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Law, Counsel, and Commonwealth: Languages of Power in the Early English Reformation

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Law, Counsel, and Commonwealth: Languages of Power in the Early English Reformation Law, Counsel, and Commonwealth: Languages of Power in the Early English Reformation Christine M. Knaack Doctor of Philosophy University of York History April 2015 2 Abstract This thesis examines how power was re-articulated in light of the royal supremacy during the early stages of the English Reformation. It argues that key words and concepts, particularly those involving law, counsel, and commonwealth, formed the basis of political participation during this period. These concepts were invoked with the aim of influencing the king or his ministers, of drawing attention to problems the kingdom faced, or of expressing a political ideal. This thesis demonstrates that these languages of power were present in a wide variety of contexts, appearing not only in official documents such as laws and royal proclamations, but also in manuscript texts, printed books, sermons, complaints, and other texts directed at king and counsellors alike. The prose dialogue and the medium of translation were employed in order to express political concerns. This thesis shows that political languages were available to a much wider range of participants than has been previously acknowledged. Part One focuses on the period c. 1528-36, investigating the role of languages of power during the period encompassing the Reformation Parliament. The legislation passed during this Parliament re-articulated notions of the realm’s social order, creating a body politic that encompassed temporal and spiritual members of the realm alike and positioning the king as the head of that body. Writers and theorists examined legal changes by invoking the commonwealth, describing the social hierarchy as an organic body politic, and using the theme of counsel to acknowledge the king’s imperial authority. Part Two examines two later Reformation contexts: that of the warfare of the 1540s and Edward VI’s minority kingship. Languages of power continued to be accessible to a wide range of participants across the social hierarchy in these later periods. This thesis demonstrates that, far from being limited to the political nation or the centre of the kingdom’s political life, a complex political idiom was available to a broad spectrum of the social order. These languages were present in a larger number of rhetorical contexts than has been often acknowledged. 3 Contents Abstract 2 Contents 3 List of Images 5 Acknowledgements 6 Author’s Declaration 7 Introduction 8 Part One Chapter One: Law and Political Language in the Henrician Reformation 26 Fortescue and Political Language 33 Christopher St German and the Supremacy of Common Law 40 ‘Gud rularys ever be lyfely lawys’: The Law in Starkey’s Dialogue 53 Conclusion 61 Chapter Two: Counsel and the Political Elite 64 Exemplary Counsel: Thomas Elyot’s Fictive Entreaties 69 Preaching Counsel: Skip’s Passion Sunday Sermon 80 The Regime Responds: The Interrogatoryes 96 Conclusion 100 Chapter Three: Commonwealth and Reformation Popular Politics 103 4 The King’s ‘Trewe Subjectes’: Richard Morison’s Post-Reformation Social Order 104 The Rebels on King and Commonwealth 120 The King’s Answeres to the Northern Rebels 125 Manuscript Responses to the Rebellions 132 Conclusion 138 Part Two Chapter Four: The Body Politic at War 142 Richard Morison and the Unkindness of Reginald Pole 147 Diagnosing the Body Politic: Elyot’s Image of Governance 162 Ascham’s Toxophilus and the Warrior Kingdom 176 Conclusion 188 Chapter Five: Articulating Authority: Edward VI and the Expression of Power 190 Minority Rule and the Commonwealth 192 Nobility or Commons: Sir Thomas Smith and John Hales 199 Cheke’s True Subject: Authority in The Hurt of Sedition 221 William Thomas and the Resurgence of Imperium 233 Conclusion 242 Conclusion 246 Abbreviations 258 Bibliography 259 5 List of Images Image 1, from John Cheke, The Hurt of Sedition Howe Grievous it is to a Commune Welth (London: John Day, 1549; STC 5109.5), Sig. A1v. 6 Acknowledgements Writing this thesis has been one of the most interesting and challenging things I have ever attempted. I would like to thank my supervisor, Doctor John Cooper, for his unwavering faith in my work. I am extremely grateful for his patience and guidance. Doctor Mark Jenner has been supportive and encouraging throughout this process, and I would like to thank him for this and for his valuable advice. Doctor Kevin Killeen has provided indispensable insight and helpful feedback; I would like to thank him for this and for keeping me connected to my literary roots. I would like to thank the staff at the British Library for their help when consulting their manuscripts and the staff at the J. B. Morrell Library at the University of York for all their assistance. The Society for Renaissance Studies provided funding for a research trip to consult William Thomas’s works, and I would like to thank them for this opportunity. I would like to thank my family for their encouragement, and especially their support in pursuing this degree so far from home. I would like to thank my aunt Ruth for diligently reading drafts and my brother Jake for reminding me that hockey and baseball are also interesting. Jeremy Rubel insisted that I pursue this opportunity. He, Emily Buermann, and Kaaren Soderberg are a testament to the enduring power of friendship, and I am grateful for their confidence in me and for keeping me grounded. I have benefited greatly from the laughter, coffee, and other experiences shared with friends in the UK. Sarah Ward, Jonas van Tol, Jennifer Tomlinson, Jimmy Richardson, Chris Linsley, and Celia Goodburn deserve special thanks for their encouragement, insight, and entertainment. I would also like to thank the wider group of friends I have made in York over the past five years. Thank you all. 7 Author’s Declaration I declare that, except where explicit reference has been made to the contribution of others, this thesis is the result of my own work and has not been submitted for any other degree at the University of York or any other institution. 8 Introduction In 1534, the Act in Restraint of Appeals rewrote the king’s authority. The Act described the ‘Realme of Englond’ as ‘gov[er]ned by oon Sup[re]me heede and King having the Dignitie and Roiall Estate of the Imperiall Crowne of the same, unto whome a Body politike compacte of all sortes and degrees of people, devided in termes and by names of Sp[irit]ualtie and Temporaltie, ben bounden and owen to bere nexte to God a naturall and humble obedience’.1 The Act purported to confirm in statutory law a principle that was already commonplace in the realm’s customs and common law. Studies examining the impact of this Act have often focused on the changes it enacted on the king’s authority, overlooking how it affected the polity.2 But the Act carefully delineates the responsibilities of the ‘Body Spiritual’ and the ‘Body Temporal’ within its provisions. The Act stipulates that the ecclesiastical realm had jurisdiction ‘whan any cause of the Lawe devine happened to come in question or of sp[irit]uall lernyng’. The ‘Lawes Temporall’ were reserved for the ‘triall of p[ro]pertie of Landes and Goodes, and for the conservacion of the people of this Realme in unitie and peace without ravyn or spoill’.3 This demarcation of the differences between the spiritual and the temporal, as they were related to the king in law was a brief summary of the legal doctrine of the royal supremacy, a device that had been most clearly articulated by the common lawyer and legal writer Christopher St German.4 This valuable concept argued that the realm’s common laws could in no way be contrary to natural law. Since this was the case, St German had argued, the temporal authorities had the natural right to make legal decisions regarding all property and moveable goods in the kingdom, including those belonging to the Church, because these were adiaphora, or did not have a role in procuring salvation. The Church, following this principle, was limited to passing 1 24 Henry VIII, c. 12 (Statutes iii. 427-29). 2 G. R. Elton, Reform and Renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the Common Weal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973); Elton, Reform and Reformation: England 1509-1558 (London: Arnold, 1977); Graham Nicholson, ‘The Act of Appeals and the English Reformation’, in Law and Government under the Tudors, edited by Claire Cross, David Loades, and J.J. Scarisbrick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 19-30; Walter Ullmann, “‘This Realm of England is an Empire”’ JEH 30, no. 2 (1979): 175-203. 3 24 Henry VIII, c. 12 (Statutes iii. 427-29). 4 J. H. Baker, ‘St German, Christopher (c. 1460-1540/41)’, ODNB, online edition (Oxford University Press, 2008). 9 legal judgement only on moral issues. According to the idea of the royal supremacy, the king, as God’s divinely-appointed arbiter, had the power to resolve any legal disputes that arose between the two groups. The Appeals Act identified the king as an imperial authority in his realm, but it equally established the differences between temporal and spiritual authority through the mechanism of the law. The Appeals Act re-asserted the king’s powers in his realm and on the international political stage, but it also made contributions to the kingdom’s political languages. With its introductory lines, the Appeals Act transformed the shape of England’s body politic. The king was now firmly established as the head of one organic body politic, with clergy and laity equally arranged and ordered in descending degrees beneath him. The realm’s legal structure was to be preferred over any other jurisdiction in the world. One master ruled this entire body politic, and that was the king.
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