But his entrée into the Tudor court came with a position in the household of the Duke of Norfolk, serving as a tutor to his son, before being appointed as a secretary to Cardinal Wolsey sometime in 1524. Both Gardiner and Cromwell were diligent and hard-working, and the Cardinal relied on them considerably, but they were bitter rivals, an enmity which began in the Cardinal’s household, though the reasons are never completely clear. Mantel supposes envy to be the cause:
Master Stephen resents everything about his own situation ... that he’s the king’s unacknowledged cousin ... that he was put into the church ... that someone else has late-night talks with the cardinal, to whom he is confidential secretary.
The two men would remain diametrically opposed politically, with Gardiner protesting Henry’s break with Rome and rejecting Cromwell’s radical attempts to reform the Church. Unlike Cromwell, Gardiner’s expertise lay in canon law, which would make him indispensable to Henry VIII and his ‘great matter’. Gardiner was an accomplished diplomat, and in 1527 he was appointed to a commission alongside Thomas More to arrange a treaty with the French and to assist French troops fighting Charles V in Italy. He also accompanied Cardinal Wolsey on his important diplomatic mission to France, to gain French favour for Henry’s divorce from Katherine. Wolsey’s reliance on Gardiner was evident when he rejected orders from Henry for Gardiner to return to England for fresh instructions. Wolsey insisted that he could not spare Gardiner, who was the only instrument he had in advancing Henry’s cause.
Wolsey also sent Gardiner on a mission to Orvieto, Italy, where Pope Clement had taken refuge following the sack of Rome, with the unenviable task of trying to secure permission to allow a papal legate to preside over an English trial alongside Wolsey.
Despite the Cardinal’s favour and patronage, it is suggested in Mantel’s series that Gardiner showed little loyalty to the Cardinal, though evidence shows that he served Wolsey to the best of his ability. When Wolsey fell in 1529, Gardiner replaced his former master as the king’s Secretary, and in 1531 Gardiner was appointed to Cardinal Wolsey’s former bishopric, Winchester, one of the country’s wealthiest dioceses. However, Gardiner’s contradictory attitude towards the divorce and Henry’s break with Rome meant that he would struggle to retain Henry’s favour and was never trusted completely.
Gardiner showed every sign of rising, but he often shot himself in the foot, making terrible miscalculations. The first occurred in March 1532, when he led the charge against the Supplication of the Commons against the Ordinaries, which was a list of grievances against the English church by parliament that had been drafted by Cromwell. Gardiner objected to the clauses, writing a personal defence to the king, infuriating Henry:
Henry rages about Gardiner: disloyalty, he shouts, ingratitude. Can he remain my Secretary, when he has set himself up in direct opposition to me?
Gardiner, perhaps, did not anticipate Henry’s anger, but he likely got the message when the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Warham, died in 1533, and the hopeful Gardiner was overlooked in favour of the man he had introduced to court, Thomas Cranmer. He struggles to regain his influence at court, losing his position as Secretary to the King in 1534, to none other than Thomas Cromwell. Mantel’s Cromwell hopes to see the last of Gardiner, but as the latter complained of Cromwell – that he had a habit of resurfacing – Cromwell would find the same of his enemy.
With Cromwell’s demise in 1540, Gardiner set his sights on Cranmer, who, unlike his fallen friend, had powerful allies in the Seymour brothers. Gardiner was ultimately unable to reconcile his own Catholic beliefs with the reforms sweeping the country under Edward VI, for which he was imprisoned and deprived of his bishopric. He must have felt a deep sense of relief when he was released during Mary’s reign and pleased to see England restored to Catholicism – and Cranmer destroyed.
T
HOMAS
‘C
ALL ME
R
ISLEY
’ W
RIOTHESLEY
The London-born Thomas Wriothesley was the grandson of John Writh, a Garter King of Arms, and son of William Wryth, a York herald. At some point his father and uncle chose to change the name from ‘Wryth’ to ‘Wriothesley’, believed to be a more noble line.
Wriothesley studied civil law at Cambridge and was a protégé of Stephen Gardiner, whom he followed into Wolsey’s household, where he also met Thomas Cromwell. In 1529 he was appointed as clerk of the Cofferer of the Household, moving up to an appointment as one of the Clerks of the Signet for Gardiner. He then worked for Cromwell when he replaced Gardiner as Secretary, and whatever his loyalties may have been to the latter, he became a firm member of Cromwell’s camp. In the series, Cromwell goes to great lengths to win Wriothesley, at first only intending to use him to spy on Gardiner, but they develop a close connection, with Cromwell trusting Wriothesley with sensitive tasks over the years. Mantel places Wriothesley in Cromwell’s home on numerous occasions, detailing scenes of families coming together, in particular Christmas of 1535, when Wriothesley attends Christmas at Cromwell’s house with his wife and young daughter. Wriothesley would remain one of his right-hand men, or so Cromwell believed. Wriothesley’s ability to switch horses saw his career flourish even more post-Cromwell,
