpin from one well-paid benefice to another, and had finally made him incumbent of the valuable living of Houghton-le-Spring. (See Registers of Tunstal and Pilkington, first entry: a table of the monetary value of livings in the bishop's gift). He had been able for a time to protect his heretically-inclined nephew in Mary's reign: Carleton, Life of Gilpin, 15. This was Gilpin's return for his uncle's benevolence. He and Roger Watson were deputed by the commissioners for the northern province to carry out the radical Protestant policy in Durham; see Registers of Tunstall and Pilkington, entry 370, for their terms of reference.

page 350 note 4 See the ‘articulus cleri’ in Strype, Annals, i. 56.

page 351 note 1 Sp. Cal., Eliz., i. no. 54. This is dated 13 July but clearly, from internal evidence, it was written a month later.

page 351 note 2 L. & P., xiv (ii). no. 750.

page 352 note 1 Venetian S.P., 6 June 1559, refers to Parker as archbishop-elect; he must have been nominated before this date.

page 352 note 2 Rymer, Foedera, vi (iv). 84, gives the queen's writ to the bishops of Durham, Bath and Wells, and Landaff, and to the suffragans Barlow and Scory, to consecrate Parker. In the first draft Tunstal's name was inserted in Parker's hand.

page 352 note 3 C.S.P. (F.), Elizabeth, ii. no. 4.

page 352 note 4 The Correspondence of Matthew Parker, Parker Society, Cambridge 1853, letter of 27 September 1559.Google Scholar

page 352 note 5 Ibid., 77–8.

page 352 note 6 Strype, Life and Acts of Matthew Parker, Cambridge 1711, 94, says: ‘Before his death, by the Archbishop's means, he was brought off from papistical fancies’. This is flatly contradicted by Cecil's letter to Parker of 5 October: Parker Correspondence, 78.

page 353 note 1 Note the denigratory use of the appellation ‘Mr’. Parker is addressed as ‘My Lord’, though not yet consecrated a bishop.

page 353 note 2 Parker Correspondence, 78.

page 353 note 3 ‘θ 1559, Nov. 18, act. 85’—annotation in bastard secretary hand on the last page of the first edition copy of De Veritate (University of Chicago Library).

page 353 note 4 Nicholas Sanders (Report to Cardinal Moroni, Catholic Record Society, Miscellanea, i. 1–23) purports to give an account of it. Sanders was a dedicated agent of the Counter-Reformation. His report, unsupported by independent evidence, must be viewed with suspicion.

page 354 note 1 Parker Correspondence, 106–7.

page 354 note 2 That of 19 August 1559.

page 355 note 1 Certain Godly and Devout Prayers, 8.