Durham E-Theses Tudor revolution? : royal control of the Anglo-Scottish border, 1483-1530 Etty, Claire How to cite: Etty, Claire (2005) Tudor revolution? : royal control of the Anglo-Scottish border, 1483-1530, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1283/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk TUDOR REVOLUTION? ROYAL CONTROL OF THE ANGLO-SCOTTISH BORDER, 1483-1530 Claire Etty A copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Durham University, 2005 1 5 MAR 2006 1 CONTENTS ABBREVIATIONS IV-V INTRODUCTION: THE BORDER TRADITION 1 ONE: THE BORDER DEFENCE ADMINISTRATION To 1483 5 Changes to the border command structure 6 Information 23 The council of the north 29 The cardinal and the border 49 Conclusion 57 TWO: THE FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION To 1483 59 The warden 60 The Berwick administration 66 The Carlisle administration 72 Other financial institutions i) The abbots of St Mary's, York, receivers of the kiog's monies 78 ii) The northern treasurers of war 83 Wolsey's control offinance 93 Conclusion 96 THREE: THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE The fifteenth century 105 11 The Tudor 'taming' i) Assize and gaol delivery 109 ii) Commissions of the peace 110 iii) The sheriff 122 iv) Complicity and maintenance 127 v) The surnames 131 Conclusion 145 FOUR: THE CLERGY 153 The bishop ofDurham 154 The bishop of Carlisle 166 The minor clergy 170 The council ofthe north 181 Conclusion 183 FIVE: FEUD, RIVALRY AND DIVISION The fifteenth century 187 Divide and rule i) The west march 188 ii) The east and middle marches 219 The 'stranger' warden 232 Conclusion 242 CONCLUSION: THE TUDOR ACHIEVEMENT? 244 APPENDIX i) Wardens and lieutenants of the Anglo-Scottish marches 266 111 ii) Other officers 268 iii) The northern financial administration 270 BIBLIOGRAPHY 271 IV ABBREVIATIONS Cal. Inq. Hen. VII Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and other analogous documents preserved in the Public Record Office: Henry VII (3 vols, London, 1898). Cal. Inq. PM Calendarum Inquisitionum Post Mortem (4 vols, London 1806- 28). CCR Calendar of Close Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office: Henry VII, 1485-1509 (2 vols, London, 1955-63). CFR Calendar of Fine Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office (21 vols, London, 1911-62). CPR Calendar ofPatent Rolls, various editions. Foedera Foedera Conventiones, Literae, et cuiuscunque Generis Acta Publica, inter Reges Angliae, et alios Imp era to res, Reges, Pontifices Principes, vel Communitates, ed. T. Rymer (London, 1738). HMS433 British Library Harleian Manuscript 433 (4 vols, London, 1979- 83) ed. R. Horrox and P. Hammond. LP Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII (21 vols, London, 1862-1932). RP Rotuli Parliamentorum, ed. 1. Strachey et al (6 vols, London, 1767-77). v RS Rotuli Scotiae in Turri Londonensi et in Domo Capitulari Westmonasteriensi asservati (2 vols., London, 1819). State Papers State Papers during the reign of King Henry VIII (7 vols, London, 1830- ). NB. All manuscript references are to the National Archives: Public Record Office unless otherwise stated. Unidentified place-names are italicised, and quotations have been put into modem English. I acknowledge the financial support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the production of this thesis. 1 INTRODUCTION: THE BORDER TRADITION 'The country south of the Trent was the normal setting of government action. ,1 In 1966, Mervyn James complained that the 'traditional historiographical response' of Tudor historians to the border counties was to ignore them. 2 In 1995, much the same attitude prevailed, according to Steven Ellis.3 This was, and is, part of a wider problem. Debate on Tudor government has only recently begun to be conducted beyond the lines laid down by Geoffrey Elton in the 1960s. Tudor historians, 'standing on the shoulders of a giant',4 have tended to concentrate their attentions on Westminster, and thus Tudor regional history lacks the established tradition that exists for the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, border historiography has developed its own archetypal themes. In 1921, Rachel Reid posed the 'problem of the north': how could the Crown advance its direct rule of a district so far away from Westminster and at the same time establish an adequate defence for a border some 110 miles long, when it lacked a standing army? In establishing the system of indentured wardens of the marches, Reid considered that Richard II had failed to fulfil the first imperative. He had aided and abetted the growth of overmighty subjects who 'used their position ... simply to further their own interests,.5 I G.R. Elton, Policy and Police: the Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of Thomas Cromwell (Cambridge, 1972), p. viii. 2 Ibid. 3 S.G. Ellis, Tudor Frontiers and Noble Power: The Making of the British State (Oxford, 1995), pp. 8-9. 4 C. Coleman 'Professor Elton's "Revolution"', in C. Coleman and D. Starkey (eds), Revolution Reassessed, Revisions in the History of Tudor Government and Administration (Oxford, 1986), p. 11. 5 R.R. Reid, The King's Council (London, 1921), p. 20. 2 They became a 'standing menace to the peace of the land', until the Tudor monarchy 'at last wrested ... power from them'. 6 Thus, in the 1960s, James began with this established historical convention: that the Tudors' principal goal was to undermine the influence of its overmighty subjects. He concluded that the prime motivating factor of the Tudor Crown's border policy was to challenge Percy predominance. He duly wove a tale of an 'implacable' persecution of the family by the Tudor Crown, beginning with Henry VII's contrivance to murder the fourth earl in 1489; taking in the deliberate exclusion of the fifth earl from the traditional family office of warden of the east and middle marches; and ending with the sixth earl, a poor dupe hounded into abandoning the Percy patrimony to the insatiable Henry VIII. 7 The question of the Crown's relationship with the Percy family has loomed large in discussion of Tudor border policy ever since, and the fifth and sixth earls in particular have become exemplars of Henry's relationship with the northern nobility. The 'implacability' of the royal persecution has, however, been considerably revised - there is no real evidence that Henry VII conspired to murder the fourth earl, and Richard Hoyle has convincingly demonstrated that the author of the Percy disinheritance in 1536 was the sixth earl himself.8 M.L. Bush, who focussed mainly on border policy post-Pilgrimage of Grace, denied that the Tudor government was hostile to ruling either through the northern nobility in general, or the Percies in particular. Quite the reverse, in fact. After the death of the fourth earl, Bush argued, the policies of Henry VII and Henry VIII consisted of simply substituting one noble for another as circumstance dictated, marking time until 6 Reid, King's Council, p. 21. 7 M.E. James, A Tudor Magnate and the Tudor State: Henry Fifth Earl of Northumberland (York, 1966), pp. 3-4, 14. 8 See R. Hoyle, 'Henry Percy, Sixth Earl of Northumberland and the Fall of the House of Percy', in G.W. Bemard (ed.), The Tudor Nobility (Manchester. 1992). 3 'dependable magnates' emerged, with the 'proven ability and means' to exerCIse the office. The fifth earl of Northumberland was excluded from the east and middle marches because of his personal defects. He was simply 'too incapable and froward' to be trusted, or perhaps he refused the office.9 After the earl's death freed up his estranged son, Henry VIII heaved a sigh of relief and reinstated the Percies. As a corollary to this argument, Bush and others have pointed to the employment of the Dacres of Gilsland on the west march for over forty years. The marriage of Thomas, Lord Dacre to the Greystoke heiress in 1487 made him a considerable landholder for almost the whole of this period. This, it is argued, hardly suggests a policy of exclusion of the northern nobility from border office. 10 But the 'rising sun' of recent studies has not chased away the 'autumnal mist' of conviction that the Tudors regarded the political power of the northern nobility with suspicion. 11 Steven Ellis, whose comparison between the early Tudor rule of Ireland and of the Anglo-Scottish border remains the only in-depth study of the border counties for this period, does not differ greatly from Reid in his conclusions about the Tudor Crown's ends and - to some extent - its means. Through the reduction of noble power and the extension of royal government, Henry VII and his son hoped to promote peace and good rule, English 'civility', and dynastic security in the far north. 12 Ellis, however, differs 9 M.L.