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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2011
In December 1540 one of Henry VIII's clerical diplomats defected to the papacy. As contemporaries believed that a king could be judged by the ambassadors he sent to represent him abroad, Pate's defection caused the English king considerable embarrassment. His acceptance of the bishopric of Worcester from the pope in July 1541 made Pate a figure of symbolic importance to opponents of Henry VIII's royal supremacy. This article examines Pate's diplomatic career, paying particular attention to how Pate negotiated the competing claims on his loyalty of the pope and Henry VIII. Although Pate was expected to represent Henry's church policy, his experiences in embassy also provided opportunities for conservatism, as Henry sought to maintain amicable relations with the emperor and deny charges of heresy. Pate's case raises important questions about the religious sympathies of those chosen by Henry to represent him abroad and had important consequences for the practice of diplomacy in the early English Reformation. Pate also offers important insights into the motivations of Henrician Catholic exiles, their views of the Henrician church, and their political opposition to it.
This article was written during a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Pembroke College, Oxford. I am grateful to the British Academy and to Pembroke College for their generous support. I would also like to thank the members of the early modern British history seminar in Oxford for their questions and comments on my earlier thoughts on this topic.
1 Calendar of state papers and manuscripts relating to English affairs, existing in the archives and collections of Venice and in other libraries in northern Italy, ed. R. L. Brown, H. R. F. Brown, and A. B. Hinds (30 vols., London, 1864–1947) (CSPV), v (1534–54), 233 (reference is to document number). Not 15 Dec. as G. M. Bell, Handlist of British diplomatic representatives, 1509–1688 (London, 1990), p. 49, claims. For a biography of Pate, see K. Carleton, ‘Pates [Pate], Richard (1503/4–1565)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) (ODNB).
2 The National Archives (TNA), State Papers (SP) 1/164, fos. 14r, 56r (Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, ed. J. S. Brewer, J. Gairdner, R. H. Brodie, and A. C. Wood (21 vols., plus a 2 part ‘Addenda’ vol., 1862–1932) (LP), xvi, 295, 358 (reference is to document number)).
3 LP, xvi, 276, 448, 488.
4 Ibid., 446, 449; CSPV, v, 236.
5 TNA, SP 1/164, fo. 122r (LP, xvi, 448i).
6 LP, xii (2) 310, xv 429, 1017.
7 LP, xvi 452, 1139. On Pole's oppositional activities see C. Höllger, ‘Reginald Pole and the legations of 1537 and 1539: diplomatic and polemical responses to the break with Rome’ (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford, 1989); T. F. Mayer, Reginald Pole: prince and prophet; Pole in Renaissance Europe (Cambridge, 2000), ch. 2; idem, ‘Nursery of resistance: Reginald Pole and his friends’, in P. F. Fideler and T. F. Mayer, eds., Political thought and the Tudor commonwealth: deep structure, discourse and disguise (London, 1992), pp. 50–74.
8 A. Gentili, De legationibus libri tres (Buffalo, NY, 1995), bk III, ch. xxii; J. Hotman, The ambassador (London, 1603), sig. K8r–L1r.
9 Thus endeth the secrete of secretes of Arystotle (London, 1528), sig. Hiir; O. Landi, Delectable demaundes, and pleasaunt questions, with their seuerall aunswers, in matters of loue, naturall causes, with morall and politique deuises, trans. W. Painter (London, 1566), sig. 69r.
10 On the importance of the rhetoric of consent, see Davies, C. S. L., ‘The Cromwellian decade: authority and consent’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 7 (1997), pp. 177–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 The only sustained discussion is in D. Fenlon, Heresy and obedience in Tridentine Italy: Cardinal Pole and the Counter Reformation (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 151–6.
12 C. Haigh, Reformation and resistance in Tudor Lancashire (Cambridge, 1975); J. J. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (Oxford, 1984); E. Duffy, The stripping of the altars: traditional religion in England, 1400–1580 (New Haven, CT, 1992); P. O'Grady, Henry VIII and the conforming Catholics (Collegeville, MN, 1990); L. Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism in Reformation England (Oxford, 2000); E. H. Shagan ed., Catholics and the ‘Protestant nation’: religious politics and identity in early modern England (Manchester, 2005); P. Marshall, Religious identities in Henry VIII's England (Aldershot, 2006), ch. 9.
13 C. Butterworth and A. G. Chester, George Joye, 1495?–1553: a chapter in the history of the English Bible and the English Reformation (Philadelphia, PA, 1962); C. H. Garrett, The Marian exiles: a study in the origins of Elizabethan puritanism (Cambridge, 1938); A. Pettegree, Marian Protestantism: six studies (Aldershot, 1996); J. Dawson, E., ‘Revolutionary conclusions: the case of the Marian exiles’, History of Political Thought, 11, (1990), pp. 257–72Google Scholar.
14 A. J. Loomie, The Spanish Elizabethans: the English exiles at the court of Philip II (London, 1963); J. A. Bossy, ‘Elizabethan Catholics and the link with France’ (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge, 1961); A. Dillon, The construction of martyrdom in the English Catholic community, 1535–1603 (Aldershot, 2002); P. Arblaster, Antwerp and the world: Richard Verstegan and the international culture of Catholicism (Leuven, 2004); V. Houliston, Catholic resistance in Elizabethan England: Robert Persons' Jesuit polemic (Aldershot, 2007); C. Highley, Catholics writing the nation in early modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2008).
15 Mayer, Reginald Pole, ch. 2; idem, Cardinal Pole in European context: a via media in the Reformation (Burlington, VT, 2000); P. Simoncelli, II caso Reginald Pole: eresia e santità nelle polemiche religiose del cinquecento (Rome, 1977); Fenlon, Heresy.
16 C. Kellar, Scotland, England, and the Reformation, 1534–1561 (Oxford, 2004), pp. 23–8, 41–5, 71–6.
17 Marshall, Identities, ch. 11; Marshall, P., ‘The greatest man in Wales: James ap Gruffydd ap Hywel and the international opposition to Henry VIII’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 39, (2008), pp. 681–704CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Duffy, Stripping of the altars, pp. 586–93.
19 Rex, R., ‘The crisis of obedience: God's word and Henry's Reformation’, Historical Journal, 39, (1996), pp. 863–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
20 E. H. Shagan, Popular politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge and New York, NY, 2003), pp. 125–8; Marshall, Identities, chs. 1–3; O'Grady, Conforming Catholics.
21 E. H. Shagan, ‘Confronting the compromise: the schism and its legacy in mid-Tudor England’, in idem, ed., Catholics, pp. 49–68.
22 Shagan, Popular politics, p. 60.
23 C. Haigh, English Reformations: religion, politics and society under the Tudors (Oxford, 1993), ch. 9.
24 G. R. Bell, ‘Elizabethan diplomacy: the subtle revolution’, in M. R. Thorp and A. J. Slavin, eds., Politics, religion and diplomacy in early modern Europe: essays in honor of DeLamar Jensen (Kirksville, MO, 1994), pp. 267–89; G. R. Bell, ‘Tudor–Stuart diplomatic history and the Henrician experience’, in C. Carlton et al., eds., State sovereigns and society in early modern England: essays in honour of A. J. Slavin (Stroud, 1998), pp. 24–45.
25 See for example L. MacMahon, ‘The ambassadors of Henry VIII: the personnel of English diplomacy’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Kent, 2000), pp. 74–9, 113–15; G. Mattingly, Renaissance diplomacy (London, 1955), ch. 21.
26 H. Schilling, Konfessionalisierung und Staatsinteressen. Internationale Beziehungen 1559–1660 (Paderborn, 2007).
27 G. Richardson, ‘The French connection: Francis I and England's break with Rome’, in idem, ed., ‘The contending kingdoms’: France and England, 1430–1700 (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 95–115; R. McEntegart, Henry VIII, the league of Schmalkalden, and the English Reformation (Chippenham, 2002).
28 See for example Brigden, S., ‘“The shadow that you know”: Sir Thomas Wyatt and Sir Francis Bryan at court and in embassy’, Historical Journal, 39, (1996), pp. 1–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; G. Redworth, In defence of the church Catholic: the life of Stephen Gardiner (Oxford, 1990), ch. 4.
29 J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (Harmondsworth, 1971), ch. 11.
30 McEntegart, League of Schmalkalden, ch. 6.
31 Redworth, Church Catholic, p. 131.
32 On the expectations of diplomatic competencies see J. S. Reeves and J. Dunlap, E., ‘Etienne Dolet on the functions of the ambassador’, American Journal of International Law, 27, (1933), pp. 80–95Google Scholar. For the languages used in diplomacy at Charles V's court, see J. G. Russell, Diplomats at work: three Renaissance studies (Stroud, 1992), pp. 8–9, 12, 28–9, 35–7.
33 LP, xiii (2), 847.
34 Carleton, ‘Pates’.
35 J. L. Vives, Joannis Ludovici Vivis Valentini Opera omnia: distributa et ordinata in argumentorum classes praecipuas a Gregorio Majansio (8 vols., London, 1964), vii, pp. 141–2; LP, iv (1), 481.
36 TNA, SP 1/55, fo. 152v (LP, iv (3), 6004). On Pole's legation see T. Mayer, F., ‘A fate worse than death: Reginald Pole and the Parisian theologians’, English Historical Review, 103, (1988), pp. 870–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 Reeves and Dunlap, ‘Etienne Dolet’, p. 83.
38 A. B. Emden, A biographical register of the University of Oxford, a.d. 1501–1540 (Oxford, 1974), p. 435; LP, xii (1), p. 637.
39 For brief details see Bell, Handlist, p. 47.
40 Pate's letters of credence were probably composed on 7 Apr.; he was issued with a passport on 9 Apr. (LP, xv, 469, 481).
41 Calendar of letters, despatches and state papers, relating to the negotiations between England and Spain, preserved in the archives at Simancas and elsewhere, ed. P. de Gayangos et al. (19 vols., London, 1862–1954) (CSPS), v.2 (1536–8), 43a; LP, x, 201.
42 LP, xii (2), 1031, xiii (1), 100; Powell, J., ‘Thomas Wyatt and the emperor's bad Latin’, Notes and Queries, 49, (2002), pp. 207–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Wyatt was given books that questioned the validity of the Donation, though the emperor refused to see them. Henry's government seems to have believed that appealing to Charles V to exercise imperial jurisdiction over the church was an astute political ploy. They were perhaps inspired by false rumours circulating in 1535 that an imperial Diet held at Speyer had declared the Donation of Constantine invalid (LP, ix, 964).
43 CSPS, x (1550–2), pp. 311–12; Calendar of letters and state papers preserved principally in the archives of Simancas, ed. M. A. S. Hume (4 vols., 1892–9), ii (1568–79), p. 28.
44 Marshall, Identities, pp. 4–5.
45 D. R. Starkey, ‘Representation through intimacy: a study in the symbolism of monarchy and court office in early modern England’, in J. Guy, ed., The Tudor monarchy (London, 1997), pp. 42–78; McEntegart, League of Schmalkalden, passim.
46 Records of Convocation, Canterbury, ed. G. Bray (20 vols., Woodbridge, 2005–6), vii, p. 144.
47 Bowker, M., ‘The supremacy and the episcopate: the struggle for control’, Historical Journal, 18, (1975), pp. 227–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar at pp. 238–9.
48 TNA, SP 1/152, fos. 17r–20r (LP, xiv (1), 1065).
49 TNA, SP 1/160, fo. 165r (LP, xv, 811). Later, at the Council of Trent, Pate came close to the Lutheran position on justification (Fenlon, Heresy, pp. 149–50).
50 LP, x, 670.
51 T. Sowerby, A., ‘“All our books do be sent into other countreys and translated”: Henrician polemic in its international context’, English Historical Review, 121, (2006), pp. 1271–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
52 25 Henry VIII c. 22. Versions of the oath can be found at TNA, LC5/31, p. 19, SP 1/83, fos. 83r, 95r, 1/96, fo. 59r (LP, vii, 427, 514, ix, 251); LP, vii, 1379.
53 On the mechanics of enforcement see G. R. Elton, Policy and police: the enforcement of the Reformation in the age of Thomas Cromwell (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 223–30; S. Brigden, London and the Reformation (Oxford, 1989), pp. 222–31; P. Ayris, ‘Thomas Cranmer and the metropolitical visitation of Canterbury province, 1533–1535’, in S. Taylor, ed., From Cranmer to Davidson: a Church of England miscellany (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 15–24.
54 TNA, E36/63, 64, E25/79/2.
55 TNA, SP 1/161, fo. 87r (LP, xv, 876).
56 Ibid., fo. 210r (LP, xv, 932).
57 Marshall, Identities, ch. 6.
58 LP, xvi, 1193; John Foxe. Acts and monuments (1576 edn) (hriOnline, Sheffield), bk iv, pp. 802–3. Available from www.hrionline.ac.uk/johnfoxe/main/4_1563_0802.jsp (accessed 21 May 2010).
59 Shagan, Popular politics, ch. 1–2.
60 TNA, SP 3/6, fo. 128r (LP, vii, 1088).
61 LP, x, 861.
62 P. L. Hughes and J. F. Larkin, eds., Tudor royal proclamations (3 vols., London, 1964–9), i, p. 231 (LP, viii, 848).
63 Elton, Policy and police, pp. 228–9, 264–6, 298–9.
64 See for example LP, xi, 779.
65 LP, x, 670.
66 British Library (BL) Cotton MS Vitellius bxiv, fos. 181r–93r (LP, x, 670).
67 LP, x, 726.
68 Pate left the imperial court in late June 1537 (LP, xii (2), 245). He was officially replaced due to his ‘debility and weakness’ (LP, xi, 637).
69 LP, xi, 15.
70 LP, xiii (1), 1104. Dingley was attainted and executed for treason in 1539.
71 Nuntiaturberichte aus Deutschland nebst ergänzenden Actenstücken (5 vols., Gotha, 1892–1970), v, p. 340.
72 TNA, SP 1/160, fo. 22r (LP, xv, 665).
73 J. B. L. Kaulek, Correspondance politique de mm. de Castillon et de Marillac, ambassadeurs de France en Angleterre (1537–1542) (Paris, 1885), 256; LP, xvi, 446; CSPV, v, 236.
74 Carleton, ‘Pates’; Marshall, Identities, pp. 271–2; Fenlon, Heresy, p. 154.
75 LP, xvi, 119.
76 T. F. Mayer, ‘Helyar, John (1502/3–1541?)’, ODNB; H. de Vocht, Monumenta humanistica Louvaniensa: texts and studies about Louvain humanists in the first half of the XVIth century: Erasmus, Vives, Dorpius, Clenardus, Goes, Moringus (Oxford, 1934), pp. 587–93.
77 LP, xiii (2), 797.4, 979.7, 986.11; 31 Henry VIII c. 15. On the Exeter conspiracy see H. Pierce, Margaret Pole, countess of Salisbury, 1473–1541 (Cardiff, 2003), chs. 5 and 6.
78 LP, xiii (2), 592, xv, 721.
79 TNA, SP 1/163, fos. 56r, 219r (LP, xvi, 119, 258).
80 LP, xvi, 129, 140.
81 Redworth, Church Catholic, pp. 135–6.
82 TNA, SP 1/163, fo. 219r (LP, xvi, 258).
83 TNA, C66/761, m. 1 (LP, xix (1), 610.62).
84 LP, viii, 785.
85 D. Grummitt, ‘Plantagenet, Arthur, viscount Lisle (b. before 1472, d. 1542)’, ODNB.
86 Nuntiaturberichte, v, pp. 355, 361; LP, xvi, 17.
87 LP, xi, 1131.
88 TNA, SP 1/161, fo. 87r (LP, xv, 876).
89 TNA, SP 1/160, fo. 165r (LP, xiv, 811).
90 Haigh, English Reformations, ch. 9; McEntegart, League of Schmalkalden, pp. 167–77; Duffy, Stripping of the altars, ch. 12.
91 A. Ryrie, The gospel and Henry VIII: evangelicals in the early English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003).
92 Redworth, Church Catholic, ch. 6.
93 LP, xvi, 442.
94 Ibid., 1489. In 1547 the king owned a pair of gilt pots decorated with Pate's arms. D. R. Starkey, ed., The inventory of Henry VIII: Society of Antiquaries MS 129 and British Library MS Harley 1419/transcribed by Philip Ward (2 vols., London, 1998), i, p. 35.
95 LP, xvi, 448.
96 Ibid., 442, 448, 455.
97 Ibid., 436; CSPS, vi.1 (1538–42), 149.
98 See for example LP, x, 535, xv, 583.
99 LP, iv (2), 4511, v, 354, xv, 793, 803. For a discussion of Henry's attempts at extradition, see J. G. Bellamy, The Tudor law of treason: an introduction (London, 1979), pp. 88–91.
100 LP, xiv (1), 818.
101 Bellamy, Treason, p. 88.
102 LP, xvi, 981.
103 LP, xiv (1), 1308.
104 T. F. Mayer, ed. Correspondence of Reginald Pole (4 vols., Aldershot, 2002–8), i (A calendar 1518–1547), 337.
105 Fenlon, Heresy, pp. 148–56.
106 BL Harley MS 5008, fos. 24r–5v, 47–9r, 58r–v.
107 S. E. Lehmberg, The later parliaments of Henry VIII (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 141–2, 147.
108 33 Henry VIII c. 40: House of Lords Record Office, HL/PO/PB/1/1541/33H8n38.
109 Gentili, De legationibus, bk iii, ch. xi.
110 35 Henry VIII c. 2: Statutes of the realm (11 vols., London, 1810–28), iii, p. 958.
111 M. Bowker, The Henrician Reformation: the diocese of Lincoln under John Longland, 1521–1547 (Cambridge, 1981), p. 160.
112 See Brigden, ‘Thomas Wyatt’; Muir, K., Life and letters of Sir Thomas Wyatt (Liverpool, 1963), pp. 187–209Google Scholar.
113 LP, xvi, 430, 469, 473–4, 482, 678.41.
114 Brigden, ‘Thomas Wyatt’, p. 25.
115 LP, xi, 1173, 1297.
116 LP, xvi, 436; A. Bryson, ‘Wallop, John (b. before 1492, d. 1551)’, ODNB.
117 D. R. Starkey, The reign of Henry VIII: personalities and politics (London, 1985), pp. 112–14; Brigden, ‘Thomas Wyatt’, pp. 21–2; D. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: a life (London, 1996), pp. 281–2.
118 Muir, Life, p. 184.
119 TNA, SP 1/171, fos. 104r–5v (LP, xvii, 479).
120 Redworth, Church Catholic, pp. 79, 205–6.
121 BL Lansdowne MS 3, fo. 3r; TNA, SP 68/10, fos. 52r–3r (Calendar of state papers foreign 1547–1553, ed. W. B. Turnbull (London, 1861), 550).
122 See Shagan, Popular politics, pp. 32–6; Marshall, Identities, ch. 11.
123 W. M. Brady, The episcopal succession in England, Scotland & Ireland, a.d. 1400 to 1875 (3 vols., Farnborough, 1871), ii, pp. 284–5.
124 Hotman, Ambassador, sig. B5r–v.
