Mary Rose (22 page)

When rebellion broke out in Lincolnshire in October 1536, it was therefore natural for Henry to turn to his friend Charles Brandon to act as his lieutenant in those parts, although he could hardly be described as a locally based magnate. After careful consultations with the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Oxford, he decided that the urgency of the situation required immediate action, and set off with only his riding household.
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It may be that he was already aware that most of the so-called gentry leaders of the rebels were at best half-hearted about their cause, and had decided to play on their reluctance in negotiation. He used a stick-and-carrot technique, agreeing to intercede for their pardons on the condition that they advanced no further. If they persisted on the other hand, he would have no option but to fight. This attempt to buy time was successful. By the time that the rebels had agreed to disperse and sue for pardon, he had been joined by Sir John Russell and Sir William Parr with 3,000 fighting men and sixteen guns.
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In these circumstances when the Earl of Shrewsbury sent a herald to Lincoln, there was no will to resist, and the gentlemen rode to Stamford to submit to the Duke. Suffolk’s commission now required him to investigate the circumstances of the Lincolnshire revolt, and this he did by interrogating some of the surrendered gentlemen, who naturally blamed the intransigence of the commons, a few of whose leaders they actually handed over. When he entered Lincoln, suitably guarded, on 16 October, the reaction of the crowd appeared to vindicate this explanation.
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He was also instructed to support Shrewsbury further north in Yorkshire, and that was not altogether consistent with what he was expected to do at Lincoln, because to have denuded himself of troops would have been to invite renewed disturbances, a point which the King took when he instructed him to proceed to ‘severe justice’ against the guilty parties. The situation in the county remained confused. On 17 October it was reported that the beacons were burning again in Louth, but ten days later Sir John Russell entered the town without resistance and disarmed the inhabitants, who were nevertheless described as ‘very hollow’. Suffolk proceeded cautiously in disarming the other towns, first receiving the submissions of the gentry and civic leaders, and imprisoning whoever they presented. Contingents of troops were sent to collect the surrendered arms.
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The Duke moved with similar caution in conducting his enquiries. He filled Lincoln Castle with prisoners, but very few of them were subsequently executed, and he was constantly distracted by developments in Yorkshire. Once Norfolk’s and Shrewsbury’s armies had withdrawn under the terms of the Doncaster truce of 27 October, the north of Lincolnshire had to be properly defended, and by late November he had 3,600 men deployed for that purpose. Meanwhile Suffolk, who was not bound by the Doncaster truce, maintained an army of spies in Yorkshire, and planned to mobilise 5,000 men for an attack upon Hull which never materialised.
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On 16 November his work in Lincolnshire culminated in the issue of the expected royal pardon, and on the 27th he mustered the whole county under the leadership of its gentlemen to go against the Yorkshire rebels, a contingency which did not arise owing to the Pontefract agreement of 4 December.
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Suffolk’s role in these events firmly established him as the new leader of Lincolnshire society, and restored his intimate relations with the King, with whom he exchanged letters more fulsome than any which had been seen in recent years. The Pontefract pardon took effect; the Pilgrims dispersed and the Duke’s troops were disbanded. He and the Duchess were invited to spend the Christmas at court. It is not certain that he got there for the festive season because it was 24 December before his deputy arrived to take over, and 18 January 1537 before we have any clear evidence of his presence with the King. When he left the court in April, Henry instructed him to make his main residence in Lincolnshire, and gave him Tattershall Castle for that purpose.
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As a result of the traumatic events of the Pilgrimage of Grace, Suffolk had been transformed from an East Anglian magnate into a Lincolnshire one, to be at the King’s command as he had been previously. Once there, he wasted no time in mobilising his affinity, and incorporating into it the existing Willoughby clientage, with the full co-operation of Lady Willoughby, who realised which side her bread was buttered. Perhaps because her health was failing, Suffolk appears increasingly to have been managing her affairs during 1538, appointing to church livings in her gift and mobilising the Willoughby affinity for his own purposes. Mary kept nominal control, signing a court roll as late as 7 May 1539, but by the 20th she was dead and the Duke was suing for livery of her lands. These were formally granted to him in July 1540, and that gave him another £900 of income.
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In addition his favour with the King led to significant grants of ex-monastic property. He sued for these lands in the customary fashion, and they were given to him in two tranches in December 1538 and March 1539. A few years later they were bringing in £1,650 a year, and must have increased his revenue by about 30 per cent. Such lands were mostly in Lincolnshire also, and those that were outside the county he sold or exchanged. These transactions, together with his existing holdings, made him the greatest landowner in the county, and gave him a special role in its government, a role which his good relations with Thomas Cromwell merely served to reinforce.

Meanwhile his family was causing problems. Not, it should added, the Duchess Catherine, who discharged her duties, both at court in attendance on Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard and as lady bountiful in Lincolnshire with impeccable fortitude. She also presented Charles with a second son in 1537 who was named for his father and about whose early years virtually nothing is known.
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The trouble was with his two elder daughters, Anne, Lady Powis and Mary, Lady Mouteagle. Anne took a lover, who was violently ejected from her lodgings by Lord Powis in a night raid. A legal separation inevitably followed for which Cromwell negotiated the maintenance agreement. Rather surprisingly, Lady Powis continued to be
persona grata
at court, borrowing the necessary cash from Cromwell or from her father. Lord Powis died on 2 July 1551, and his widow (as she still was) remarried Randolph Hayward, although whether he was her earlier lover is not known.
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Tensions between Lord and Lady Mounteagle also exacerbated their problems, but these were basically caused by Thomas’s incompetence. In February 1538 he still owed the Duke over £1,000, and in order to cancel this debt Suffolk arranged to take over the custody and marriage of his son William in return for £100 worth of land. This was not the only problem and in July 1540 Lord Mounteagle was bound to keep the terms of an arbitration between himself and the Duke which had been negotiated by the Crown surveyor, and which may well have related to the same lands.
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Fortunately the marriages of his two younger daughters seem to have worked out well. They were beautiful, like their mother, but this seems to have caused no problems. So, apart from the fact that Suffolk believed that Lord Clifford and Eleanor were living in an unhealthy house, there were no issues between them. There is no reason to suppose that her death at the age of twenty-eight in 1547 was connected with this particular concern. It is much more likely to have been caused by childbearing. Both marriages were fruitful, but the sons died young, leaving a problem with which Edward VI had to deal in due course. Outside the immediate family, the move from Suffolk to Lincolnshire seems to have caused some fellow nobles to hesitate before placing their daughters in such a remotely located household. Lady Lisle, for instance, although on good terms with the Duchess, and in spite of the best efforts of the Earl of Shrewsbury, eventually declined the honour.
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The Suffolks themselves, however, seem to have taken to northern society with aplomb, but then they were spending a considerable amount of time at court, where the Duke had been created Lord Great Master of the Household in 1539. This was a new office, intended by Cromwell to replace both the Lord Steward and the Lord Chamberlain, which it did for a few years, until the Lord Chamberlainship was reinstated in 1543.
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In the government of the realm, as distinct from the locality, Suffolk was reasonably assiduous during these years. He attended about 80 per cent of the meetings of the House of Lords, and in the absence of both Norfolk and Audley took the Chancellor’s place as the director of business. He was prominent on ceremonial occasions, was a leading judge in the treason trials of 1538 and 1539, and was careful always to reflect the King’s opinion on any issue of controversy.
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As Lord Great Master he disposed considerable patronage within the Household, and a number of his clients found places in the newly constituted band of Gentlemen Pensioners, which was formed also in 1539. He was a leading negotiator with Anne of Cleves, and her tame surrender owed a good deal to his tactful handling of what could have been a very difficult situation. He was not a party to the overthrow of Thomas Cromwell in the summer of 1540, and did not challenge Norfolk for the primacy in Council which followed the chief minister’s fall. His relations with Cromwell had always been good, but he was not foolish enough to rush to his defence, having read the King’s mind accurately. His power was private rather than public, and depended once again upon his relationship with Henry, but it increased considerably between 1536 and 1540, largely because of his successful handing of the Lincolnshire revolt. When he did return to the public arena, it was in a military capacity. A proposed expedition to defend Calais in August 1542 came to nothing, but in October and November of that year he defended the Anglo-Scottish border while Norfolk carried out the harrying raids which resulted in the Scottish defeat at the Battle of Solway Moss in November, and from January 1543 to March 1544 served as the King’s Lieutenant in the North of England.
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In that capacity he worked closely with John Dudley, Viscount Lisle, who was Lord Warden of the Marches, and to whom it fell to conduct the difficult relations with the Scottish regency government which followed the death of James V in December. There is some evidence to suggest that Suffolk resented being used in an administrative capacity, and that he would dearly have loved to lead an invasion of Scotland himself, but such was the King’s will, and he had to be satisfied, perhaps having been reassured that he would be given a suitable command when the King invaded France, which he was planning to do once the Scottish situation had been resolved.

As war with France grew closer, Suffolk’s assiduity in Council increased because Henry relied increasingly upon his advice, and from July to November 1544 he commanded the King’s own ward in the Army Royal which he led to the siege of Boulogne.
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Although he was by this time sixty years of age, his health seems to have been bearing up remarkably well, and he was given the whole responsibility for setting up the siege. This was potentially a tricky assignment, because it was intended as a public relations exercise as well as a military one, and had to be so laid that once the King himself appeared on the scene he would be assured of a swift victory and a triumphant entry into the conquered town. Rather surprisingly, it all worked according to plan, and while Norfolk and Russell were bogged down in the siege of Montreuil, Boulogne surrendered. On 14 September the King was able to take possession of his conquest.
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Suffolk had been far more than a nominal commander of this operation. He had personally and at some risk supervised the placement of the batteries; he had taken the outlying defences and commenced mining operations, and his retinue had been heavily involved in the skirmishing which had accompanied these operations. Until the King’s arrival he also presided over the council of war, and dealt with ambassadors and messengers, working closely with the King’s secretary William Paget.
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After Henry had carried out his state entry and returned home, Suffolk was appointed to go to the relief of Norfolk and Russell. However, before he could do so, Charles V had abandoned his ally and signed a separate peace with France, which meant that all the Imperial troops and most of the mercenaries withdrew from the campaign, leaving the two dukes to extricate themselves as best they could. The French advance on 1 October precluded a return to Boulogne, and they beat an undignified retreat to Calais. This was done with the agreement of Viscount Lisle, who had been left in charge of the conquered town, but Henry was furious, mainly with the Emperor for abandoning his campaign, but temporarily with Norfolk and Suffolk as well, until their predicament was explained to him.
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He then asked Suffolk to stay on at Calais, and return to the relief of Boulogne if necessary. However, the French retreated and by the end of November the Duke was back in London. In spite of Henry’s brief discontent, the 1544 campaign brought Suffolk honour and profit, the latter in the form of the lands of Tattershal College which he was permitted to purchase at a concessionary rate. At £2,666 the price was less than eight years’ value, whereas the standard rate was twenty years.
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However, he can have spent but little time in Lincolnshire because in 1545 he was named as the King’s Lieutenant in the South and South East of England, and busied himself both with assembling troops to resist the threatened French invasion and in preparing a counter-strike across the Channel. He continued active almost to the last, sitting in Council just a week before his death, which occurred at Guildford Manor on 22 August 1545. At the time of his death his estates were valued at a little over £3,000 a year. In spite of the financial problems which he had encountered over the years, thanks to the King’s patronage he still contrived to die a rich man.
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